Eden Blog
Last month we explored the things that sellers should be thinking about when they’re deciding who to trust to sell their most valued asset, their home.
There are the visible and tangible things, such as the sales office, the staff, the website, the photography, the brochures, the Eden Local presence and so on. Then there’s the invisible stuff, the part of the iceberg that’s under the water.
As we saw last time, this includes local knowledge, ‘bigger picture’ advice based on a grasp of the national perspective, a detailed consideration of your personal circumstances and objectives, an honest and realistic evaluation process with a plan for review, the best in marketing materials and a great website presence which gives sellers the best visuals and buyers what they need.
The Internet is the No 1 choice for advertising property. Eden recognised this early on and has developed our website to give our clients a marketing package which ranks alongside the best anywhere.
We can reach housebuyers wherever they are. Last month nearly 25% of the visits to our website came from outside the UK. In the UK, just under 20% of visits come from London. This reflects the aspirational nature of our area and our ability to reach those people.
So, once a property is on the market, the initial leads come from a number of sources - our websites, ‘for sale’ boards, our buyer database, staff talking to visitors to our office etc.
Personal, email or phone contact with buyers in the market is vital. Everyday we talk to prospective house buyers, spending time to establish what they’re looking for and their buying position. This information has to be maintained by regular contact, as buyers’ needs change, or they find a property to buy. As a buyer, there’s nothing worse than receiving a load of out of date or irrelevant mail from estate agents.
Buyers range from serious cash buyers through to people who turn out to be dreamers and hobby-viewers. In today’s market people are less likely to buy a property on a gut or emotional feeling. Instead, they have a comprehensive list of expectations and wishes, which often are ambitious or elusive. This means it takes a long time for a buyer to really understand what they want.
It’s also an opportunity for us. Our housing stock is very diverse and rather individual, so it can take a while for buyers to understand the market. We help in that process by putting ideas in front of them and giving information about housing stock and local geography. This generates interest, often in properties that they hadn’t even considered or known about.
We often say that the sign over our office should say “Estate Agents and Counsellors”, because of the time we spend advising, motivating and informing people. Our objective is to get the right people through the right doors. Someone who came in looking for a period cottage can end up going to look at a contemporary townhouse. The key to this is looking at this through buyers’ eyes – every seller, of course, feels how very saleable their house is! Our role is to create positive and honest impressions to help buyers. This is especially true when dealing with buyers from outside the area.
Viewings are the next and most important element of the house sale. A feature of our ‘patch’ is the large area we cover and the distance between places. An estate agent in an urban area would probably find all his properties within a few miles of his office. Our viewings service is a serious commitment of time and money. Our experienced staff offer buyers their knowledge of the individual property, and comparative properties, and knowledge of the location, setting and amenities.
It can be a frustrating experience trying to sell the house that you know well and which has great appeal. It can be frustrating to deal with buyers who enthuse on a viewing and then either won’t respond to requests for feedback or say ‘it’s not for us’ without further explanation. It’s no less frustrating as an agent, after all the time and effort put into creating and carrying out each viewing!
Following up on viewings and getting feedback for clients is vital, as is ongoing support, advice on pricing and market conditions and giving insight into the comments and behaviour of buyers. It’s a key part of what we do for our clients. There are many sellers who never hear from their agent once their house is on the market – we believe in having frank discussions with our clients on a regular basis. It’s all part of the Eden culture of ‘client first’.
Once someone is seriously interested in a property, then comes the offer, or offers if you’re lucky. This is where we can really earn our money. Asking an estate agent who does the negotiations on your house sale can be a very revealing question; you may find that a junior or in experienced person can deal with this vital and responsible step. At Eden all our negotiations are handled by seasoned negotiators and overseen in every case by one of our directors.
This is where we finalise our mission to do the best for our client. We often earn our fee literally at this stage, by achieving a sale price above the offers made - the best that can be achieved, and sometimes at a level above expectations.
