Fixer-upper homes have become the most in-demand properties, Rightmove claims.
The portal has analysed the home features that are driving the most enquiries from home-movers to agents.
It created the demand rankings by analysing hundreds of different features mentioned by estate and letting agents in more than 600,000 property descriptions and the subsequent enquiries that were being sent to them.
Fixer upper homes or those that say they are in need of refurbishment topped the list, which Rightmove attributed to both first-time buyers looking for a cheaper property to get on the ladder that they can refurbish over time and investors looking to grab a relative bargain.
The average asking price of a fixer upper home is £336,979, which is 8% (£29,302) lower than the current national average asking price of £366,281 for all types of home, the portal said.
Buyers looking for a home that is already refurbished, which also makes the top 10 list in position seven, are paying an average of 19% more than the national average asking price, at £435,874 (+£69,593).
The other most popular buyer features reveal the importance of there being enough storage space and a garden, the desire for a property to be chain free, and basic energy efficient features such as double glazing and a new boiler.
Being near a station is also still a priority, in at number 10, despite the rise of working from home for many.
Tim Bannister, Rightmove’s property expert, said: “This new study could help sellers and landlords when they’re thinking about the different features to highlight on their property listing. It may not seem important to mention that a property has storage space or a new boiler, but our study shows this could make a difference when prospective buyers and renters are deciding which homes to go and view.
“It also shows the different priorities that home-movers have – some are in a more fortunate position to be able to consider buying a newly refurbished home, while others want to put their own stamp on a home and do it up from scratch, or they may realise that if they buy now they can spend time doing up the house a room at a time.”
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Renters
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Renovation project (incl. fixer upper, in need of refurb etc)
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Double glazing
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New boiler
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Smart technology, such as a smart heating system
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Loft conversion
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Near station
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Storage space
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Parking space
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Cellar
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Basement
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Double glazing
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New boiler
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Refurbished
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Shed
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Chain free
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Attic
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Garden
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Energy efficient
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Near station
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Open plan
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The ValPal Network (TVPN) has launched a new automated direct mail service to ensure agents don’t miss out on ‘bonus leads.’
It comes as the lead generation provider warned agents are missing out on cold leads from enquiries.
Roughly one in five people who request an online valuation sell and complete on the Land Registry, TVPN said.
Its analysis also showed that 8.9% of people who supplied their address but not their personal details – known to estate agent users as ‘bonus leads’ – also sold and completed.
This is based on activity from leads generated through TVPN.
Craig Vile, director of TVPN, said: “The data indicates that even the coldest of opportunities has the potential to sell.
“With salespeople, there’s a tendency to focus on the low hanging fruit but our data shows that even people who choose not to give you their contact information or bounce from the valuation tool before completing it, may still require your services and be serious sellers.”
TVPN’s automated direct mail service will be available to all members of The ValPal Network and can be used to target specific postcodes and streets where leads are generated.
Vile added: “You can choose to send direct mail to your bonus leads, plus properties surrounding your ValPal leads and bonus leads – for example 20 addresses up and down from the lead address.
“There are five pre-branded letters to choose from, all of which can be edited to include your own messaging and, most importantly, each letter includes a QR code to the estate agent’s own ValPal tool, encouraging the consumer to get an instant online valuation of their property.”
*The ValPal Network is owned by Angels Media, which also owns the Today sites.
Home sellers could be missing out on best offers because of commission fees earned by estate agents, Trading Standards has warned.
Many estate agents receive referral fees by recommending mortgage brokers, solicitors, surveyors and other third party services.
The boss of the enforcement authority for estate agents said these fees can be so high that it becomes more lucrative to choose a buyer using these preferred services.
James Munro, head of the National Trading Standards Estate and Letting Agency Team, said they have investigated cases of this type of illegal behaviour but warned that the problem is likely to go undetected.
Speaking to The Telegraph, he said: “We’ve seen commissions of 50pc of the price, which is just ridiculous really. In some cases, the consumer’s getting no benefit from them.”
Mr Munro continued: “If you’re thinking of buying a property, and you go in and they say, ‘Would you like to speak to our financial adviser or mortgage adviser?’ And you say, ‘No, I’ll sort all that myself. Here’s my offer for the property.’
“Well, that employee, sometimes on the bigger agencies, is on a commission, so if they can get those referral fees they will put that offer forward. But then there may be another offer which is lower, but that person is using all of the connected services, and mysteriously the higher offer just gets lost on the system.”
He said the cases were detected by buyers who had offers declined, checked publicly available Land Registry data and noticed that a lower offer had been accepted.
But the vast majority of buyers move on after their offers are rejected so these instances are “difficult to find out about”.
Estate agents are required to disclose commission fees up front but Mr Munro said “there’s a lack of resources to go out and police this effectively”.
