Written by our Senior Regional Surveyor, Adam Santos.
An inevitable outcome from the start?
I was not too surprised to see online estate agent Purple Bricks being sold off for £1 (yes one pound sterling!) in the press this week. When the concept launched its core selling point was the ability to save thousands of pounds on agency fees; certainly an appealing prospect when a high street agent might charge 1%, 2% or even 3% of the sale price depending on the location.
The broader pros and cons of that business model are perhaps better analysed by someone working in the agency sector but as a surveyor, there were some obvious flaws which I and I suspect other surveyors picked up upon.
From my perspective, certainly when the concept was fairly new, online agency sales seemed more chaotic. Vendors were not necessarily well informed about the status of the sale. Sometimes they didn’t even understand why we were visiting or that we were not attached to the agency. Equally the customer journey from the initial listing to reaching ‘sale agreed’ was not straightforward, with vendors handling viewings themselves and the pricing perhaps not being pitched at the right level to attract satisfactory interest.
Online agencies have certainly worked hard to try and fix these issues; scaling up their central office support teams and expanding their local agent teams so that they have a more familiar area to cover. Despite this, online agencies have not killed off the high street agent and when you look at the London market, firms such as Dexters are thriving.
Learning from the missteps of the Purple Bricks model
There are clear lessons we can learn from this within the surveying sector. For the past decade we have seen a growth in technological solutions. Some of these, such as the introduction of tablet apps, make the survey report process faster and more straightforward as well as helping to increase the quality of mortgage valuation reports.
Others are beneficial to the broader mortgage transaction as they streamline the journey to completion; with Automated Valuations (AVMs) providing an almost instantaneous valuation where there is appropriate data and desktop valuations (where a surveyor completed the valuation from home or office against data found online) again permitting the transaction to move more quickly.
These innovations are beneficial to the customer and lender but in much the same way that an online agent offers the benefit of lower cost. AVMs and desktop valuations disconnect the consumer from the professionals they would traditionally meet and talk to. The example of Purple Bricks shows that consumers value good advice and face to face interaction.
The value of good customer service
For surveyors, it is important that the public recognises our value. As we move toward a greater volume of valuation work being completed remotely, that means ensuring that when we do complete an in-person valuation or survey, the customer experience is positive, with the surveyor demonstrating the value of their local knowledge and experience. Equally it is about providing good quality advice and aftercare; with clear and considered responses to post valuation enquiries and, in the case of survey work, complying with the Home Survey Standards and giving customers the support, they need to get the most from the survey report.
At SDL Surveying these are things we are taking seriously; this year we have focused on our survey proposition, not only looking to grow this but also ensuring our surveyors are clear on the service we want to provide. Beyond this, we are also actively upskilling our team on energy efficiency as this is becoming more relevant to buyers with recent high energy costs and the prospect of more regulation.
Fundamentally surveyors have a lot to offer the residential sector but the one thing my ten years in this sector has taught me is that consumers find reassurance in meeting and talking to those who understand property and the market.