Traditional high street estate agents have been given the commendation that they deserve. In respect to the impact of online estate agents and the many hidden pitfalls and costs, news broke on how local, independent agents with their customer service focus and individually tailored sales packages are successfully holding their own.
Reacting to the news that Hatched, Connells online agency, has closed, Purple Bricks has lost significantly in the stock market slipping from an early year value of 500p to a recent low of 177.7p, and now Emoov has been put up for sale, a property expert has moved to support local and independent estate agents.
Charlie Wright, who was behind Best Agent, was quoted as saying “This is good news for conventional, full service, in-person agents who have stood their ground and defended their industry. You can’t commoditise personal service. Helping people move house is a complicated, emotional gauntlet that affects people’s lives. It needs the human touch, in person, to help ordinary people through an often traumatic process at a difficult time” I couldn’t have said it better myself – so I copied it verbatim!
In the end a face to face service provides significantly better support and guidance. Local staff in local offices come with huge amounts of local knowledge, best placed to fully advise you on a sale or purchase. To cement this fact even further, recently released sales figures have shown that local agents outweigh online agents significantly in the number of properties sold since the beginning of the year with Poole Townsend leading the pack.
Even as the market slows for Christmas we are still experiencing fantastic levels of sales across the South Lakes and Furness. Strangely enough, RightMove confirm that the busiest day of the year for internet traffic is Boxing Day. Are you thinking about selling and thinking it might not be the right time? Why not call us to discuss the market and recent sales activity.