Christian Harper of OliverFinn outlines a local Catch-22 type dilemma: the growing chasm between the way buyers look for properties in Chiswick, and the way Chiswick estate agents sell them.
It is disappointing to learn from the latest Land Registry figures, that of the 417 properties placed on the market in W4 during the first quarter of this year, only one fifth were subsequently sold.
'Sold' properties typically appear in the official figures in the quarter following the sale. Add to this the expectation that the second quarter of the year (April - June) is usually the strongest for property transactions, and these figures are doubly disappointing.
Ill-advised agents, inflexible vendors
This unsatisfactory conversation rate is a mix of poor pricing advice by Chiswick estate agents combined with vendors’ reluctance to adapt to market conditions. The W4 area has many agents offering similar services and I ask: ‘Are agents giving pricing advice to gain instructions or are they advising on true market conditions?’
On the positive side, I am encouraged to see a huge increase in the number of property related searches on our neighbourhood website
Chiswickw4.com.
This data reinforces my belief that most buyers (and tenants) begin their search for a property with Google or similar search engines, rather than by flicking through instantly out-of-date glossy magazines.
Print dumped for digital by property pacesetters
Therefore search engine optimisation (SEO) is at the heart of the future success of the property industry and the team at
Chiswickw4.com are masters. No surprise then, that our local W4 website appears to be cornering the market for W4 property searches, rather than the big property portals such as
Rightmove and
PrimeLocation.
OliverFinn has spent many years perfecting the art of SEO and I find it perplexing that other agents still rely on expensive double-page print spreads when the rest of the world has moved on. Disturbingly it’s their clients that foot the bill by paying astronomical commission fees.
Chiswick's glossy magazine is produced once a month which means that most properties featured are at least a few weeks old prior to publication. Conversely, up-to-the-minute SEO techniques ensure the best property websites have instant and accurate information, which ensures their continuing popularity with buyers and tenants.
This should mean an end to
'sorry that one has already sold' response when people call to arrange a viewing the same day the magazine hits the doormat. We can only hope.
