Some Estate Agents believe that all their vendors want is an offer on their home, others think that the job is done when the property appears on a property portal and others think their job is over once the property has exchanged contracts.On average a home owner will move every seven years, so by the time they come to sell again they will have forgotten the whole process (except maybe the bad things that happened to them).  An Estate Agent – in theory (depending on how busy their office is) can go through the whole sales process around 200 times a year and what is routine for them, is not routine for a vendor.

I always asked the question “What would you like me to do for you?” to every vendor and for every thousand times I asked, I got a thousand “Sell my house please”, followed by a laugh, why? Because that’s what vendors instruct Estate Agents to do. My second question was always “May I explain what I can do for you?” and in 25 years I have never had a vendor say “No” and after 45 minutes to an hour the vendor knew exactly why they had instructed me to sell their home.

Nearly all Estate Agents work in different ways, but every Vendor is the same – They want to get on with their daily lives, dealing with their job, enjoying time with family and friends, whilst their chosen agent deals with possibly the biggest transaction they will make for the next seven years. The vendor doesn’t care that the agent has 40 other property sales going through at the same time, they want the agents empathy, their time and above all their help.

If the agent has done their job on instruction, the vendor will be basically aware of the sales process; marketing to offer, agreed offer to sales progression and exchange to completion. Obviously the agent can not go through every single pitfall that may arise, this would not only take an extraordinary amount of time but probably leave the vendor in a state of depression! Instead, knowing that the vendor has some knowledge it is the agents responsibility to inform and assist at each stage of the process, by being proactive the agent will spot anything untoward and be in a position to explain to the vendor what may happen.

Most vendors will have a friend or colleague that has a friend, who knew a friend who had a torrid time with an agent, by keeping the vendor informed at every stage, by being a step ahead of the process and by giving each individual vendor exactly what they require every agent can avoid being  “That” agent.

So what does every vendor want – Simply put ….. Everything that they require.