Those of us who live in Harrogate will have seen a steady increase over the past few years, in the number of estate agent flyers posted through letter boxes. In more recent times letters are being sent to homeowners in various postcodes and following the erection of a “For Sale” board outside. The leaflets tend to be in the vein of offering to sell your home and disparaging the existing agent. It is also not unknown for such a letter to be received within two weeks of the homeowners instruction.
Our industry refers to this latter approach as “touting”.
Given all of the above we had the idea that we should tell everyone where Myrings stand.
In over 20 years of selling homes in Harrogate we have never touted our fellow agents clients. It is simply not the way we work. We have been amazingly successful over all these years with fantastic repeat business based on the referrals of previous clients, friends & professional associates without resorting to touting.
Instead we rely on our brand and reputation in the town to attract new business in both residential Sale & Lettings. We firmly believe that we serve our clients interests best by concentrating all our efforts and resources at selling/letting those properties we already have on our books, rather than chasing those of other agents.
Unfortunately some other agents, and we must stress not all, do not share our approach and there has been a flurry of touting letters being delivered to local property owners. We have even heard of some agents telephoning homeowners with a proposal or in rare circumstances even knocking on the door. Our view is that such touting is discourteous, unprofessional and counter – productive.
The overwhelming majority of our clients are annoyed by these sort of practices despite the fact that some of the correspondence is almost laughable. Do these agents think that homeowners believe that they have buyers lined up and desperate for their home or others in the same road?
Simple logic dictates that anyone frantically looking for a home could find one for themselves on Rightmove, OnTheMarket or by looking for a “For Sale” board during a drive by. Whilst on occasion some of our clients see the funny side, we are concerned that it can also be quite confusing/distressing for some more vulnerable vendors.
In summary and put quite simply; we don’t tout our fellow agents properties. Apart from the discourtesy of it all, harassing a home owner into changing his agent doesn’t start off the sales relationship on a good footing.
Our clients are those we want, have come to us, have chosen us for good solid reasons and are trusting us to do our best for them and who places a high value on our relationship with them.
We would love to know your thoughts on this, are you a seller and have received these kinds of flyers?