He said the Government considered banning these commissions around three years ago but said they would wait and assess the impact of putting in tougher rules for transparency instead.
However, Mr Munro said it would “take quite a lot of resources and quite a lot of people to go out and actually investigate to give a realistic market assessment”.
He said: “The problem is that a lot of the time they’re not displayed. It’s a difficult one to enforce because you don’t know that they’re taking fees if they’re not displaying the fact that they’re taking fees.”
Henry Pryor, a buying agent, said buyers who are suspicious when their offers are declined still face an uphill battle to prove there was something dodgy going on because estate agents always say the offer was declined for other reasons.
He said: “It’s really difficult to prove but people in the industry admit and know that it goes on. It’s a scandal.”
Self-employed agency brand eXp UK has launched a ‘Teams’ initiative designed to help its top performing agents expand their business.
It is already proving popular amongst existing agents, with nine chosen based on the number of sales in the past 12 months.
The agents who’ve taken advantage of creating a ‘Team’, include, Chris Abraham, Kirsty Hodgson, Jaine Whitfield, Darren Beckett, Claire Bilton, Amie Brooks, Alistair Harper, Helen Moore and Mark Buchanan
Each agent who runs a ‘Team’, continues to benefit from partnering with eXp, but is able to recruit other agents to operate under their own ‘Team’ brand.
In exchange for helping new agents in their team, the leader can receive a suggested 25% of the commission from any business generated. This allows those joining an eXp UK Team to hit the ground running, rather than having to build their own personal brand from the ground up.
eXp UK said it believes this is the next step in the evolution of the self-employed model in the UK, allowing solo agents to grow their business beyond it being just a ‘personal brand’.
It expects to have 50 teams in place over the next few months.
Adam Day, head of eXp UK, said: “It’s something I was very aware that we would have to evolve when we first started eXp in the UK, and so I’ve been studying how ‘Teams’ works in the US over the last few years. It’s very common for ‘solo’ agents to go on and create their own ‘brands’ that continue to work with eXp in the US. We’ve simply followed the blueprint which is used stateside, but adjusted it, as we have always done, to accommodate the demands & culture of the UK market place.”
While your estate agent will most likely be in charge of scheduling and managing viewings there are ways you can ensure the first impression potential buyers have of your property is a positive one.
If the weather allows it, keep the windows open and turn the lights on so the property feels airy and fresh for viewings.
Do not be afraid to share your experiences of living in the area. If there are elements buyers can relate to or look forward to it may improve their perception of the property.
It may also be worthwhile finding out any additional details on the viewers from your estate agent before they arrive. For example, do they have children and if so can you recommend local schools or playgroups?
Chris Husson-Martin, director and head of sales at Hamptons in Salisbury, says: “The best advice we can give is to take a step back and think about their own home with fresh eyes.
“Kerb appeal is very important, we encourage sellers to present the front of their home well, tidying up front gardens and the approach to the house is essential as this will be the first thing a viewer will see.
“The majority of buying decisions are made within the first few minutes, or even seconds of a viewing.”
In the current climate, buyers may be keen to put in an offer as soon as possible in order to help facilitate the sale of their own home, or not lose out on a more beneficial mortgage rate.
However, it is important not to feel pressured into accepting an offer straight away. Ultimately the process is a negotiation and if you have more viewings lined up, your home may even be the subject of a beneficial bidding war.
Sophie Archidiacono, head of sales at Hamptons Balham, says: “The more information we can share with a seller, the better we can help them to make a decision.
“I would always advise a seller to pick the buyer that suits their requirements best. Some sellers value matching timelines over an extra £5,000 on the offer, whereas some want a buyer in the most secure financial situation possible.”
Sellers may also be concerned about “gazundering”, where a buyer lowers their offer just before contracts are exchanged, essentially trapping the seller into accepting.
Ms Archidiacono advises sellers to be wary of buyers who are reluctant to disclose financial information.
Meeting the buyers face to face, will hopefully build a relationship between the parties and help you gauge mutual commitment.
Estate agents are missing out on potential clients by not responding to enquiries promptly, new research suggests.
A study by lead generation firm Homeflow revealed that the average response time by agents was 229 ‘business’ minutes, which is almost four hours.
The slowest response time was 2,260 ‘business’ minutes, or almost five working days.
Only half of the agents who responded to the sales enquiry did so within an hour, and just two agents were fast enough to acknowledge the opportunity within a 4-minute window.
Response times to portal leads on rental properties were better than to sales enquiries, at 70% versus 40% responding within an hour.
However, the average response time was only marginally shorter at 218 ‘business’ minutes.
This, Homeflow said, suggests 39% of estate agents are missing out on potential clients by not responding to enquiries promptly.
