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Cheap fee deals .. do they work?

How many of you advertise fee free deals to get new landlords? .. A lot of you I bet. Do they work? No. Why don’t they? Well, at the local Sainsbury’s, the deli often has cubes of cheese or cut up pieces of sausage roll for free. But does it sell more cheese or sausage rolls? I doubt it!  Don’t get me wrong, but free is a fine way to grab attention, but more and more often, it's precisely the wrong sort of attention from the wrong people. How many times have you taken the free sample from the supermarket and gone on and bought that product .. not many of you I suspect (neither do I either).
Wouldn’t it be great if landlords asked, "what is your most expensive fee package and what makes it worth it?" Not because that landlord wants to pay you loads of money, but because that landlord is focused on "worth it." The people at the Sainsbury’s deli, stuffing their mouths with four pieces of sausage rolls and cheese at aren't asking that question. When focusing on free, the 'worth it' question never comes up, because when seduced by the zero price and nothing but the zero price, we fail to answer the question about worth or value.
.. and the same goes for half price fee deals. Remember the story of the agent I knew that spent £13,000 over 4 months on these adverts, advertising half price fees and only got 4 new landlords in return. A landlord who is paying 10% fees per month can’t swap whilst there is a tenant in the property, as they would end up paying not 10%, but 15% (if your fee deal was 5%)  as most letting agents terms allow for at least three months of fee’s and sometimes a lot more – therefore you might be cheap but he/she is unable to move). 


As there is a tenant in the property 95% of the time, the landlord can’t move agents 95% of the time .. (ask yourself how many landlords have left your agency WHILST THERE WAS A TENANT IN THE PROPERTY ?) ..... precisely ... not many ... I can count them on two hands and I have been in the business 20 years.( and counting). The only landlords that will react to such messages are the ones who are hacked off with their agent because they have fallen out with their agent or more probably have a void/empty property. Sorry Mr (or Mrs) Letting Agent.. hoping someone will read your half price fees and that some landlords will send you the keys of their property to rent it is very hopeful indeed. .. get real!

Why do you agents think landlords want the cheapest fee .. they don’t! I can send you independent reports from those fab people at The Property Academy, where thousands of landlords were surveyed each year, and each year, only 3% to 5% landlords want the cheapest fee .. most want the best value fees .. and value is measured, when someone says, “are you worth those fees?”

So are you worth your fees?

PS .. had a lovely training course yesterday in Grantham. 4 letting agents, one who had been in business 7 years, a couple who had been going a year and one who has just opened. Great mix of people and will be releasing some videos in the coming days