Having spent a decade in estate agency in Norfolk and seeing first-hand how people’s buying habits had shifted away from the High Street, establishing a more cost-effective solution for sellers began to seem like an obvious move. When we set up The Norfolk Agents in 2016, there were already a growing number of online only agencies trading; however, they didn’t seem to be making much of an impact on the local scene. When I asked people why they didn’t use them, the answer almost always involved how appealing the financial saving could’ve been, but ultimately doubts over customer service and not having a personal relationship with the agent during such an important time put them off. This led us on to thinking, what if we could offer an alternative which brought together the most important parts of a traditional High Street service at a cost which compared with the online only agencies? Surely that would be a winning formula.

We spoke to lots of buyers and sellers while we were fine tuning our offering, many of whom were driven by making the biggest fee saving whilst others were more concerned about being looked after during the process and were happy to pay a bit more when the job was done. In an ideal world of course, they would get both.

From our research it was clear that sellers wanted a choice of how they wanted to work with us; whether on a fixed price basis which is payable at the start of the process and is the same regardless of the property value, or on a more traditional ‘no sale/no fee’ arrangement, with the commission based on a percentage of the sale price. We have also introduced a Split Fee package which offers a bit of both for those who can’t quite make up their mind.

We also wanted to offer complete transparency around our charges. When we asked people what they found off-putting about other estate agents, it was how they often struggled to get a clear answer on selling fees and were concerned about hidden costs. Therefore, we print our full choice of fee packages on all of our marketing literature, so our clients know exactly where they stand from the minute we meet.

None of our packages tie our clients into lengthy sole agency contracts. Why would any company who had the confidence and belief in what they offer ask their clients to commit to exclusive terms for 15-20 weeks, or sometimes even longer? We believe that while our clients are happy with what we are doing, they will be loyal to us.

We haven’t tried to reinvent the wheel by any means; in fact, our core values are as traditional as they come, based on hard work and doing the right thing by our clients. We just want to give people the opportunity to get great value for money whilst receiving a fantastic service.

For further reading and information abut our team and model visit our new website at www.thenorfolkagents.co.uk or give me a call.