Estate Agency Marketing

ESTATE AGENTS CORPORATE IDENTITY - Building an image from the ground upwards, positioning your estate agency or property business accurately with clear, distinctive design and coherent branding throughout all communications.

ESTATE AGENTS BRAND IDENTITY- Positioning proprties and estate agency or propert services with a clear and memorable image that your customers are relaxed with and inspired by.

ESTATE AGENTS CORPORATE LITERATURE - Well designed, well thought out, concisely written and immaculately produced. Corporate literature that says just the right things about an estate agency or property business / organisation.

ESTATE AGENTS SALES LITERATURE -Strong property sales / services literature
should clearly reflect the quality and strength of the estate agency or property company, engaging and allowing the reader to take in the relevant information and messages, leaving him confident to do business with you.

ESTATE AGENTS BROCHURES- Well-designed, user-friendly brochures, creating the right overall impression and profiling individual items. From concept to delivery, our creativity
and production handling is impeccable.

ESTATE AGENTS DIRECT MAIL - In the 3 seconds it takes to engage and persuade an ordinary man to become your customer... or to turn your estate agency or property pitch into paper waste, what you send out just has to be effective.

ESTATE AGENTS PROPERTY LAUNCHES - You have 3 months to launch a major new product, with product information, a full press event with multi-media presentations, direct mail and launch estate agency or property website. But you still need a highly creative, cohesive approach?

ESTATE AGENTS MANUALS - Printed manuals - tied in with Internet based technical data where necessary. The good looking, functional design and detail needed to bring together easy to digest data and instructions.

ESTATE AGENTS PUBLICATIONS - Public relations materials that make any estate agency or property organisation appear convincing, confident and well-spoken. In fact, the right kind of
people to do business with.

UK Estate Agents

There is widespread support across the property industry in the UK for individuals working within estate agencies to be registered and further meetings are to take place to move towards full registration.

Bill McClintock, chairman of the board that operates the Ombudsman for Estate Agents scheme, said that the reaction has been encouraging, with support from across the industry.'

It started with many of the principal London agencies backing the idea and has spread countrywide. For the industry to be seen to be fair, it has to raise the professional standards of those who are involved at the real sharpend of residential property sales and lettings negotiation. Registration is an excellent first step to do this,' he said.

One of the familiar jibes aimed at estate agents is that anyone can set upan agency branch. McClintock wants those who have been estate agents for some time to demonstrate that they have attained the necessary standards topractice.

He reckons it will make the industry more professional and sort out the good from the bad.'The hard times the industry has been suffering have seen firms go to the wall with many good agents losing their jobs. Hopefully, as business revives they will come back to be valued members of the profession, for that is how I want estate agents to be seen,' he explained.

'Others who have fallen because, frankly, they were not good enough to stay in business in tough markets will find it hard to return unless they are fit to be here. We no longer want to inexperienced and unprofessional individuals who can give the industry a bad name. We want an industry that can prove its worth and serve the public with integrity,' he added.

He is now arranging a meeting at the head office of the Guild of Professional Estate Agents in Park Lane and will be inviting representatives of NFOPP, embracing NAEA and ARLA, RICS, NALS, OEA, Which?, and individual estate agencies to form an inclusive steering group to take the proposal forward.

'Keeping up the momentum is vital. Already, in just a few weeks since Ifirst floated the registration idea, companies representing probably half the estate agency branches in the UK have committed to the scheme in principle, which would cover all individuals negotiating residential sales, lettings, and property valuations,' he said.

'It's a tremendous opportunity to set up a new system that will protect both consumers and estate agencies and ensure that proper standards are providedin an industry frequently dealing with consumers' highest value assets,' headded.

Arsenal Estate Agent Bets Spurs Fan He Can Sell Property Before Tottenham Can Win A Game

LDG West End Estate Agents have a client who is not only down in the dumps about selling his London flat, but is upset at the performance of his football team, Tottenham Hotspur.

Following a recent conversion with Laurence Glynne of LDG, a lifelong Arsenal fan, a bet was made...” Could LDG sell Spurs fan James penthouse flat before Tottenham actually win a game!”

Estate Agents Market Report 2008

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Estate Agents Market Report 2008"

This Market Report examines the UK market for estate agents, focusing on the residential property agencies. It excludes property services such as auctioneers, valuers, estate managers, property companies and property consultants.

