Estate Agents deliver best sale outcomes

Earlier this month, Goldman Sachs, the New-York-based global investment bank, referred to South Africa as “the big emerging market story of 2018”.

This is top-drawer acknowledgement, and reinforcement, of a groundswell of optimism that has been building up, both at home and abroad. And it has come about as the new political leadership of South Africa is settling in under the Cyril Ramaphosa Presidency. It certainly bodes well for sentiment in a Johannesburg Northern Suburbs and Sandton homes market that has been flat-lining for far too long – until now. Furthermore, as this milestone year continues to roll out, more and more positive indicators are pointing to an increasingly solid uptick in South Africa’s residential property market. 

Vibes and action

Frontline estate agents are certainly picking up the early vibes and are gearing for more action. On that note, it has been said that: “One of the top 10 things to do when selling your home is to call an estate agent. He or she will handle the rest!” 

The point is that use of experienced, professional, full-service real estate consultants / agents remains by far the best-outcome route to selling a home – particularly at the upper end of the market. There is clearly no doubt that the digital era has made the search process far quicker and easier by way of an instantly accessible shop window for buyers of residential property. That is the easiest part of the process.

The real work lies in securing a hassle-free home sale, at the right price, and within the right time frame. That is the domain of the professional marketers. And it requires specialist skills.

Points to ponder

Home sellers – particularly aspirant “do-it-yourselfers” – should bear the following points in mind:

• Homes sold by professional agents are almost always at a price premium to those self-sold by owners.
• A desirable property in an active market must be priced right. Agents can do that because they know the neighbourhoods and their pricing structures.
• Agents are proficient at screening candidates to ensure that they are genuinely interested buyers and not “window shoppers”. This is a big time-saving skill.
• Best prices are invariably achieved off a healthy platform of buyer competition. Only seasoned agents can create this effectively.
• Deals can stumble, or even implode, on buyer / seller personality clashes. Agents are good at filtering the emotion out of the process.
• Mistakes can be costly. Agents know their way around the paperwork of deals and the legal issues that could arise.
• Agents are held to strict professional and legal standards.
• Attention to detail is built into agent DNA. They do extensive preparation and background work on the sales mandates they handle.

Buyers and sellers flying solo directly at each other doesn’t work – not least because too much emotion and lack of experience is involved, which often leads to aggression, alienation, a derailed transaction… and tears. Agents, by contrast, are impassive and are thus well placed to filter buyer / seller emotion out of the transaction.