A word from our CEO, Peter Hanscomb

The biggest fallacy in real estate today

The low-end digital sales platforms that we’re seeing emerge are selling a story. They’re selling the story of offering great value, when the reality is all they’re doing is under-selling property and trying to gain importance through undermining the perception of real estate agents in the eyes of the consumer.

We’re seeing more and more cheap sales options promoted in marketplaces across the nation as delivering the same results as long-term, professional and experienced agents. They’re trying to convince consumers that there is some ‘you-beaut’ way of getting a premium sale price. 

When I look at these low-cost players that promote an ‘easy’ way to sell a property through a digital platform, I’m yet to see any of them achieve great results. In many cases it seems these platforms take a lot longer, when you look at days on market, than what a high performing real estate agent will achieve. 

The biggest issue is, these avenues aren’t exposing properties anywhere near broadly enough to capture the maximum number of financially-able and emotionally committed people to compete for the property.

If you look at who’s operating within the cheaper models, you’ll often find agents with a poor track record or people who are new to the process of negotiating the sale of property. The sign of a good agent is one that you can trust, that has a clear strategy for selling a property, gives educated advice in terms of the selling process and manages the communication of what’s going on throughout the entire process. But, most importantly, has the history in a marketplace to show that they’ve been able to achieve great results. The warning to consumers is, don’t confuse a result with a great result. Because a great result only happens with good, experienced people driving it. 

When it comes to selling real estate, I believe the question is: at what price? From my point of view, you can’t argue with someone who has been successfully negotiating the sale of property over a long period of time. It’s not a coincidence that the most effective operators in every marketplace achieve higher results. In fact, of the two auctions I attended last month, one sold through a very well-respected, experienced agent for 25 per cent more than the second, very similar property in the same suburb. 

Agents should be wary of being the one offering the ‘you-beaut’ deal – it’s the easy path and it will only be the experienced, hard-working, professional agents that show a great ability to achieve a premium price who will still be standing when the market turns. 

2 August 2017