House Revolution predicted the decline in Estate Agency high street shopping some years ago now new research by Colliers International has shown that whilst all retail sectors are suffering to varying degrees, it is the traditional high street that is experiencing the most pain, since it is being buffeted by a ‘perfect storm’ of stalled national economic growth, accelerating on-line spending, multiple retailer branch consolidation and impact from both in-town shopping centres and out of town retail, including the supermarkets.

Chris Sargisson, House Revolution’s Founder commented on the research: We recognise that home buyers search for property online. This means estate agents, like us can now afford to operate from much lower cost premises  making the High Street office a high cost branding opportunity to woo new vendors. This ultimately increases the fees to the house seller yet adds no value in helping to sell property.      

Colliers International has shown that high street footfall, excluding Central London, has fallen, on average, by more than 10% in just three years and that footfall on primary high streets has, on average, fallen at double the rate of that for secondary streets, albeit from a much higher base. 

Colliers report suggest that to halt the decline of the high street as a retail destination, falling footfall levels have to be reversed. This will require an improvement in the economic fortunes of country and consumer. In addition, national planning policy must continue to support in-centre retail development over out of centre. High streets must also be made more desirable places at which to shop, or carry out other activities, with particular attention being given to streets that find themselves out of favour following the opening of a new purpose built shopping centre. 

For a successful and lower cost approach to house selling contact House Revolution on 08450 0170600 Or visit www.houserevolution.com

The OFT has (yesterday) launched a consultation on draft guidance to estate agents and property developers which aims to help them comply with the law when they handle sales of property and land in the UK.

It follows the OFT’s Home Buying and Selling Study which found that many estate agents said the industry needed more guidance on the law.

The guidance dentifies examples of trading practices that could breach the regulations as well as practical steps that businesses can take to comply with the law when they: advertise for new business, including through flyers and newspaper adverts, provide advice to new clients and take new instructions, market properties, including when property details are put on internet portals, negotiate and make sales, deal with complaints.

The breaches discussed in the guidance include:

Giving misleading information to consumers: Misleading information may be given verbally, in writing or visually. This could include, for example:

• Misleading information given over the telephone or in the course of

discussions with prospective clients before taking instructions from them.

• Misleading details in property particulars or other marketing material, for

example newspaper advertisements, web pages and brochures.

• Misleading photographs, video clips, floor plans, artist impressions, models or

show homes.

A few examples of ‘misleading actions’:

• Advertising that you are bound by a code of conduct, but then failing to comply with its requirements.
• Making statements in your advertisements that exaggerate your sales record, or imply that your business has a presence in a particular area when it does not, or has more offices than it actually has.
•  Distributing leaflets to homes claiming that you have buyers lined up for these sorts of properties when this is not true.
•  Recommending an asking price in the market appraisal that is unrealistic in order to acquire the instruction.
•  Misusing words or phrases like ‘New Instruction’, ‘New’ or ‘New on the Market’.
•  Using out-of-date photographs that no longer provide a true depiction of the property, or significantly altering images to omit uncomplimentary features.
•  Falsely claiming or creating the impression that property for sale has met standards, accreditation, guarantees, etc., when it has not, for example saying property has planning permission when it has not.
•  Making a selling point when you have contrary information (for example ‘secluded garden’ when there is a public right of way through the garden, ‘peaceful area’ when a bypass is planned close to the property, ‘nice views of surrounding countryside’ when there is a power plant next to the property, ‘off street parking’ when the parking is on a public highway).

 House Revolution welcomes these changes. Since we launched in 2007 our focus has always been honesty, transparency and value for money. We hope guidance from the OFT will help support our behavior.

For more information on our service call our friendly team on : 0845 017 6060  

The poor state of the UK economy continues to bite. More well known brands are going to the wall – clothing brands, electronics companies, kitchen manufacturers, even Thornton’s are pulling off the high street. When no-one’s buying chocolate you know things are bad!

All this gloom and doom in the headlines includes news that the housing market has slowed again and yet not a single estate agent seems to have been affected, in fact, they appear to be springing up all over the place. How can this all add up?

According to a recent article in the Guardian, in some parts of London estate agents only need to sell one house a year to keep themselves in Armani suits and Gucci loafers, because of the levels of commission they earn on high value homes. How can that be equitable?