In the current market, timing is vital. Several sellers have missed out on sales because they were too slow to respond to an offer, or insisted on trying to secure too high a price. It’s a buyer’s market and a buyer can easily change their mind. So, sometimes there has to be some frank talking with clients. If you are serious about selling, you have to deal with what is in front of you, the bird in the hand, and that’s where it’s important to factor in the related purchase and the reasons for moving. It requires a wider view, and that’s what we give.
As part of the offer process, we confirm the buyer’s ability to finance the purchase and then issue a note of the sale to the parties’ solicitors. The legal process is often laborious and time consuming; we have a member of our team who follows each transaction, monitoring progress. Eden has a unique offering here - our Managing Director is also a Solicitor with extensive experience of the conveyancing process and how to get things moving. Through his involvement with a specialist conveyancing law firm on our doorstep, we arrange the conveyancing for our selling clients. This makes a big difference, a ‘one stop shop’, having clear lines of communication to try and complete the legal process as soon as possible.
But, the job’s not over until the contracts are exchanged and then completed. In the intervening period we often have to deal with issues on surveys and assist buyers to conclude the transaction. Our experienced staff, with a lawyer in the business, resolve these on a routine basis.
With the sale is completed, sellers’ money in the bank and keys handed over the buyer, we look forward to the reward for our efforts. Remember, for us the process is speculative - we don’t get a penny until the sale completes – but the key difference with Eden is the effort, commitment and passion that goes into making things happen. This makes for happy endings for selling clients and a satisfied buyer who will be our client next time around.
Here's a the first of a series of articles in the Eden Local, this one penned by Lee Quinn ....
Most of our readers are familiar with our Eden Estate Agents’ property gallery. Nick Miller is the managing director and co-owner of Eden Estate Agents who, with his wife Helen, set up the business over six years ago. Nick and I met up to talk about his work. As a result, I found out more about the family behind the business and for the readers of Eden Local, some information about the current climate and what estate agents actually do.
Eden Estate Agents is a regular advertiser in the publication and in last month’s Eden Local property gallery were images of kitchens and the heading was ‘We sell Kitchens…?’. After Dale at Eden Valley Windows and Kitchens got over the initial shock and grasped the concept, the second line was ‘…and we sell the houses that come with them too’. It made me think about what is the norm in what an estate agent does and what is different about Eden Estate Agents. The property gallery with just images of kitchens, is part of a much bigger picture of the Eden approach, which I learnt from Nick. It is about his business, the unique nature of it, the attention to detail, the personal communication, the passion for what is presentation and establishing people’s trust when being handed their most prized possession, their home.
In the start to 2012, you might not see so many images of properties in the Eden Estate Agents’ gallery, but rather more of an insight into why Eden Estate Agents are simply different. They continue to operate as a family team with experienced staff, most of whom have been with them since they opened the doors to their offices. They deliver a fresh approach to an industry which is seen by some as a simple exercise of putting a picture in a window, 2 sides of A4 and a big cheque at the end.
In one of my most recent discussions with Nick, I hit him with this commonly-held perception and the way I have witnessed this first hand. I felt that my world, for a moment, was in the hands of a complete stranger who made me feel like they were doing me a favour, rather than offering me a great service. This first article is the opening of a door to showing an experience, which shouldn’t make your blood boil, shouldn’t make you feel under pressure and shouldn’t make you think that it’s all out of your hands. Instead when that moment arrives, you’ll feel comfortable, confident and reassured.
Nick likened Eden’s work to an iceberg. Not something that sends ships on their maiden voyage to the bottom of the Atlantic but the fact that a large part of what Eden does for its clients lies beneath the surface. If you don’t know or don’t ask what your estate agent does, do you really know what you’re letting yourself in for. In simple terms, No. What you see is what everyone sees - with the density of pure ice being about 920 kg/m³ and that of sea water is about 1025 kg/m³ - one-ninth of the volume of an iceberg is above water. The shape of the underwater portion can be difficult to judge by looking at the portion above the surface. So, on the surface one estate agent looks very much like another and it’s the stuff you don’t see that really matters to the way that you and your property are looked after and the best outcome achieved.