We estimate that estate agency revenues from residential sales amounted to GBP6.71bn in 2007. Revenues are derived from financial services (such as mortgage and insurance sales), lettings and property management, auctions, valuations and surveys, as well as commission from the sale of property. However, the majority of estate agents' revenue -- almost three-quarters -- is generated from sales of residential property. The total number of residential property transactions, i.e. excluding land and commercial property transactions, was estimated at 1.8 million in 2007.

The housing market has been on a roll for 13 years, so a sizeable proportion of estate agency staff have not worked in conditions as difficult as those they are now facing. As a result, they lack the experience required to survive in such a market, and some of the younger estate agents might well withdraw from the market. Indeed, there are already suggestions that the market as we know it today will not exist in 10 years' time, given the currently dire state of the property market and the opportunities for developments on the Internet.

Countrywide remains the largest estate agency, followed by Connells Residential, LSL Property Services and Halifax Estate Agency. The industry continues to restructure. Strutt & Parker has merged with Lane Fox and Foxtons has been sold to a private equity firm. In June 2008, Humberts went into administration but was subsequently acquired by a joint-venture company. Although the firm will remain in business, some closures would seem inevitable. Indeed closures have already taken place across the industry and, by the end of 2008, it is likely that there will be 2,000 fewer estate agency branches than there were at the beginning of the year, with more likely to close in 2009.

Given the growing power of the Internet, many industry observers believe that, when the estate agency industry does recover, it will not resemble the industry of today. It is expected that a period of restructuring will result in a smaller market and more people will be selling property without using an estate agent.

We forecast that both the number of transactions and estate agency revenue will decline in 2008 and 2009, and the market is not expected to recover until at least 2010.

Estate agents closing in Chelsea, Knightsbridge and Fulham

Offices in prime locations including Chelsea, Knightsbridge and Fulham have shut and some industry figures are admitting the market is now worse than ever.

Agents say sales in the capital have fallen from an average of about 10,000 a month to 5,000.
One of London's biggest chains, Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward, has closed its Knightsbridge office in Brompton Road.

Director Paul Masters said it was "a consequence of the difficult market conditions".
He added: "All lettings business has been transferred to our Fulham branch and the sales business to the Fulham and Mayfair branches."

Friend & Falcke has sold its office at 96 King's Road and closed down its Fulham branch. Managing director Simon Albertini said: "For many estate agents, the market we are experiencing this year is the most difficult they have encountered.

"We have been established for 49 years and survived through good markets, bad markets and downright terrible markets - but none as bad as this."

The Felicity J Lord branch at 100 New King's Road, Fulham, closed earlier this year. A spokeswoman said this was "because the lease was up".

The Fulham branch of Chard abandoned house sales two months ago and is now concentrating on lettings, which are improving as sales falter.

The London flagship branch of international high-end agents Engel and Volkers, in Sydney Street, Kensington, has also been closed down.

London estate agents facing problems as housing slowdown continues to bite

Blenheim Bishop estate agent, based in Mayfair, London, has been forced to close its doors on sales but will continue to let properties.

The founder of the agency, Jonathan Vandermolen, said income from new homes was 75% down compared with the previous year and he is of the opinion that the market is not good long-term.
As a result, the agent will cease to sell homes and has put offices on the market and made 10 staff redundant.

He told Estates Gazette: 'Most agents operate on the basis of a 25 to 30% profit margin. If trade is 50% down and 50% of your costs are for premises, staff and advertising, then it becomes difficult. If we have a couple of years of this, perhaps 50% of all estate agents will go out of business.'

However, despite the collapse of the sales side of the business, Mr Vandermolen said the lettings management division was booming.

The news follows that from other estate agents including Kinleigh, Folkard and Hayward who are closing their London offices.

Meanwhile, estate agent Savills is due to report its first-half results later this week and is expected to announce that transactional volumes have slumped by 45% compared with a year ago.

Savills, which is one of the largest property agents in the UK, has undergone a cost-cutting programme which involved redundancies and the reduction in its advertising budget.

Other estate agents feeling the force of the housing slowdown include Halifax, who recently announced it is to close 53 of its estate agency branches following a decline in the number of house sales made over the last 12 months.

Furthermore, the new owner of estate agent chain Foxtons, private equity group BC Partners, has called in investment bank, NM Rothschild, to deal with a mountain of debt.