Nik Chotai, managing director of Homeflow, which is offering a 60-day free trial of its Lead Manager product, said: “Home sellers now place a higher value on response time than ever before.
“It’s the key to winning instructions in a competitive market, and it’s essential for building trust and loyalty in a digital age where time is of the essence.”
The ‘title deeds’ are commonly referred to as the Title Register and Title Plan, from HM Land Registry, which prove ownership of a property. The Title Register and Title Plan are available digitally at the click of a button with the mio Sellers Information Pack, in the mio sales management hub and provide a complete representation of ownership.
This is the only official document that proves a property’s ownership beyond doubt and information relating to it – precisely what is owned and the manner in which it is owned. It also sets out any covenants, easements and restrictions affecting the property and its ownership.
This visually illustrates the extent of the property owned and outlines the boundaries in red. Other colours are sometimes used to identify rights of way, general boundaries and land affected by covenants.
Why is it important for estate agents to review the title deeds?
There are a number of reasons why it can be useful for you to review these documents:
1. Title deeds are one of the best ways to establish proof of property ownership, leaving you to perform identity verification and anti-money laundering checks to meet your HMRC requirements.
2. Early access to Title Deed information can help to remove those ‘I wish we’d known’ scenarios and enable you, with support from conveyancers, to resolve any potential issues related to the title before they escalate into delays or worse still, threaten the entire transaction.
3. Sharing this information at the beginning of the process with the conveyancers involved in the transaction allows them to allocate the correct team member to ensure the transaction is progressed effectively and reducing unnecessary delays.
4. By reading, understanding and including accurate details from the deeds in all of your marketing materials, you can stay compliant with Trading Standards CPR regulations for upfront material information too.
By making the seller aware of this at point of instruction can save valuable time once the sale is agreed, meaning there is less likelihood of a fall through due to a long and protracted sales process.
What’s in the Title Register and what should you look out for?
Section A Property Register
What’s included?
Things to look out for:
Section B Proprietorship Register
What’s included?
Things to look out for:
Section C Charges Register
What’s included?
Things to look out for:
What does it mean if the property is unregistered?
With around 2.9 million properties marked as ‘unregistered’ with the Land Registry, it’s something you may well come into contact with as an estate agent from time to time.
Selling ‘unregistered’ property is a more complex process. That’s why It’s vital to know if the property is at least registered (or not) as soon as possible to prevent complications and delays down the line.
The most common reason for a property to be ‘unregistered’ is because it belongs to individual/s who have lived in the property from before Land Registry registration became compulsory in 1990. They can often be related to probate sales after the homeowner had passed away. They require additional administration and the original deeds will need to be found. If they cannot be traced, the seller will need to provide proof of ownership evidence spanning the last 15 years and an application made for registration with Land Registry with the help of you and their conveyancer.
Why it pays to use Veya land registry insights in mio?
When you order a Sellers Information Pack in mio, you will see a Veya Complexity Score for your property. This gives you an instant, at-a-glance indicator as to how complex the property may be to sell, which could impact timelines to exchange and completion. This complexity score is generated based on Veya’s smart analysis of the title information and reviewing where there may be potential risks or issues associated to the property based on that information.
If you have a high complexity score, rather than you having to review Land Registry documents in detail which can be a long and arduous process, you can save time by purchasing the full Veya Title Check report in mio. The report goes beyond simply highlighting Land Registry information and the Complexity Score; it analyses how those details can affect the property and recommends actions you could take along with a conveyancer to prepare the property in readiness for the conveyancing process. You can share a link to download the report as a PDF, with your seller’s solicitors so they can begin to address, early on, any potential risks or issues affecting the seller’s property.
In doing so, when a buyer has been found you have avoided unnecessary delays which could result in a buyer pulling out of the sale. In many cases a conveyancer can resolve any potential issues but its far better to get these addressed at point of instruction rather than after a buyer has been secured. You can knock weeks off the conveyancing time and demonstrate to your clients that you take proactive steps to make the selling process more secure and stress-free.
To find out more about how the mio sales management hub products and services can streamline and speed up your transactions from instruction to completion, visit our website, or you can access more useful title-related content and resources in our dedicated information hub.
Alto has boosted its training offering for estate and letting agents.
Agency users can now access an overview of Alto training via its website, choose from an expanded training offering for their branch and book the training themselves.
The training is now divided into three options. These are Alto Essentials: designed for branches and their staff that have recently joined Alto; Alto Innovations: keeps experienced Alto users up to date with new features, updates and integrations. Alto custom training: this paid offering can range from an Alto ‘health check’ with a dedicated expert, bespoke one to one or team training, or advanced training on topics like accounts or property management for specialists looking to further improve their knowledge
All of these training options are supported by Alto’s Help Centre which is updated daily and provides more than 600 how-to articles and user guides. Alto customers can also use the help centre to raise support queries.
