Research shows Mortgage Advisors helping prevent sales from falling through.

A central problem for estate agents is the third of agreed sales failing to get to exchange, Phil Priest Sales Director of 4Corners Property, reveals brokers might be the answer.

Phil and his team spend all their time trying to help all the stakeholders in the home buying and selling process, and are using their data insights to find the true trends that few know about. He explains,

‘Estate agents are the ones affected by sales falling through more than anyone else as they do not charge any upfront fees, so why are they so slow in adopting a process which can secure 100% of sales?

Our study shows that our fall through rates with buyers and sellers is zero when the 4Moving Pack (Searches) are purchased by the buyer at the point of the offer being accepted and half the time to completion, so why the slowness in adopting this?

Following a review on our stats over the past 12 months I wanted to take a deeper dive into the theory and understand why.

With the solution originally designed for Estate Agents to ‘tie’ in the buyer and remove the FEAR from the vendor of the buyer pulling out of the transaction, we aimed this at the buyer to provide some financial commitment to remove the tyre kickers. It has proved more successful for this to be provided by mortgage advisors, who are actually removed from the transaction when an offer is being made on the property, but again why?

For me it is trust. When selling a house, you have the opportunity to invite a few estate agents to view and potentially list your property going with the ones you trust the most. When buying a property, you have no such decision to make, you simply see a property on a property portal, click a button and arrange a viewing without any conscious thought about what agent is listing the property.

In some months, as high as 75% of 4Moving Packs (Searches) were ordered by the mortgage advisor over the estate agent, but over the last 12 months it is approximately 60% mortgage advisors over 40% ordered by agents. A buyer has the option to choose their mortgage advisor and expose their most personal financial information to them, in someone they trust. So if advised to do something that will help, they will listen and act.

The lack of trust buyers have with estate agents proves to me that there is a deep belief that agents are just trying to upsell services for a greater commission, as opposed to acting in the best interests of their clients, which should be both buyers and sellers, not just the sellers.

Is there an additional reason?

Estate agents employ ‘listers’ or ‘negotiators’ who’s primary role is to value houses and ‘get them on’ as clients proving this is a short sighted approach who then hands them off to a sales progressor like a burning hot potato without any concern about the next steps, just the next viewing.

By using this ‘flog and forget’ approach over a customer journey service the clients deal with different people along their buying journey, no one taking ownership of anything outside their job title. This leaves gaps in the process when things could be done for the benefit of the clients and in return for the turnover of the business by allowing them to complete sooner.

Phil and his team are genuinely trying to make a difference their strapline is “Making the buying & selling of properties a better experience for all.” If you want to find out more, just book a meeting with Phil Priest.