This is a question that I am asked on a daily basis in various forms. How do I sell my home? How do I choose a real estate agent? What’s the best method of sale?

Well, it’s not easy. Agents are experts at marketing themselves and will always tell you they are the best in the business. In more recent times, agents have perfected their brand. Consumers, thinking real estate is like big business, believe that recognisable brands will provide reliable and consistent service.

For example McDonalds. Sure, Maccas isn’t the best burger around but you know regardless of what store you go to there will be a consistent product delivered. In real estate, this isn’t necessarily the case. The brand will be consistent but the agent doing the work will often serve you up a completely different ‘burger’ as the agents are left to cook their own way.

I have written a previous blog on ‘How To Choose An Agent’ which you can read on this link. In the business of consignment sales, which is how real estate is sold. The best choice is the most competent sales professional. In our opinion here at Hill & Viteri Property, real estate salespeople must be able to demonstrate competence in these areas. Marketing, Negotiation & Communication.

After the tens of millions of dollars the likes of Purple Bricks pumped in to advertising it appears to me the focus has been placed in the wrong area. These ‘low cost’ providers moved the focus to fees. Rather than the focus being on competence and selling property for higher prices.

They tried to fool us in to thinking that the little number, the fee, was more important that the big number, the price of the property. Further to that, there was no difference in agents that they will all achieve the same price.

I can’t say I blame them, they had to play a game they couldn’t win. Without the best sales professionals there was no way they could compete with results.

It doesn’t take a genius to understand that the best way to put the most money in your pocket in a real estate transaction is to sell for the highest price. Even if the best agent is 1% more, it means they only need to produce an extra $10,000 in a $1,000,000 result. The top agents can do this in one phone call.

Feel free to give me a call on 02 9545 2220 and I am happy to show you first hand how a professional sales agent can add value to the sales process beyond comparable value. I’ll cover comparable value in another blog soon!

Let’s look at an example. I have always been a big believer in looking at track record. Now we are looking for consistent premium results. Don’t fall for ‘we sell the most therefore we are the best’. The high volume agents often don’t have the time to handle the process for premium results. Don’t get me wrong they get the job complete but can they leave money on the table as they are focusing on turning them over.

14 Laurina Ave, Loftus

Firstly, lets take a look at the marketing. You can click here to view this property online. Not only our sellers take their pre-sale renovations right they nailed their presentation. If you checked out the online ad I think you will agree that our property marketing followed suit. Now simply put, marketing is about perception. The better we can make your property look, the more someone will value it! Now perception doesn’t just stop there, everything we do needs to give the buyer the right perception. The way we run the viewings, the way we answer enquiries and the way we negotiate. But I am merging in to the next area.

Secondly, lets take a look at the negotiation. Inside of negotiation we discuss strategy. In this instance we agreed on an auction strategy to take advantage of present market conditions. Those conditions being a lack of houses available.

So, here are our stats. 172 Enquiries, 197 Inspections, 45 contracts issued & 6 offers before auction. The offers ranged from $770,000 to $855,000. Comparable sales were in the same range.

Now the marketing creating the perception, the advertising got the word out and our auction process and negotiation skills saw 14 buyers register. The property sold at auction for $948,000. This result was $93,000 above the peak of market interest.

Now the key to all this is communication. All of the buyers were communicated with to understand the process. Those who were interested were coached through to auction. Even more importantly, our sellers were on the same page so when the buyers were ready to buy, our sellers were ready to sell! This might seem unimportant, but I can tell you one of the biggest mistakes sellers make is missing their best buyer because the timing was wrong. Ask we about the ‘peak marketing period’ and you will quickly understand and nod your head.

They say the proof of the pudding is in the eating. So, see below from our buyer and seller.