Choose the agent, not the agency — Malvern
A record price for the development — in a falling market — by choosing a thorough individual agent over a big-name agency brand.
The brief
Our vendor clients owned a townhouse in a Malvern development of more than 20 similar homes. When the conversation about engaging an agent started, the question — as it almost always does — came in the form of an agency name. I want to go with Marshall White. I want to go with Jellis Craig.
Our advice from the outset was different. Choose the agent, not the agency.
Our approach
What we tell every vendor advocacy client is that every agency has good and not so good individual agents. The brand on the business card doesn't sell the home — the person running the campaign does.
With the major portals levelling the playing field on advertising, buyers don't care which agency listed the property. Every vendor wants to pick the agent that sells their home; almost no buyer cares who they bought from. So the things that actually matter are: does this agent have the time to service your campaign properly, and will they be the one running it — or will the senior agent you engaged hand the opens off to juniors once the deal is signed?
Here, we recommended Georgia from The Agency. She was extremely thorough, she had consistently achieved prices above the value she'd assessed on her listings before auction, and her communication with both vendors and buyers was the best I'd seen in that market. The name on her business card was not the point — and her ability to work a campaign properly was the reason we recommended her.
We also did the work the campaign needed before it started. We had the townhouse painted and polished ahead of marketing, at a cost that was modest against what it returned. Presentation is not decoration. A buyer standing in a freshly finished home is deciding whether to compete for it; a buyer standing in a tired one is deciding what it will cost them to fix.
The outcome
Georgia sold our clients' townhouse for a record price for that development — more than 20 similar townhouses to compare against — and she did it in a falling market. Two further sales in the same development shortly afterward, both handled by big-name agencies, transacted for less.
The point isn't that smaller agencies are inherently better — they're not. The point is that the individual agent decides the campaign, and the campaign decides the result. Choose the agent you'll have a good, trusting relationship with. Don't default to whichever agency has the biggest sign in the area.
The refurbishment and the agent choice are not separate stories. A well-presented home gave a thorough agent something to work with.
"Using a vendor advocate was incredibly helpful — I've realised it's not the agency name that matters, but the individual agent who runs your campaign. Toby perfectly matched our home with an agent who handled everything personally, rather than allocating it to a junior… He additionally organised a full refurbishment before going to market at a very reasonable cost, which lifted the presentation and the final result."
Selling soon? Choose the right agent.
The biggest agency in your area isn't always the best campaign. As your vendor advocate, we shortlist the individual agents whose track record matches your property — and manage the campaign with you from listing through to settlement. A free conversation with Toby is the starting point.
