Beware the estate agency who also handles lettings
Jonathan Waters, Managing Director of Jonathan Waters Estate Agents Limited, with two offices in Ipswich/two offices in Clacton, has very strong views about estate agents trying to handle both sales and lettings.
A number of years we purchased an estate agents which had both a sales department and a lettings department. Although we weren’t keen to undertake lettings the sellers would not split the two and we therefore reluctantly decided to give it a go.
Having had no previous experience of lettings we very quickly discovered the amount of time and effort required on the lettings side. After only a short period we sold the lettings department to another agent when we realised just how much it was distracting us from what we were best out which was selling houses.
There is no doubt at all that it dilutes the effectiveness of the sales side if the company is also trying to handle lettings as well as rentals eats up an unbelievable amount of time.
A number of agents have started up lettings departments during the serious downturn of 2008 as an understandable way of getting in extra money when things became incredibly tight. We took the brave decision not to do this so that there was no danger of losing our 100% focus on residential sales.
Now that the market is starting to pick up I am confident that a number of these estate agents are starting to regret the lettings business. When things were quiet on the sales side they may well have had sufficient time but no way would they be able to operate now without it seriously detracting from the concentration needed for residential sales.
At Jonathan Waters Estate Agents we simply have to sell to survive. We get no income from lettings, nor commercial properties, surveys, new homes, auctions or domestic energy assessments. A very high percentage of our income comes from the sale of the home therefore we must sell to survive.
As we are now one of the only estate agents in Ipswich/Clacton whose service is not diluted by trying to also run a lettings service then I am confident we can offer a much more focused approach which, combined with over 120 years estate agency experience between us, makes for extremely successful results.
So if you really want to get moving then contact us now for a free valuation and marketing appraisal or click here to book a valuation online.
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