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What do estate agents do that you can't ... NOTHING!
Property Match (UK) has gone online to help explain to everyone interested, what's currently wrong with the way that houses are marketed, in the UK, by estate agents.
The stagnation in the number of successful house moves able to be achieved over the last few years is nothing short of horrendous.
If one accepts that internal markets are primarily driven by 'prices', then housing market activity should have been able to continue at pretty-well normal levels of activity - even though there would need to have been price reductions during the downturn. Whilst some people may well have been put off by falling prices, others would have been happy to move - IF prices had been kept relative to one another. In addition, those people planning to trade up and move into more expensive houses should have been especially interested in buying.
What is current value?
“True market prices, or current values, are all relative. They merely compare one type of property with another; at any one time”.
Unfortunately, activity levels themselves have collapsed whilst prices have fluctuated wildly, in some areas more so than in others. This strongly suggests that the housing market itself is malfunctioning.
We've tried to explain this to the powers-that-be in Government, but to no avail. Deaf ears, sadly; to date ...
If nothing is done to correct the disparities between asking prices and actual sold prices, by changing the way houses are valued on take-on, by estate agents, the market will continue to stagnate.
This, in turn, will hurt our economic recovery.
To quote from Henry Prior's recent report: "Lack of turnover is probably more worrying than falling prices since property (and the money released from property) has been a major driver of the High Street. In addition, many different trades depend upon people moving; not just estate agents but solicitors, removal companies, builders, decorators etc.."
The Government has a responsibility to react to this problem ... Now.
A full explanation of the reasons for the recent trends, as depicted in Henry Prior's graphs, is given in our page entitled:
Full Reasoning. So, if anyone wants to read our synopsis explaining what is causing the housing market to stagnate, please click onto: Full Reasoning:
Our question to Government is:
Will it take a full-scale collapse in house sales to occur before you, the Government, will take notice and do something to remedy the situation? We certainly hope not.
Selling a house is really about two things. Knowing what price to ask at the current time, and knowing how to present the house for sale - in an effective way.
Selling a house is rather like cooking a sumptuous meal for a good friend. It's best to have a bit of knowledge and practice if you do want to get it about right and impress. However, you don't have to become a top chef before you try it.
It's just the same when marketing a house. If you don't have all the experience you'll need to do it well (and that's understandable), you just need to get some advice from people who have. That's what we're offering online.
Instead of using an estate agent to provide this advice, nowadays, it is OK to use the Internet direct. After all, that's what the Internet was originally devised to allow people to do.
The Internet certainly does not kowtow to estate agents, (though they might like to think that it should!)
Our web site, Property Match (UK), not only enables people to sell or let houses direct, it also provides all the advice and expertise that they might need to achieve this.
By offering this advice online, we hope to earn a small income from our service and isn't that how all things work for the best? Services offered are (or should be) based on the provider being truly confident that what is being offered is value for money.
The same argument, taken in reverse, rather suggests that those businesses offering things for free on the Internet, aren't offering anything that’s actually worth anything!
Good advice is (and always has been) worth paying for. The only time there are problems is when you pay too much for too little advice.
As a prime example of this, estate agents who charge excessive amounts for poor advice are best, simply abandoned. It's time to do things differently.
We also say that free house advertising web sites need to go - because they have no intrinsic value, otherwise people would be prepared to pay something for what they have to offer. It's obvious when you think about it.
A lot of houses advertised on 'free to advertise' sites are overpriced, poorly presented and inadequately marketed - just like many houses sold by estate agents! Do you really want your property advert to be in amongst all that? Hopefully not.
The Internet is now an integral part of modern society and people need it, but they also need a little help to get everything right, in order to maximise their marketing. Property Match (UK) is online to provide this to individual sellers.
We'll not only assist by providing correct asking price guides for your house in the current market, but we’ll also enable you to show your property to best advantage to the most appropriate viewers online.
Forget Rightmove etc., it's time to change the world of house marketing forever, by going direct! The switch is easy.
So, go Property Match (UK) instead of using an estate agent (or any middle-man for that matter), and help everyone else to see the need to change the way that houses are bought and sold, across the whole of the UK.
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