Asda to Trial House Sales - Will it Work?
It is reported that Asda is looking to move into property selling. They are looking to under cut the high street estate agents by leveraging their supermarkets to advertise properties and call centres to help sell the properties.
Touch screens are to be installed in Asda stores and customers will be able to browse properties for sale in their area while picking up a pint of milk. If the potential purchaser sees a property that they like, they can register their interest via the terminal. The call centre staff will process these requests and arrange a viewing and hopefully a sale.
See the article at TimesOnline (http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9074-2154056,00.html)
Now having read that article it makes me wonder if there is really any chance of success. I am not 100% convinced that just because there are visitors to a grocery store that this will necessarily translate to house sales. I think there will be a novelty factor involved but it is probably unlikely to generate a truly long term term new estate agency business.
When you spend some time in a supermarket, most people are there on a mission - get the milk, buy some fruit, etc - and are not there with massive time to spare. This is very different to sitting down in front of a computer and surfing the internet for a house.
www.realestate.com.au was involved in a trial of a bank of TV monitors in a Westfield shopping centre in Sydney. It was a high traffic zone but the reality was that people were not interested. The monitors have long since been removed and what emerged was a business in which interactive displays were placed in the high street office windows of agents. Now these work!
Time will tell and it will be an interesting experiment to watch.
Comments
I thing that would be great idea - everywhere in the world people can buy a property without the agency, that takes lot's of money.
Apart of this the property low should be set to avoid pulling out from both sides after the commitment to sell. Buyers loos money when they do all legal nessecity and invest into the property, that my never be theirs (something like pre-contract, that before you start a survey, mortgage application you have contract that a seller will sell in certain time!!!!). So far the UK property market is like wild jungle - you have 20% chance to win but everything to lose!
Best Regards
AK
Posted by: AK | April 28, 2006 08:52 AM
Am I going mad? or maybe developing second sight!! Have Asda not been here before, I have a very vague recollection of seeing estate agents in their supermarkets a good few years ago. I also seem to remember they had a property department at their head office in Leeds.
Posted by: kathryn Hughes | April 30, 2006 09:36 PM
Well what can I say a Supermarket selling properties not really professional I mean what’s next a hair salon or what about a gym? I think these supermarkets should concentrate on a play area for the kids while the parents shop for their grocery, coming up with ridiculous idea like supermarket selling properties well they must think the public are stupid, not only supermarkets are offering insurances, loans and now thinking of selling properties another money making scheme.
Posted by: Tupil Ahmed | May 1, 2006 05:48 PM
Cant believ it again,
For the second year running, someone places an offer on my house for 145K, 5K reduction from the asking price, and they are involved in a chain, which then drags me into it.
So then I find a house, which I then get charged £100 admin fee, £399 set up cost, £250 survey fee, £1600 local search costs
Total £809, and then my buyer again pulls aout, without so much as a word.
THIS HAS HAPPENED TWICE, SO IT HAS COST ME £1618, AND I HAVENT EVEN SOLD MY HOUSE YET, AND THE ESTATE AGENTS SAY" WELL DONT BLAME US"
OKAY SO THE SUPERMARKETS GET IN ON THE ACT, AND YES MAYBE THEY CAN REDUCE THE COST OF THE ESTATE AGENCY LETS SAY AT 1.5% ON 145K, THAT £2500 OR SO. WHATS TO STOP THE BUYER STILL PULLING OUT??????
I then find a house and place an offer on it.
It is accepted, and I start the £100 admin fee, £399 set up fee, £250 survey fee, £160 local search fee
Posted by: andrew jardine | July 26, 2006 02:45 PM