CEO's Message Apr 2018
Category CEO's Message
Buying and selling a home is hugely disruptive and, often, serious sellers need to put their lives on hold to make sure that their abodes are ready for inspection. As anyone will tell you, there’s always that lost sock in a corner, the shoes that get kicked under the bed in the nick of time or the glass that didn’t make its way into the dishwasher until the doorbell rang.
Chatting to and sharing war stories with both buyers and sellers recently, I realized that there is one very important thing that you should get and will get from your Tyson Properties agent – effective communication.
I believe this is extremely important for a number of reasons – often both buyers and sellers haven’t gone through this process for a number of years and don’t know what to expect. Most buyers and sellers are working with big sums of money and making their biggest investment decisions. Many would-be buyers want to know the story behind the house they’re viewing and why it is on the market if they are to decide whether it is a good buy.
Going back on my discussions, here are a few important reasons why you need a good agent who values communication by your side:
• One seller recently told me that she had called in the agent from whom she had purchased a property to value her home and put it on the market. It seemed like the logical thing to do. After ushering in a group of agents who ignored her and scurried around her home for a half an hour and then departed without a word, she finally got a valuation two weeks later after repeated requests. This arrived via WhatsApp!
The Tyson Properties’ agent who finally signed a sole mandate with the same seller and sold the home within 10 days, brought in a team who chatted to the home owner, asking her about certain aspects of her property. Our agent returned the day after the evaluation viewing with a perfectly presented “brochure” that not only recorded the valuation but also included similar sales in the neighbourhood and a full run down of the process and miscellaneous costs. She then spent an hour with the couple explaining the rationale for the valuation and the sales process.
• This same seller, who had spent at least three weeks looking for the perfect home to buy, said she’d been appalled by the ugly and meaningless photographs she’d seen on social media sites. Pitch dark photographs that showed only an overexposed window or pictures of bedrooms with rumpled bed linen are common, I’m afraid. Our Tyson Properties’ agent, she noted, had sent in a professional photographer and a videographer. Again, communicating the best view of the property counted.
• A recent anecdote also showed that good advice is the very best thing. A Tyson Properties agent who had brought a couple of people through a home and chatted to them afterwards identified a few things that were put offs for the would be buyers. She was able to suggest a few changes to the seller which were quickly made and it wasn’t long before that home was snapped up.
• Buyers also need encouragement and information. An acquaintance who was recently looking for a new home told me that walking through a home with the enthusiastic home owner hovering in the wings was stressful as he felt he couldn’t ask crucial questions. He valued time spent after the viewing when he could chat to the Tyson agent who either answered his questions or found the information and relayed it to him promptly.
• The other side to that coin is having a Tyson agent that regularly reports back on the comments made by those viewing your home. Often homeowners get discouraged when a steady stream of viewings yields no offers. One call to a worried homeowner informed her that the reason why the viewer had rejected her home was that it was a small suburban space that did not have sufficient room for her 13 dogs. The seller could only laugh and agree.
• The opposite to talking is listening and many buyers tell me how important it is to deal with an agent who notes down what they are looking for and doesn’t waste their time showing them homes that do not meet their criteria.
• Last but not least, it is important to know that your estate agent is no more than a phone call away – even after an offer is made, accepted and translated into a sale. Often the legal process is overwhelming and confusing. An elderly couple who recently put their home on the market after 50 years found that just having constant explanations and reassurances through this process removed a great deal of fear and smoothed a very stressful time.
Our Tyson Properties’ team is trained to keep up with ‘after sales’ support to buyers and sellers by keeping involved with the sale whilst the deal is being handled by the conveyancing attorney.
Now that is all said, the only thing left for me to do is to repeat our Tyson Properties mantra – “Let’s talk.”
Author: Chris Tyson
