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Letting agents advertising ... Spend £5,000,000 or spend £190 ... your choice

As I travel up to Middlesbrough on the train, courtesy of East Coast, I was flicking through LAToday and saw an old article about the Easyproperty launch. I wasn't planning to write a post until this evening on my way home, but after reading it, I thought, hey, lets get this written this morning! Before we kick off, Joey aka 'The Lettings Dog' is in fine form .. if fine form is sheding hair by the bundle load .... The Dyson was clogged!  My good lady wife says we could knit another Joey .. I will get some more pics of him soon .. but those of you who need a Joey fix .. here is his famous video  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRv5yoLdiXc

EasyProperty is due to launch sometime later this year, with a budget of £5,000,000 to attract landlords to their lettings business. Should you be worried .. well in my humble opinion, possibly and no.

Sir Stelios has a great reputation of shaking up the markets he enters into. Airlines, car rentals, hotels, why not estate agency and lettings? Well, there are plenty of big names jumping on the band wagon of lettings and estate agency, with their online models. One of my favourites is Purplebricks with their mix of local people and online, but all of us could list many many more.

But here is a thought, I do not believe online agents will take much more than 10% of the market by 2024 and certainly not the 30%, 40% or 50%’s levels that are being bandied about by every new start up online agent, when they promise to shake up the world of lettings and estate agency at launch.

 You see, boys and girls, much as you deride them, Rightmove and Zoopla, have saved you shop based letting and estate agents from online agents taking over the UK lettings and estate agency market, because, if you think about it,  they are the online agent and they already have a near 100% market coverage.

That argument aside, (and the Agents Mutual thing) should you be worried about the £5,000,000 in advertising spending? Sales possibly ... lettings ...no.


In sales, the most important issue an estate agent must answer is this ... ‘How do you become one of the three agents asked out for a free valuation/market appraisal’ .. its a simple as that. If you don’t get asked for the FV, you don’t get a chance to pitch, no pitch means no chance of listing, no listing means no sale and no sale means no pennies. Foxton’s do it with their 0% fees when they first come into a town. Their boards pop up , they get market coverage, and as people are like sheep, after six months, everyone rings them up for a fv, by which time they are charge full fat fees . Sir Stelios could just do a Foxton’s?

Lettings .. Landlords don’t swap agents whilst there is a tenant in the property. The first chance they can swap agents (when the tenant hands in their notice), 99.999% of landlords just say to their agent to get it back onto the market (that’s if the agent tells them at all). Most landlords don’t love their agent just like most people don’t love their banks ..  they just can t be bothered to move agents, its too much hassle. For the same reason YOU won’t swap banks, even if they offer you 5% interest of £200 to swap, is the same reason landlords wont swap agents .. hassle, trouble, cost, you are all the same, better the devil you know etc etc.

So if you are a letting agent, how do you get more business.. easy, spend £190 a month, use a bit of shoe leather and start to think a little. I teach agents that after they have done the initial work (which you only have to do once but an apprentice / work experience person / teenage son or daughter can do this for you), for them to get a uplift of 20% to 30% a year in lettings fees income, I need them to spend £190 a month and some of their time.

How much time? Three or four half days a month walking the streets in  your town (don’t worry – it isn’t door knocking.. quite the opposite), four hours a month doing something on the kitchen table, 30 minutes once a week doing something else and 12 minutes a day doing something else .... for a 20% to 30% uplift in lettings business..... and the best bit .. its all been proved to work! (see my Linkedin testimonials/recommendations)


So, what’s it to be? £5m or £190 per month?  ... the choice is yours Mr(s) letting agent!

PS If you haven't seen it already, I posted yesterday about a spare slot on one my courses .. have a look if you are interested