Chris Wood, president elect of the National Association of Estate Agents, hopes the "Darwinian" loss of agencies will leave us all better served. "When things are allegedly easy you get a lot of Johnny-come-latelys who think estate agency is an easy way to make money," he says. "It's those agents who are going out of business."

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Top 15 Free Classified Ads Sites for Selling and Renting Out Property

It is important to understand how online classified ads can really help with the sale of residential and commercial properties.

As recently as 2006, the property print classified business was in positive territory, up 20% for the industry. But with the housing slowdown in 2007 came an advertising collapse, too. Revenue from property classifieds was down as much as 40% in former boom markets like London and the South East. with some estate agents stuck in long term advertising contracts with local and national newspapers for featured property displays that no one's looking at.

Similarly property sales leads generated by property portals have plumetted. Figures show that sales enquiries generated by Find a Property as an example are down by over 70% on the same months in 2007. The share price for Rightmove is sinking.

If you now consider that visitors spend more time on eBay than on other sites.and moreover, time spent on the site is increasing year-over-year. Similarly, the share of internet users saying they had gone to online classified sites has grown by 10% since September 2005, when 22% of online users said they had used such sites.and that 32% of internet users turn to cyberspace for ads for things they may want to buy or sell, online classified ad or sites such as CraigsList, Gumtree, etc.

So, if you want to find the property buyers out there what are the issues? Print is down and out and the property portals can no longer deliver leads in the volume they used to. Meanwhile everyones looking for a bargain and trying to cut ou the middle man on CraigsList and Ebay.
You've got to be it in to win it and for that reason we recommend the following classifieds sites for your attention. Here's the top 15 Online Classifieds and Free Ads Sites for Selling and Renting Out Property

Hampstead estate agents banned

The OFT has made prohibition orders against two Hampstead estate agents banning them both from estate agency work.

Malcolm Green, a director of Greenfields Estate Agents and Gem Shevket, an employee of the same company, have been convicted of offences involving fraud or other dishonesty as referred to in the Estate Agents Act 1979. As a result the OFT consider them to be unfit to carry on doing estate agency work.

Mike Haley, OFT Director of Consumer Protection, said: 'This case again demonstrates that the OFT will take a hard line against estate agents who are unsuitable to continue working in the industry owing to their dishonesty.'

NOTES

1. Under section 3 of the Estate Agents Act 1979, the OFT can take action with a view to banning from estate agency work a person (and for the purposes of the Estate Agents Act 1979 this can also be a company or a partnership) who has been convicted of certain specified offences such as fraud, or other dishonesty or violence, or who has committed racial or sexual discrimination in the course of estate agency work, or who has failed to comply with the requirements placed on estate agents by the Estate Agents Act 1979 and its associated regulations ('the Act'), or who has engaged in specified undesirable practices, if an adjudicator finds that the person in question is unfit to act as an agent.

2. Before a prohibition order is issued, the person concerned has the right to make representations to the OFT as to why the order should not be made. If these representations are unsuccessful, an appeal against the determination to make an order can be made to the Tribunals Service, an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice.

3. Adjudicators issue and determine prohibition and warning notices under the Act. They do so on behalf of the OFT, but make individual and independent decisions based upon the contentions in a notice, the evidence attached to a notice and the representations of those to whom a notice is addressed. Representations may be made in writing and at an oral hearing.

4. An adjudicator determined that Mr Green and Mr Shevket were unfit to practice as estate agents. A prohibition order was made in respect of Mr Shevket on 26 March 2008. The order came into force on 23 April 2008. A prohibition order was made in respect of Mr Green on 30 July 2008. The order against Mr Green does not come into operation until the period in which any appeal could be made under section 7(1) of the Act has expired. Mr Green has until 27 August 2008 to lodge such an appeal. (Mr Shevket did not exercise his right of appeal).

5. After an order has been made, the person affected can at any time, and on payment of a fee, currently £2,500, apply to the OFT for the order to be varied or revoked.

6. The Act covers anyone who, in the course of business, is engaged in 'estate agency work'. This means introducing to someone else a person who wishes to buy, sell or lease land or property, and/or being involved in negotiating the subsequent deal. The work must be in the course of business, whether as employer or employee, and as a result of instructions from a client. The land or property may be commercial, industrial, agricultural or residential.

Property Swap Shop: UK Property Swap Website

Property Swap Shop is a new website dedicated to home swapping.

The website soft launched at the beginning of August 2008 and throughout the course of August they will be adding more and more functionality in order to make Property Swap Shop the Number 1 destination for all home swappers.

