Estate Agent Technology News

Virtual Tour Technology

mikegriffithsbiz — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:31:35 +0000

Virtual Tours are a proven “instruction getter”. Vendors really like them. Expert Agent members can even display Virtual Tours from their Rightmove adverts.

DIY Virtual Tour software hasn’t sold very well in the UK. Most agents outsource their VTs to third parties.

However, they are pretty easy to do. American supplier 3dvista has a range of products for virtual tours. I have downloaded and played with their trial software products and am quite impressed with the quality and the documentation.

If you decide to buy one, please let me know how you get on.

Stats You Can Rely On – How well are you doing?

mikegriffithsbiz — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:28:13 +0000

Expert Agent’s 1100 members represent a good cross section of the estate agency community.

With their help and consent we now produce live statistics on the 1st of each month showing the average applicant registrations, valuations, instructions, sales, viewings etc.

This has been picked up by several national newspapers as a good indication of the market because they are hooked directly to agents’ desktops.

Have a look at www.expertagent.co.uk/stats

Don’t forget to come back on or after the 1st of each month

Laptop / 3G Packages – A good deal?

mikegriffithsbiz — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:06:03 +0000

All the mobile phone operators have launched new Mobile Broadband package deals in the last few months.

These comprise a laptop (some are full-size, some are the Lilliputers featured in my last newsletter like the Asus model shown).

All come with a 3G data device – normally something that connects by USB. The prices range from £18 to £50 per month on a 2 year contract.

They are ideal for use with Expert Agent – allowing you to write up a new instruction on a vendor’s table or in the car then straight onto your website or Rightmove. One or two of the packages give you just a cash allowance to spend on the laptop of your choice.

Ideal in technology terms, but, is a package the best way of getting online on the move?

Watch out for the size of the data allocation with the bundled deals. Many only give 1gb of data per month and that’s probably not enough. If you shop around, you’ll easily get an unlimited 3G data card on its own for £10 per month on a 12 month contract. In fact we’re paying £6 per month with the 3 network for unlimited data. In turn, the laptops on offer are often low spec or poor selling items. You could create your own top-spec package deal for £300 and £6 per month. So, don’t necessarily view the package deals as a spectacularly good deal.

However, If you need a mobile laptop and the credit crunch is biting, a deal like this could be very good. Just make sure you buy the one with the best local 3G service. The only way to check this is to speak to users of other networks – the computer generated maps that show each network’s coverage are just representations.

Breaking the Chains

mikegriffithsbiz — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:49:00 +0000

Back in ’98-’99, which was my last year in residential sales, I tried to think up all sorts of chain-breaking schemes – most of which were utterly useless.

The panacea is some sort of scheme that encourages all elements of the chain to give a “cash gift” to the first time buyer at the bottom without upsetting the valuers, tax collectors and Trading Standards.

One scheme that promised much was completingchains.com, fronted by Sarah Beeney. This had a fair bit of national press and TV earlier this year. I met with the guy behind it (sadly I didn’t meet Sarah as it seems she was not as actively involved as the web site suggested). However, despite his best efforts, I couldn’t understand the offering and how it would fit in to a simple sales transaction. I did discover that the promised money juggling wasn’t part of the current offering. It relied on critical mass, probably didn’t get it and has since closed down.

Choices Property Acquisitions and Investments (CPAI) have a different angle. They have been Expert Agent customers since the very start.

They have built up a list of over 20,000 subscribed investors many of whom are independently wealthy and all of whom pay a fairly hefty subscription to receive details of auctions and forced sale properties.

Initially they just acted as an information gatherer, bringing together all the various auction house catalogues into one online source. Now, they actively seek instructions from agents. As a result, if you have any properties where the vendors would take at least 20 % off valuation (valuation, not asking price) it might be worth contacting their Director Anthony Day – Email: anthony@choicesacquisitions.co.uk Tel: 01342 840050.

I’m impressed with their sales progressing methods – deals are offered to members, one of whom agrees to proceed and is then given a very short time period with fixed goals. Failure to achieve a goal means a financial penalty to the buyer plus they will always have another member lined up. I guess this is better than taking a risk on that local developer / investor where the only way of gauging likely commitment and success was that he was good for the money last year!

The irrepressible Aaron Turner at Look4aproperty.com has a new business partner, James Caan of Dragon’s Den fame and a new offering, Look4aProperty Money

This offers house buyers an interest free loan covering stamp duty and legal fees on purchase.

Hitachi Bank provides the cash. LMS provides the HIP and Conveyancing. It sounds an interesting deal.

Aaron says he’s signed up a lot of agents including the very progressive Prospect in Berkshire. I’d be interested to hear from anyone with first hand experience of the scheme. What do you think? Will it work?

Extra Instructions and Cash for your Applicants.

mikegriffithsbiz — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:43:42 +0000

Expert Agent’s PVA (potential vendor alert) scheme has changed. Members used to refer applicants with houses to sell in other areas as a “favour”. Now, there’s a cash and fee split incentive.

Members get to buy PVAs for £5 each. If they then complete on a deal, they pay 15% of their fee. Most of the referral fee and the commission goes to the referring agent.

So, everyone benefits. Everyone gets to sell applicants and get extra instructions.

You can join the scheme without scrapping your old software, too.

For more details go to http://www.expertagent.co.uk/referrals

Using Vebra or Core?

mikegriffithsbiz — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:11:45 +0000

If you are using VEBRA or Core, you will have been approached by those businesses to upgrade to the LIVE product (VEBRA Live and Encore LIVE are apparantly related – see this Estate Agent Today article).

Before you rush into this, have a look at Expert Agent’s offering. We’re totally web based with everything hosted on our servers so you don’t need any special hardware – just a big skip for those servers. Branches see each other’s data instantly and seemlessly without needing any “Push” software. Best of all, you just pay a subscription based on the number of users that connect at once. We’ve also got a very effective data migration tool so all of your historic data moves with you. We’ve had real success with this in recent months and have some good testimonial sites.

If you are in southern UK, talk to Tom Levitt and for anywhere else, talk to Pete MacKay – both on 01225 303500 or sales@expertagent.co.uk