91% of Brits would use a "buyers agent"

Encouraging research coming out of the Association of Property Finders and Buyers Agents (APFBA).

Over 2000 people were questioned between November 2008 and March 2009.

Worryingly, two thirds of buyers questioned believe that estate agents work for both buyer and seller. On being reminded that estate agents are generally paid to represent the best interests of the seller, 89% of buyers accepted that a conflict of interest exists where an agent deals with both buyer and seller in the same transaction.

Indeed, some 86% of those questioned said that they would get a fairer deal if they had a professional to represent them, and 91% would use a buyers’ agent if this would save them time, stress and money.

I have blogged before on the changing face of estate agency and firmly believe that buyers agents (or property finders as many people call them) will become more and more prevalent as the market changes.

I have been asked by French Property News to write on this subject and will post a link when it is published.

Meanwhile I leave you with this from the excellent UK based Homebuyers Agency:

The survey also showed that 75% of buyers prefer use the internet as their primary search method. With portals such as Rightmove, Globrix and Property Live providing access to every property listing in the UK it seems that the UK is moving towards a similar model as the US and Australia.

There, estate agents work as ‘listing agents’ for the vendor, uploading their listings to the Multi-Listing Service (MLS), or in other words the internet portals, and buyers’ agents are employed by the buyer to help find, advise, evaluate and negotiate on the property purchase.


www.cognacproperty.com

The changing face of estate agency

The revolution is gathering pace.

Today's Independent has an excellent article headed "Online property search: the diy sellers", you can read it in full here.

In it the journalist says:

Customers are becoming increasingly autonomous, finding properties on the internet for themselves and seeking professional advice as and when they need it. With the vast majority of properties now advertised online, and tools that allow buyers to look at flats and houses from street level such as Google Street View, buyers don't need an estate agent in the same way they used to.

This strikes a chord with the way my business has changed since I set it up in 2003.

In the beginning my clients would have no knowledge of what properties were available and simply trusted me to show them a suitable cross selection. Some clients still act in this way.

However, there are a growing number who have spent ages scouring the internet and have a good feel for what is on the market - they may well even have found houses that look promising on paper. They are looking for someone who can "project manage" their purchase:

• add to their existing list of properties (by using local contacts, private sales, back street agents)


• do an initial sifting to weed out unsuitable prospects


• guide them through the buying process, offering independent advice and acting purely for them not the agent or vendor


• help in negotiating the lowest possible price


• act as a signpost towards other professional advisors (notaires, surveyors, lawyers, currency brokers, architects, builders, artisans, mortgage advisors)

The French market is going through the same fundamental change as the UK. Nightly television is full of adverts for private sale websites and for property portals. The number of traditional agents is diminishing (I was shocked to see that in the UK one in four agents have closed over the last two years).

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".

www.cognacproperty.com

Property finder network takes off

Mixed messages still coming out of the UK.

FTSE 100 over the 5,000 mark (hurrah) and house prices are either on the rise (Halifax) or it's a false dawn (Ernst & Young).

One thing is for sure though. The activity levels of our French property finder network are beginning to take off.

I'm not claiming that we're all inundated but as the guy from Savills so eloquently put it "A year on (from the collapse of Lehman Brothers) power has been restored and there's a flicker of hope".

I've just taken a phone call from Caroline who is based in Mayenne. She has had clients over from Thailand and, after a week-end of hard negotiations, they have just had an offer accepted on a beautiful property. I'm thrilled for Caroline as she had put her heart & soul into finding something truly special for them.

Janine in Bayeux is flying - she's bought two houses for clients in the last few weeks and is slap bang in the middle of another search now.

Rebecca in Nice reports the same with a couple of offers accepted and more clients out shortly.

We've also just taken on mandates for further searches in the Dordogne, Aquitaine, Perpignan and Chamonix too.

The good news is that a lot of these enquiries are non-UK related (we've recently been instructed by clients from Hawaii, South Africa, Sweden, Canada and Asia)....hopefully this means that when the UK market does come back we should have real cause for optimism.

If you'd like to discuss joining the network (we're currently 12 across France but plan to be 50 by the end of 2010) you can email guy@frenchentree.com and he'll send you a prospectus.

Alternatively just pick up the phone and I'd be happy to chat about it.

www.cognacproperty.com