So while other parts of the high street wilt, estate agents survive because the consumer is being given a bad deal and they are largely getting away with it. Or they have until now.

House Revolution is a new breed of estate agent and a real alternative to the high street agent. We do absolutely everything a traditional agent does, but for half the cost. Our normal fee is 0.75% + VAT, which is half what a typical agent charges, and we still have the option of a flat fee of £999+VAT if you pay up front.

If you like a free valuation of your home or just like us to start marketing your home, please call our customer service team on 0845 017 6060.

As the local housing market continues to struggle to generate any volume of sales, it may be tempting to believe that another agent’s grass could be greener. And I’m sure they will each tell you that they have people ready and waiting to buy a home just like yours!

When the market is slow, as it is currently, you just have to be patient and wait for that elusive buyer to come along. If your buyer is out there, they will find you through the combination of Rightmove, Zoopla, FindaProperty and all the other marketing that agents typically do. Swapping agents doesn’t really improve your chances of finding a buyer, it just means that at the point the buyer finds you, you’ll happen to be with a different agent. It’s the housing equivalent of a game of pass the parcel – it’s the agent that has your house at the time the music stops that wins.

While there are so many agents vying for so few properties, agents will behave badly and provoke home sellers to switch away from their existing agent.

Unless you are unhappy with the level of service you are receiving or maybe another agent is genuinely offering something different – a lower fee and better service perhaps (hint hint) – we would encourage you not to switch.

Swapping agents in the belief that they will have buyers that another doesn’t is perhaps a little misguided. And, you may take the parcel away from the agent just before that buyer comes knocking on their door!

Start selling your home with House Revolution and save up to 50% compared with traditional agents fees, call our team on 0845 017 6060 for details or visit www.houserevolution.com

Four years later his business, House Revolution, employs 10 people and has sold more than £40m worth of property – including his own home.

And now he has his sights set on national growth and £1m turnover in 2012.

Mr Sargisson, whose background is in real estate and online businesses, says House Revolution is simple – by getting the customer more involved in the process through the internet they can see the costs of selling a home and see and control parts of the process themselves.

Through reducing overheads and fees by not having a chain of agency offices, the firm is also leaner than a traditional estate agency.

Mr Sargisson said the model is also based on use of technology, through the internet, cheaper marketing and because they are not tied geographically, having a larger pool of property to offer.

It is also aimed at the growing market of people looking to the internet to buy and sell homes.

“We recognise that customers work online theses days,” he said. “We shop, bank, book, Google, Twitter, Facebook, read, and find things all day on the internet.

“House Revolution has simply joined together the customer with the web. Because all our property needs to be uploaded to a variety of online suppliers (property websites) we create a unique secure account for every customer and its from that account that all activity is managed.

“It means a customer can log in and see, interact and comment on every activity that has happened on a given day in real time.

“And anything that we can do the customer can do also. Some vendors like to scan in photos and edit their house details.”

Mr Sargisson said after working on their model they began to push the business, a member of the National Association of Estate Agents, this year and turned over about £100,000.

Now they think it can work they want to expand it outside Norfolk and hope for turnover closer to £500,000 in 2011 and £1m in 2012

Artical can be found here http://tiny.cc/8zkij

We are not ‘online estate agents’. We are the New Breed of estate agents. A revolution for a whole industry.

Our business is estate agency therefore we are are estate agents and as such we do everything an estate agent is expected to do. We are members of the National Association of Estate Agents and regulated by the corporate ombudsman and OFT.

• We visit every house we sell
• We accurately value property
• We write the details
• We take the photos
• We put up For Sale boards
• We advertise on all the websites and we use the newspaper and operate an extensive mailing list
• We arrange viewings, do accompanied viewings if required, follow up and give feedback to vendors.
• We manage all offers and take the due diligent steps to check buyers credibility.
• We instruct solicitors and manage the sale to completion, dealing with chains, other agents, surveyors and key handling.

We charge £999+vat. No sale, No fee, No up-front payment.

House Revolution was built from a customers point of view (I was that customer.) I needed all of the activity on the list above because I didn’t have the time or skill to do it myself. We are not a DIY estate agent

We don’t behave like estate agents! Our business is model is built on three solid principles. Honesty, Transparency and Value For Money.

