Agent Update Blog

Agency Expo is the leading exhibition for property professionals. This is an excellent opportunity to meet the team at propertyfinder.com and have all your questions answered.

Find out how to motivate your sales team, how to win new business and what you can do to make the most out of the changing market.

Agency Expo will be held on 14th and 15th October 2008, Business Design Centre, Islington, London. We will be at stand 416 and look forward to meeting you there!

The exhibition focuses on cost-effective products and services that can reduce overheads and increase your effectiveness.

Try out the best sales, accounting and management software on the market. Streamline your sales systems and improve your customers’ experience

See the latest digital display systems, digital imaging, document management and printing systems

Assess the level of cost-savings you can achieve by adopting SMS tools, online floorplans, and eHips

Compare the benefits of the best property portals and the new search engines

Alongside the exhibition, the 3 streams of FREE seminars bring you together with leading property experts. Find out how to motivate your sales team during tough times, how to win new business against strong competition and what strategies your company can adopt to make the most of the changing market.

Two days of FREE conference sessions concentrate on the future of the industry - not-to-be-missed debate with the Minister for Housing, Sir John Carlsberg, Peter Bolton King of the NAEA, the Ombudsman of Estate Agents and senior representatives from RICS.

All in all, Agency Expo is the place to find new inspiration, new contacts, new ideas and new angles on the market.

Register for FREE, simply visit www.agencyexpo.co.uk

Posted by Danielle Candler at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

• Exclusive to one agent per postcode or locality in each property segment (BUY or RENT), you'll be seen as the leading agent in your area.
• You properties will attract more views and enquiry by appearing at the top of the search results, with a more defined border, your logo and two extra images to really showcase a property.
• Outstanding brand recognition for you in your area, available in both BUY and RENT sections

To find out how to book this exclusive listing position in your area, call us on 0844 502 8683 or email us at members@propertyfinder.com

Look at some agents who have already WON GOLD and taken the top spot in:

• SW2
• Bournemouth

Posted by Danielle Candler at 09:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

• As a Feature Agent, you appear at the top of our FIND AGENTS section which means more potential vendors and landlords see you first in your area!
  
• Your agency is prioritised above all other agents in your area and you’ll be seen as the leading agent.
  
• Maximum brand exposure achieved through enhanced features including agent logo, photo and text description.

To find out if Feature Agent is still available in your area call us on 0844 502 8683 or email us at members@propertyfinder.com

Here are two agents that have already WON GOLD and taken the top spot in:

• EN8 
• Edinburgh

Posted by Danielle Candler at 09:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Brought to you by Owen Burns, Managing Director of The Academy

Let us begin with a prayer;

“Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference”

There are many adaptations of the above prayer, but I like to look at it as the way we should approach things and in particular what is happening in the property market today. If we were to dissect the prayer into three sections we would find a three-step solution to what is happening now and what to do about it.

1.“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change”

Raise your hand if you have a direct influence on the current credit squeeze, the price of oil, and the editors of the newspapers who constantly churn out negative press to sell print runs? I can’t imagine there are many hands raised in the air on that question. These are all the factors that are contributing to low buyer confidence and higher seller nervousness at the moment, but as much as we would like to, we cannot change these factors. So let’s all join together, take a deep breath, let it gather all your anxiety about these matters and let it go as you breathe out. Accept the things you cannot change. 

2.“Courage to change the things I can” Recently, I am asked most, “how do I handle the current market?”

The answer to that lies in the things you can do to change its impact on you. You see it’s not the market that will make or break us right now, it’s what we do about it and the key to this is in our mindset and our actions.

So how does this help with our plight as estate agents? One of the best examples I have seen of positive mind set is in a formula employed by Newman Property Services among others; D.I.S.H, Does It Sell Houses. The beauty of this acronym is in its simplicity. Does it Sell Houses? Yes? do it, No? don’t. By employing a technique like this you will free your mind of all that white noise which surrounds us everyday when trying to decide what is the best course of action to take.

Let’s put it to the test;

Meeting face to face with a vendor to adjust asking price – D.I.S..H – Yes
Moaning to my colleague about how few buyers there are – D.I.S.H – No
Meeting buyers in the office and qualifying before viewings – D.I.S.H – Yes
Meeting unqualified buyers at property because we are desperate for viewings – D.I.S.H – No

Our mind is a binary computer that takes us through a series of yes and no answers to create an action. Let’s train our minds by setting it to yes when it comes to positive actions to sell property.

3.”The wisdom to know the difference”

The third part of the prayer is around having ‘the wisdom to know the difference”. Does this come with experience? Does it come from our team? Well yes it comes from both, but most of all it comes from our customer. Everything we do in estate agency is about meeting and exceeding the expectation of our customer, so to gain the wisdom just start looking through their eyes. As Jimi Hendrix once said, “knowledge speaks, wisdom listens”.

Although this may be a crude attempt at mixing the divine with the very real world of estate agency, now is a time to take a little perspective and see things for what they are; great opportunities to do what you are best at doing.

Keep the faith!

Posted by Kyrenia Gross at 09:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)