The financial significance and emotional stress involved in a house move are serious, whether buying or selling. For example, some us will have found what we thought was ‘the property’ with an estate agent, but later found out it was not quite what we thought, due to poor visual presentation and lack of core information - a lack of effort and lack of transparency . The shift from what we know, to the new, is daunting enough without the added pressures arising from a superficial approach to selling houses. The amount at stake and the level of energetic commitment required, is almost impossible to describe for many. Being an estate agent in the current climate, I imagine to be quite competitive. An estate agent needs stock and to show it to buyers, but the complete range of all Eden Estate Agents’ offering cannot be seen just by looking in the shop window, nor is it displayed merely on a page or two of poor quality paper.
Websites are the marketing network for finding and evaluating properties, but not for physically buying. Therefore, the performance of the network and the money and time invested in the estate agent’s own website is paramount – in attracting buyers. Don’t just go by an established name and assume it’ll be OK. Look at the properties on each estate agent’s website and look at the details and see the difference. Can you see the property? Is it just a side elevation of a wall? Is it about 10 or 15% of the photo? Is it taken on a dreary day? When was the picture taken?
Attention to detail with professional photographs and a whole gallery of images for the property? These are the people who have invested the time needed to get the right image. We don’t live in a lopsided goldfish bowl, so why present it in that way? As Nick said to me, you can’t predict the weather so you can’t always get what you need first time, but so many agents take the image of the day rather than re-book, go back and get the best photograph. Put some thought and invest some effort into it.
On the website you are looking for a property, but why is it that some estate agents have a full set of details on one property and not on another? The answer here is not, ‘it’s just come on the market’. Have a look at some properties apart from your own. Is everything listed like floor plans, EPC, at least 10 images? In my research, I noticed inconsistencies where on some website different properties were treated different – some had full details and others did not. Why is that? Could it just be a lack of commitment and investment of time? Has the agent really offered you the complete 360 of the area? The technology is there. Street View is one - you can walk or virtually drive up the road and down the street.
If you’re selling, the question is, do you check out the estate agent you have chosen and how do you do this? Is the estate agent giving you the full service? It’s not always about what it costs, it’s also about service and professional personal people. It’s not every day that your average person will be in a position to sell or buy a property for what now amounts to several hundred thousand pounds, so it’s important to get it right. What are their service standards – will they advise you about the market and about what’s going on? Will they keep you in the picture? Will they offer you any other advice than to reduce the price?
I would hope that you are now getting an understanding of where Eden Local will be going in future months. Eden Estate Agents want you to know what they are striving to do. I will be looking at what they do and what everyone else is doing.
The bottom line is the bottom line. You pay a lot and you should get the full package, value for money.
My thanks to Nick for this introduction. We are going to look at estate agents’ performance and service this 2012. A book isn’t always judged by its cover, but never the less, it’s what catches your eye and then within, it’s capturing a whole new experience if what follows is as good as the cover.
At Eden Estate Agents as I see it, they don’t just stick you in a window. You won’t see them doing just what everyone else does. That might not be the commonplace way, but it’s their way to a better experience and a better result.
Next month I’ll be talking to Nick again. His hobby for many years has been photography and he was a solicitor before he became an estate agent. These are just two reasons for the Eden ways of doing things – are these a bonus for sellers when considering who they choose to sell their most valued asset? In the coming months we’ll look in detail at Eden presentation, the Eden personal touch and the Eden added value, to see what a real difference they make to you.
Often we have people relocating to our area wanting to do B&B, looking for a lifestyle change. In the Eden Valley, visitors have access to the unspoilt local countryside and also easy access to the Lake District, whilst being away from the traffic of the National Park. Broom House at Long Marton is superbly located, on the edge of the village, with the majestic backdrop of the Pennines. A good sized period property with a very friendly atmosphere, it is rated 4* Silver by Visit Britain property. It also comes with a paddock and plenty of parking.Click here for the full details.
There are some properties where the outward appearance doesn't do justice to what a house offers both in terms of the space it has, and the way it is presented. Of our houses for sale in Cumbria, Barium House in Kirkby Stephen is an exceptional family home, just a few minutes' walk from the centre of the town and close to local schools. What you can't see from the outside .... is the large living kitchen at the rear which opens into a large stylishly landscaped garden overlooking the playing fields ... or the overall exciting presentation of the house as a whole. Have a fresh look ...