Estate agent may quit job after kidnap ordeal

A real estate agent who police say was lured to a remote property and left battered and bruised in an attempted kidnapping is weighing up her future in the industry.

The agent is recovering at home with her husband, children and other family members, and is devastated at the prospect of one day having to face her alleged attacker in court.
Her husband told The Dominion Post yesterday that the thought of giving evidence at any trial would be traumatic for his wife.

"She does not want to see that man. None of us want to see his face in a courtroom, to be fair, and she wants to be spared having to give evidence at the trial that could be months down the track."

He said she had yet to decide if she wanted to return to her job. "We will have to see how the next few weeks go and how she is, but at this stage she is not that keen about going back to it. You wouldn't be, would you?"

The woman, 41, was attacked on Saturday after arranging to meet a prospective buyer at a rural Carterton property, police said. The agent, who did not know the man, said she was assaulted and tied up at the house but managed to break free during a struggle, stabbing the man with a screwdriver.

Read more

Estate Agents Marketing on YouTube and Facebook

YouTube and Facebook have now become the latest tools to buy and sell properties, with agents showcasing videos featuring property on these websites.

According to Corine Richards from Coulson Real Estate in Inala, who runs marketing training for real estate agents, YouTube was one of the best ways to sell real estate.

“One of the problems with virtual tours is that they lack personality. With YouTube you can add a song as well as area shots and area profiles," The Courier Mail quoted Richards, as saying.

"And you can send a link anywhere, and it is quick and it is free. You can also link it to a MySpace page where you can advertise a lot of properties."

Ray White agent Chris Hinds is one more tech-savvy agents turning to cyberspace. He produces high-quality moving videos, which include a description of the property, narrated in his voice.
Later, the property videos are uploaded on to his website and on to YouTube.

YouTube proved to be beneficial to him because it was easy to use, cheap and gave him access to international buyers.

Websites claim massive debts from Estonian real estate agents

In recent months Estonia’s leading real estate online portals have closed hundreds of accounts of real estate agents because of debts.

Tarvo Teslon, CEO of Diginet that runs the popular kv.ee website, told Eesti Päevaleht that the company has closed about 40 accounts in the last two months. “The business of real estate agents has dried up and they cannot pay monthly subscriptions so we have no other option,“ said Teslon who adds that this is about 10 percent of all accounts used by real estate agents to advertise their property in kv.ee.

Teslon said that typically real estate companies owe between a few thousand to EEK 40,000. “We will close the account when the debt amounts to EEK 15,000,” he said.

According to Teslon, in most cases the accounts belonged to one-man companies, but the list of debtors includes some large real estate companies with offices in several Estonian towns.
Teslon said that the situation became notably tougher at the beginning of the year and continues to deteriorate.

Karin Noppel, marketing manager of City24, agrees. “The work of real estate brokers is very tough right now and this can be seen in our financial results,” she said, but refused to say how much the company owes. “We hope that this is not a long-term problem.”

Real estate analyst Tõnu Toompark said that the main problem in Tallinn is not the price of square metre, but a sharp decline in the number of transactions. “My estimations show that prices in central Tallinn have been increasing, not falling,” said Toompark, adding that prices outside the centre have been falling.

London Estate Agents Sells Over 200 Pubs

Figures from London licensed property agent Paramount Investments reveal that the firm sold almost 200 pubs in the past 12 months.

The company is Admiral Tavern's preferred seller and has sold 192 pubs from its single branch in West Hampstead through its team of six sales agents.

Paramount, which entered the UK pub market in 2005, sells sites without sales particulars and not necessarily as a going concern — although some sites are still trading at the point of exchange.

The lack of detailed information about sites means that deals can be made extremely quickly.

This method of "bricks and mortar" selling suits alternative-use deals and quick disposals of closed or poorly-performing units.

Managing director Mark Greig said that while the company always hopes pubs will continue to trade, the current climate means that some pubs will inevitably be lost.

He said: "We can't confirm how many have changed use because after deals have gone through it's out of our hands — but it's a significant proportion.

"The figures represent exceptional performance from a firm with just one office. I ascribe our success to a pro-active approach to selling property, backed by a national database of potential buyers."

The firm is most active in the south selling 52 pubs in London and 34 in the south-east. It also has a strong presence in the north-west and the midlands, selling 43 and 37 respectively.