A small independent estate agency in Tamworth has been named the best in the West Midlands when it comes to achieving the advertised asking price on homes for sale.
Research by consumer body Which? found Next Place Property Agents sold 60% of its properties for the asking price (29%) or above (31%) – which is double the regional average. Just 1% of properties sold by Next Place had the final sale price reduced by more than 5%, compared with a regional average of around 20%.
Hundreds of estate agents selling more than 100 properties per year were assessed and the findings put Next Place above all others looked at in the West Midlands region.
The single branch sales and lettings business was set up by Anton Plackowski three years ago out of frustration following the poor service he had received during his own experiences of buying and selling homes.
Originally from an IT and sales background, Anton uses a business-to-business approach to provide a high level of service to every customer looking to buy, sell or rent a property.
For Anton, the findings from Which? come as little surprise.
“Considering we are just a small independent business, operating alongside some major chains, the findings from Which? are brilliant news for us. However, I’m not surprised by the figures themselves because we don’t overvalue properties to win business,” he said.
“We tell people what they need to hear, rather than what they want to hear and by valuing a property correctly in the first place, we are able to sell it for what it’s worth, and sometimes a bit more.”
“The way we do things is very different,” Anton explained. “We are open until 8pm, seven days a week; we can get properties listed within 24 hours and we use social media and hundreds of websites to market properties effectively.
“We do not employ pushy sales tactics and we are in constant communication with customers. People appreciate our straight-forward, honest approach and the fact that we always deliver on our promises. As a result, most of our business is through recommendation.”
In the three years since opening, the business has experienced incredible growth. It now employs six members of staff and has been the top selling agent in the B77 and B78 areas for the past two years, according to Rightmove.
The achievement by Next Place was highlighted as part of an in-depth feature in a recent edition of the Which? magazine.
The report claimed that sellers across the country are losing billions of pounds due to inflated house prices as overvalued properties often suffer several price reductions, take longer to sell and eventually sell for a much lower price compared to homes which are realistically valued in the first place.
To uncover the scale of the overvaluing problem, Which? analysed more than 370,000 property sales in England and Wales between October 2015 and September 2016. It used data from property portals to reveal the differences between listed prices and sold prices.
The investigation found homes which had been heavily reduced by more than 5% of initial asking price took 64 days longer to sell than other properties.