Real estate agents focus too much on being tactically strong but are “strategically negligent”, according to a leading real estate coach.
Speaking at yesterday’s List Sell Negotiate conference, coach Josh Phegan said agents needed to be more strategic in what they wanted to achieve in their business.
“I think as an industry we are very focused tactically on how we get that next listing, what do we actually say to the consumer, how do we move into a position where we can actually help this buyer to buy?
“Ultimately, they need to be planning and thinking about scale and growth, so who are the types people that we want to be putting on, how are we going to handle more transactions, how are we going to provide a better level of service to the consumer.”
Agents also needed to consider whether they could carry out their strategy and achieve their goals in various market conditions.
“There is a great opportunity in the current marketplace but most importantly, there’s some significant challenges ahead. Be cautious of a market that’s going so well.
“There will be challenges and it’s really important that you have got the skills to adapt to changing market conditions when they occur.
Mr Phegan’s advice to agents was to be aware of the signs or indicators of what was happening in the marketplace.
“That’s not only the number of properties that are being sold [or] what are the reserves that are being set, but being really clear about the volume of transactions that are actually occurring and being close to your vendors so you’re speaking to them at least on a daily basis during the course on them being on the market.”
With the year coming to an end, agents needed to start thinking about putting stock on the market for the new year.
“Over the next seven to 10 days, up until the 25th of November, you can still be listing stock for this year for sale,” Mr Phegan said.
“After the next seven to 10 days there’s then going to be a massive shift in listing stock for 2014 and there are some really great ways to do that in the way you speak to vendors to explain the current market and the opportunities that are ahead.”
Mr Phegan said agents often didn’t realise how much attention was taken from them during the end of the year.
“What I’m suggesting is that they get more focus on the attention and more consciousness on what they want to achieve.”