When your customers are more ‘savvy’ than you are, estate agents had better watch out

05 Oct 2009 at 10:33

Bob Toovey

When you are using the Internet to promote your business, you become more aware of the changes and the infuence that the Internet has. Graham at Cognac Property has written a great post, The changing face of estate agency. Basicly estate agents will have to change their business models to keep in line with their potential customers.

I’m not saying that traditional agents are dead men walking, nor am I saying that they don’t have a place in the market. Clearly they do and changes like this don’t happen overnight. If I were selling my house I would still use local agents and would expect them to advise me on how to “dress” my house to the best effect and how to get the highest possible price for it.

What I am saying though is that customer needs and actions are changing fast. Buyers will need traditional agents less and less.

Sellers on the other hand will be looking to their agents to help them differentiate and stand out from the crowd…..if the agent fails to deliver this then more and more sellers will go it alone and Sarah Beeney may well be proved right when she says:

“The internet has removed the need for estate agents and that in the future it is likely that estate agents will be the preserve of complicated or “out of the ordinary” sales”.

There are more tools than ever to help you buy and sell, many of them free or with less charges than an estate agent would ask for. Take for example, Immogo, a site for private sellers…

Sell your French property

Get your own property presentation page on Immogo
and our sister site Zorro Immo, with:

• unlimited text;
• unlimited pictures;
• unlimited duration;
• free ‘man-made’ professional translations;
• 35,000 visitors and 150,000 page views a month (august 2009)!
• republishing on international real estate site Affidata.com.

Impressive amount of visitors per month, any estate agents out there with similar numbers?

All types of business are affected by the Internet, what is important is how you deal with it. You can no longer ignore it because your competitors won’t.