1. Will my property be advertised on Rightmove? Where else will my home be seen?
The vast majority of the buyers for UK homes start their search on the internet, and of the all the places they look Rightmove is far and away the biggest, with tens of millions of visits every month from prospective buyers. It’s absolutely vital that your chosen agent uses Rightmove, but what other ways does your agent use to get the best exposure for your home to the right section of the market? At Alexander Gibson we’ll target the most successful media for your type of property and focus our marketing towards that; for an apartment in a lively town centre area we might suggest a promotional video on the social networks, for a country cottage an advert in a country magazine might be more suitable.
2. Is the agent available for viewings when my buyers are likely to be available?
Many agents advertise that they are open 7 days per week. In reality, most of these agencies have a part-time member of staff answering the telephone for a few hours on Saturday and Sunday, and when a lead comes in they will either set up an appointment for the following week for when it suits the full-time staff, or call the vendors and ask them to take the viewing themselves! At Alexander Gibson we take a different approach; we want to make it easy for buyers to view your home, so we make sure that we’re available when those buyers are likely to be able to view. We conduct most viewings after buyers have finished work, often late into the evenings, or on weekends. If a potential buyer is showing an interest in your home we think it’s our job to be available to show it to them.
3. Will the agent take all of the viewings? Will they be able to answer questions from the buyers?
We regularly come across sellers who think that they are the best people to present their home to buyers, but this is not actually true. Years of experience of talking to buyers tells us that they do not feel comfortable in dealing with the vendor directly, the situation is often awkward and the buyers leave without feeling able to ask the questions that they would have asked an agent. Before the viewings start, your personal sales consultant will visit your home and research the questions that are often asked by viewers e.g When was the boiler last serviced? How old is the electrical installation? Armed with this knowledge we can put buyers’ minds at ease during viewings, and if the buyers are feeling relaxed they are far more likely to start feeling ‘at home’ in your property.
4. Am I tied into a contract?
High street agents almost always have a contract that charges the seller a fee whether the agent sells the property or not, they will call this an ‘advertising fee’, or ‘administration fee’, or similar. There will also be a notice period of up to a few months, during which time you cannot market your property elsewhere. Internet-based agents generally charge their whole non-refundable fee up-front, or at least a large portion of it, so using either a high street or an internet agent could well cost you several hundred pounds no matter how well the agent performs. At Alexander Gibson we don’t make any of these charges, we believe that if our clients are not happy with our service they should be able to leave without any penalty or delay. Our fee (usually 1% of the sale price) is paid when we’ve done our job and completed the sale.
Call 01423 563077 today or email talk@alexandergibson.co.uk to discover the Alexander Gibson difference!