Estate Agency Reforms: What Agents Need to Know

The government wants to change the way homes are bought and sold.

Now, none of them are set in stone. Some of these proposals will most likely change or be delayed and most might not happen at all.

Agents would be daft to ignore it.

Because while the headlines are all about faster sales, fewer fall-throughs and less stress for consumers, the reality for agents is pretty simple.

It means more work.

The proposals include:

• More information being gathered before a property is listed
• Upfront sales packs, potentially including searches and condition reports
• Buyers and sellers committing earlier in the process
• A new Code of Practice for agents
• Mandatory qualifications being considered
• More digital checks, documents and property logbooks

Personally, I don't think that is a bad thing.

Anything that rewards proper estate agency over cutting corners is a good thing in my book. But it will expose a few business models.

If your approach is to win the instruction, stick a board up and worry about the details later, you could find life getting harder. Good agents already do the work upfront.

In July, agents across The Property Experts achieved an average of 99.65% of asking price.

That comes from our agents doing the job properly. When it's your client, your name and your income on the line, you tend to care a bit more.

• You do the work upfront
• You tell the seller the truth
• You chase the sale because nobody else is going to care about it as much as you do.

That is exactly the kind of estate agency these reforms appear to be pushing towards.

So here is the question employed agents should be asking.

If more compliance, training and responsibility land on your desk, will you be paid more for taking them on?

Or will you just be expected to do more while somebody else keeps the reward?

The reforms may change.

The real question is whether they should still be doing it for somebody else.

We recently sat down to talk through the Reform Roadmap in our on-demand webinar, bringing together some of the best people in the industry to break down what these proposed changes could actually mean for agents and their clients.