Now substantially reduced in price, The Larches is a real character property with a large beautiful garden, in a quiet backwater of a popular village, with scope to create a unique family home. With four bedrooms and two receptions, it needs updating and some internal alterations - with a small kitchen and morning room which would combine to create a dining kitchen; you could also include the current garage area to create something really special. There is no upward chain. A real opportunity.
It’s a Buyers’ Market but where are the real buyers?
The Land Registry tell us that the average price of a detached or semi-detached house in our county fell by over 8% over the period from August 2008 to June this year, with ups and downs along the way.
For the last 4 months these average prices have remained pretty constant.
Interest rates are at historically lowest levels with Bank rate at 0.5%.
Our clients are keen to sell and prepared to negotiate on their prices.
We have seen an influx of interesting, quality houses onto our books in recent weeks, giving buyers are all price levels something good to look at.
Lots of browsers are looking at property on the Internet and viewings continue in recent months at a consistent level.
And yet ... the number of house sales in Cumbria continuing to be at low levels, according to the Land Registry - at less than half of the levels in 2007.
So, if you take a long term view, is now the time to buy?
Strangely, buyers seem reluctant to make offers. If you are a serious buyer, we have serious and motivated sellers who want to negotiate. So, come and talk to us about what you’re looking for and we can introduce you to some great properties.
Here’s a thing .. everyone’s an expert these days, especially when it comes to selling property. But the constant press coverage of the property market and endless information and statistics available on the internet, how do you find out what’s really happening in our area?
We are grounded in the local area and spend our time talking to sellers and buyers in and around our patch, bringing deals together to get people to their destination. We take note of what is going on nationally - we sell about 40% of our clients’ properties to buyers coming from outside Cumbria; we find out what motivates them and what there views are.
Our individual approach to individual people about individual properties gives us an informed and clear understanding of local market conditions.
If you’re thinking of selling and want to find a way through the haze, call Gillian Charlton on 01768 869000 to arrange a personal consultation with one of our directors, without obligation.
Well. it's a while since our last post ... we've just been busy some exciting new stock onto our books, which you'll have seen hitting our website ... and continuing. At all price points there are some quality properties coming your way and it's fun getting them onto the market, with some great photography, to give buyers some new choices. If you're a buyer and you're not registered to receive details as they hit the web register now to receive our email alerts and save the effort of browsing! If you're thinking of selling, see how we are doing things and call one of our directors on 01768 869000 for a current view on the market.
This weekend we've launched a new range of service packages to cater for different seller's needs. Sellers can use our unique and dynamic selling brand and website plus key elements of our marketing package, tailored to a price that suits their pocket.
We've always offered premium estate agency to all home sellers, at a fixed fee which included all our key services. It's clear that some people don't want all the bells and whistles, but do want good quality presentation and service. So, so use a motoring analogy, you can now have a Mini One or a Mini Cooper Works, depending on your taste and your budget. One thing is always there .. the Eden commitment to top flight presentation and negotiating great deals.
To find out how this will work for you make a valuation appointment by calling Gillian Charlton on 01768 869000.
We recently sold a small property which had a spiral staircase. The property had been on the market for a number of months with one of our competitors. They felt that the spiral staircase was a negative element of the property and suggested that buyers would want to remove it. When we took over the marketing, we changed that negative into a positive and created photography which showed how effective it was within the space of the house. We sold the house in two weeks - and had two buyers after it! They loved the spiral staircase.
We treat every property like that - look at the positives and create photography and marketing material which makes the most of whatever it has. Contact us for an appraisal of your property, without obligation. Call our Associate Director Gillian Charlton on 01768 869000 or email us.
The power of our visual presentation and national website marketing takes us into new territory this week. Today we have launched marketing of our first prestige property in the Keswick area - the superb How End. Eden Estate Agents is proud to offer this Keswick property for sale; our managing director invites enquiries from other sellers in the area between Penrith and Keswick who wish to see their own property shown to buyers in the Eden way. With monthly visits to our website from all over the UK now approaching 5,500, contact us for a confidential discussion.