Honesty

To provide honesty we have broken down and questioned actions and behaviour that creates the reputation estate agents have not telling the truth. All our activity is supported by factual evidence. When advice given is the on bases of what benefits the customer NOT what benefits us along side making sure every customer is presented with all the options when faced with the decision that are only ever theirs to make.

Transparency

We recognise that customers work online theses days. We shop, bank, book, google, twitter, facebook, read, and find things all day on the internet. Estate agents have had a online revolution and its called rightmove, zoopla, homes24, primelocation and this is where most property is found, I would argue that every UK Estate agent is now an online agent!

House Revolution has simply joined together the customer with the web. Because all our property needs to be uploaded to a variety of online suppliers we create a unique secure account for every customer and its from that account that all activity is managed. We (HR) manage these account everyday and it means a customer can log in and see (and soon hear), interact and comment on every activity that has happened on a given day in real time. 24/7.. Its like ebay, Info such as:

• How many enquiry’s today?
• What was the feedback on my last viewing?
• What is my click rate on rightmove?
• Who has offered and what is the buyers situation?
• (and so on)

We always call customers with the updates and text the info as well but this is transparency in action ! We hide nothing, its all available in the customers account to see and react to. We hope to start a trial soon where we record all our phone calls so vendors can hear what is being said as well.

Because our whole system is available to ever customer anything that we can do the customer can do also. Some (not all) vendors like to scan in photos and edit their house details.

Lastly we have a wide variety of customers, some with no computer at all through to real geeks. Because we have a team of people working away in our office along side the web we can help anyone.

Value For Money

Our pricing is based on what it cost to sell a property NOT what it cost to run a chain of estate agents. This why Estate agents fees are high as they can survive on a low number of high value transactions.

We don’t feel its fair that the higher the property value the greater the fee. This week we sold a property for over a million pounds. The owner will save £20,000 in fees

We provide a marketing plan which includes a time scale for additional marketing if required. If the marketing is used we add the cost the bill IF the house sells.

We sell houses, help with  mortgages and solicitors services but dont sell needless gimmicks like 3D virtual high definition walk thoughts or glossy brochures.

4 years ago I had no option but to pay an estate agent £6000 to sell my house. I simply wanted to understand how my money was going to be spent. No one was able or willing to provide this essential info so I went about building a business that could do the job better, charge the correct fee and allow the consumers to become more involved in whole process.

Today my biggest challenge is not house sales. Whilst the market is hard going we have sold in excess of 40 million pounds of property over the last few years. Our marketing works !  

Launched on Bonfire night 4 years ago House Revolution, the Norwich based low cost estate agency group, is preparing to celebrate its Birthday with the fantastic news that a new report has positioned House Revolution as the 6th most successful in the UK .

The report, commissioned by The Big Property List, undertook a comparison of online agents looking at their prices, services, year established and the quality and popularity of their websites.

The quality of each online estate agent’s website was judged using an online tool known as Website Grader (WG) which compares various factors to give an overall score out of 100. The factors include online visibility, online popularity and the structure and features of the website.

Founder Chris Sargisson commented “This is great news for us, especially when you consider that shortly after the bonfire fireworks fizzled out four years ago so did the property market! To grow a successful business that delights its customers whilst saving them huge amounts in estate agency fees is a real credit to the team at House Revolution. Whilst we are very happy to take credit for the quality of our website, House Revolution is a fully rounded estate agency service, providing exactly the same service as every other estate agent, but at a more reasonable cost and, of course, we would say better!”

Managing Director Richard Savelli added, ” This past year has seen House Revolution double in size. To cope with this growth has meant recruiting more people as well as expanding our premises. We are expecting to grow by the same amount next year and we aim to be in the top three next time this survey is run.”

Interesting also is the Halifax report shows low transaction levels in the housing market and an increase in the number of properties available for sale. These two factors added together will be pushing down prices.

So, in summary prospects for the housing market remain uncertain and there are tax rises due and pay reviews will be modest to zero. That said with interest rates very low mortgage cost (if you can get one) remain low also

I’m naturally interested in what will become of all the Estate Agents out there who don’t seem to be getting this message and continue to open costly branches and fail to react to the likes of House Revolution. Time will tell.