It coincides with the launch of a new booking system. To book a custom training session, Alto customers can now simply visit the Alto website – select their slot of choice and pay with it online using their credit card details.
Riccardo Dawson, chief operating officer at Alto said: “We know that investing in training is the best way for any agent to get the absolute most from their CRM.
“We’re delighted to dial up our training offering to ensure agents not only are set up for success when they join Alto – but also have the opportunity to expand their knowledge of Alto and its latest features and functionality at a time that’s convenient for them.”
Asking prices have fallen by the largest level since March 2019 and discounts are at their highest in more than a decade as the subdued property market continues, Rightmove data shows.
The latest Rightmove House Price Index for September shows the average asking price of newly marketed properties has fallen 0.4% annually to £366,281.
Asking prices are up 0.4% on a monthly basis, which compares with an average of 0.6% recorded in the same period over the past 10 years, Rightmove said.
The portal said that while some sellers are clearly being “too optimistic” on their pricing, it does appear that others are listening to their agents’ advice to price correctly from the outset.
The property website said 36.3% of properties currently for sale have had a price reduction, with an average reduction equating to £22,700 or 6.2% nationally.
Both figures are the highest since January 2011 and above the pre-pandemic five-year average of 31.2%.
The number of sales being agreed in August across all property types is also 18% down versus August 2019. First-time buyer properties are faring slightly better though, with a drop of 13%.
Rightmove said there are signs of activity starting to pick up, with back-to-school sellers helping the number of new properties coming to market to jump by 12% in the first week of September when compared with the average weekly number throughout August.
Looking by sector, the first-time buyer sector saw new listings up by a smaller 7%. New listings in the second stepper sector are up by 11% on the same period, and the top of the ladder, although a smaller proportion of the overall market, has seen new listings up by 24%.
Based on the latest report, Rightmove said it is sticking to its prediction of a 2% drop in asking prices this year.
Tim Bannister, director of property science for Rightmove, said: “It’s been a slower than usual August, so all eyes will be on market activity over the next few weeks, which will set the trend for the rest of the year. The combination of 14 consecutive Bank of England interest rate rises and many buyers and sellers still catching up on lost pandemic holidays has contributed to a bigger than expected summer lull, though we still anticipate an autumn bounce. Market conditions still vary considerably in different locations, and so a local estate agent will be best placed to advise sellers to give them the best chance of finding a buyer this autumn.
“As we enter a key selling season, more people who have been thinking about what they need from a home and where they want to be living next year and beyond are taking action and coming to market.
“This has helped to improve buyer choice, especially for those looking for larger homes, which also means that new sellers in the middle and upper sectors need to be extra careful not to set their price expectations too high. Plenty of sales are being agreed for properties that are priced at the right level, and those that are selling are still taking five days less than at this time in 2019. We’re also seeing the number of fall-throughs decline as market conditions and mortgage rates stabilise.”
Rightmove has unveiled its Autumnal marketing campaign, with a new advert aiming to convince potential buyers that they should have ‘belief’ that a move will happen.
The portal’s new one-minute long advert focuses on a boy trying to dunk a basketball in a hoop after moving to a home purchased by his recently-divorced dad.
The creative campaign aims to reach 51m people and capture the attention of would-be movers at the start of the Autumn home-moving season.
Rightmove said it aims to help agents by highlighting to people that by using the property website’s tools and services and by turning to agents for expertise throughout their home-moving journey, they can believe that they can make their move happen.
The advert will air across high reach, prime-time TV spots and premieres tonight on Channel 4’s Gogglebox.
It will appear during other key TV programmes throughout September and October across Channel 4, Sky and ITV, designed to reach a large and varied potential home-moving audience.
This will include The Great British Bake Off and Rugby World Cup games.
The campaign will also feature outdoor media, alongside video-on-demand and social media activity, directing audiences across all platforms to explore agents’ listings on Rightmove.
The new brand platform has been created with Rightmove’s brand strategy and creative agency neverland, with media planning by agency Electric Glue.
Matt Bushby, chief marketing Officer at Rightmove, said: “Our vision is to give everyone the belief that they can make their move. This new direction comes from insight that not all moves are linear, something that agents will be very familiar with.
“Many people have different challenges to overcome in their search for a home, and we want more people to know that with the help of agents and Rightmove they can maintain the belief that their move can happen. We also want to help prompt more people to take those first steps towards making it a reality. Our new creative campaign comes at a key time for agents after the summer holidays and before Christmas, and we aim to help by directing more people to their properties on Rightmove.”
Watch the advert below to see if the boy makes the dunk.
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