Hey, we've upped the promotion of the Eden brand and what it means for sellers - our focus on the presentation of properties is vital to get interest from web browsers and to generate viewings. This seems to be filtering through to the number of people looking at our website .. it's up 15% in just a month. How can you expect to sell your most valuable investment without investing in preparation and presentation, especially when competition for buyers' money is so keen? What do you think? Let us have your thoughts
Maybe something is stirring in the undergrowth of our Penrith property market .. we like to keep track of what's happening on our website and the number of visits is back up to just under 5,000 in the last month. That's got to be good news for our clients!
Our online promotion of Eden properties in the Eden Valley Messenger have begun, with our Property of the Week showcasing one of our quality homes for sale. We've recently taken on the sponsorship of the Lifestyle Section of the online interactive website which brings local news and happenings, on a weekly basis, to everyone in the Eden Valley and anyone having an interest in it. A great way for us to let people know what we're about!
The real bonus with this lovely period cottage is the additional secret garden just along the road .. take a look
Warcop Mill at Brookside, Warcop in the Eden valley is a stylish development of eight new family homes, to be built by Paul Elliott Homes Limited.
Not only are they built to current standards with renewable source heating systems (air source heat pumps), bespoke window and door joinery and double glazing with Pilkington K glass, but they also combine traditional materials with a contemporary finish. Even the boundary enclosures are an appealing mix of stone walling and wooden fencing.
We’re really pleased to have Phase 1 of this top quality development on our books. It consists of a 2-bedroomed, a 3-bedroomed and two 4-bedroomed homes (Unit 3 and Unit 4) and we’d encourage anyone wanting to buy a family home in Eden to book a viewing of these properties.
We've just added a unique cottage to our portfolio of rural properties. Detached with 3 bedrooms set in large gardens, handy for Penrith and Carlisle. Click here for the full story.
We’ve launched an advertising campaign in the Herald, the main newspaper for the Eden Valley. We’ve always avoided the standard style of property advertising and we hope that you like our different approach.
Thanks to Sally Seed of Stoneleigh Communications at Orton for the concept and words and to David Boyd and his team at Eden Graphics in Penrith for creating the designs.
The advertisements are designed to drive buyers and sellers to the new website and also to show off our approach to the presentation of properties. As our sellers know, we take a lot of time over photography for the properties on our books, making the most of their character and space and investing in exceptional presentation.
We’ve supported the local Penrith NSPCC fundraising group for a couple of years now and we sponsored the champagne reception at this year’s event, held at Rheged on Friday 12 November.
“The Rheged reception foyer was emblazoned with our logo and strapline,” said Nick Miller of Eden Estate Agents, “and we were really pleased to be able to contribute to the evening in such a tangible way. We’ve since heard from the organiser, Issy McMillan, and the total raised on that evening has come to more than £13,000 which is a brilliant result for everyone involved.”
New instructions today; an excellent 4 bedroom Georgian family home in Newton Reigny - including an undeveloped annexe with exciting scope for dependent relative accommodation, home business, expansion of the house. Also large walled garden and paddock of 4+ acres. A rare combination. Call Nick Miller on 07785 346685 for further details.
We’ve launched our new website today and there are several features that will make a big difference for our selling clients and browsing buyers in the coming months. This is also the first time that most of our clients will see our new slogan. So, Eden Estate Agents now clearly state that they’re “Working to achieve a great deal” and the website is now working hard too. It includes several new features such as:
- an address search to help buyers find a property that they’ve passed in the area or in a particular village
- street view links to help buyers find a property and see more of its surrounding area too
- email alerts and a My Eden area where clients can create their own shortlist, records
and feedback.
Our “old” website has done a great job in recent years and we liked “a fresh and innovative approach to selling your home” as a slogan but we felt that both could work harder for us, telling you a bit more about what we do, how we do it and why.
“We wanted to tell people that we work hard on selling their properties and on negotiating sales,” said Director, Helen Miller, “and we also liked the ambiguity of ‘great deals’. We negotiate good prices for sellers and great deals for buyers and keep a professional balance between the two. We know only too well that everyone has to be happy to achieve a great deal.”
