I was asked the other day if Purple Bricks was eroding my market share and my answer was no, not at all.  With no disrespect to Purple Bricks, they sell so few properties in our area I don’t consider them to be a competitor.

The conversation then turned to for what reasons would a seller consider using Purple Bricks?

The only reason I can think that a seller would choose to use a discount fee agent, like Purple Bricks or someone similar, was if they genuinely believed that all agents were the same and that their property would sell for the same price no matter which real estate agent they chose.

But in real estate, like all professions, there is a level of you get what you pay for.

When you’re selling your home, the cheapest agent isn’t the one that charges you the lowest fee, it’s the agent that gets you the best result. Here’s an example:

Agent A, the discount agent, charges you $8800 to sell your property and sells it for $600,000.

Agent B, a more highly specialised local agent, charges you 2.5% to sell your home, so $15,500, but sells it for $610,000.

Even though you’ve paid a higher fee to Agent B, the higher selling price they’ve achieved has meant you’ve ended up with $3,300 more in your pocket.

And if Agent B had charged a lesser % fee or achieved an ever higher  selling price, you’d have ended up with even more!

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But how do you know if an agent is any good? Just hop onto Google, or reiwa.com Agent Finder, to find out!

So do you sell with the Agent offering the cheapest fee, or do you trust in the expertise of the local agent getting great results?

If I was to start losing market share to Purple Bricks, it would be because I was doing a crap job at explaining the value that I as a local real estate professional bring to the process and the countless ways in which we influence and maximise the sale price for our sellers.

These include:

  • individualised expert consultation on how to present your property for sale. The quality of your online photos and home open presentation is key to creating emotional engagement with buyers which then leads to better price outcomes
  • being an expert in the local area, school catchments, transport options and amenities – even down to knowing where to get the best fish & chips, pizza & coffee, so that you can sell the lifestyle benefits of the location
  • intimately understanding your suburb, the streets within in it, the type of property you’re selling and your likely target buyer/s
  • being able to provide expert advice on the best pricing and promotion strategies to attract those target buyers
  • being able to tailor a specific marketing program to suit your particular property – not just offer a standard off the shelf one size fits all approach
  • having sold comparable homes and being an expert in recent comparable sales in the area so that we’re able to actively engage with buyers on price discussions (and defend your price!)
  • having a hot local buyer database and having met the majority of the buyers so that its easier to work with them when they make an offer – buyers have more trust in agents that they see regularly and successfully selling in the area
  • having a process in place to create a competitive buyer environment
  • having a robust process in place for buyer follow-up and engagement – properties don’t sell themselves in this market!
  • providing you with competitive market information and buyer feedback so that you can make good, informed decisions about the sale of the property, not just trying to get you to adjust the price with no supporting data and information
  • being able to find and work with the best buyer to negotiate the best possible price outcome – not handing it over to you to do your own haggling

So if you’re thinking of selling and still believe that your property will sell for the same price irrespective of who sells it for you, then by all means sell with the cheapest Agent or Purple Bricks.

But if you think it’s possible that a good agent can influence your sale price, and appreciate that the cheapest agent is the one with the highest level of local expertise that’s going to work their butt off to get you the best possible  outcome, then give me a call, I’d love to chat!

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