How Can Estate Agents Expand their Business Post Tenant Fees Ban?

Since the Tenant Fees Ban, it’s even more important for estate agents to diversify the services offered to clients – both landlords and tenants alike. According to Sava, positioning themselves as ‘residential property experts’ is key to bringing in streams of income other than charging fees to tenants.

Build additional services into their offerings

Becoming the go-to provider of a range of services, such as buying, selling, adapting, improving, managing or surveying/valuing a property could mean that agents are able to offer a 360 service to their clients in the property sector.

Austin Baggett, Managing Director of Sava, says: “Forget ‘Local Property Experts’, it’s time for agents to become ‘Residential Property Experts’ and provide a wide range of professional services to their clients.

“Most sellers are buyers too and may be looking for a survey or valuation. You can also target anyone in a chain with your additional products, knowledge and advice. Agents can thrive by building long-term relationships with their clients and being considered the local community’s property expert of choice.

“By providing valuable advice on anything to do with property, from traditional buying and selling to key structural or building information, agents can create more opportunities for themselves, making the market seem less crowded.”

Improve their expertise and property knowledge

Baggett says, “Having a certificate on the wall or letters after your name can be beneficial, but the real value from taking qualifications comes in knowing what you’re talking about and becoming a real industry expert.”

“Property sales and the moving process can be complex and you’re often dealing with people’s most valuable asset; therefore, consumers need reassurance and advice from someone they can trust.”

By offering services to customers and becoming a ‘one-stop shop’ to customers means you can open up your income streams and generate areas in revenue that you couldn’t before. Investment in training your team and hiring experts to undertake work in new fields can be highly beneficial.

Tim Crowe, owner of Crowes Estate Agents, says: “Being able to offer surveys has created an income stream for our business and when it comes to valuations, having RICS accreditation distinguishes us and can help win instructions.”

Stand out from the crowd

Competition has become increasingly fierce, with traditional agents battling it out against online ones, plus the uncertainty of certain political issues – such as Brexit – meaning there is more agents competing for a smaller range of new business.

Baggett explains: “It’s certainly a challenging market out there due to a range of political, demographic and industry-specific factors, and with more estate agents than ever, there’s less business to go around.”

“It’s so important to differentiate your brand, giving consumers a solid range of reasons why they should work with you and not your competitors. On top of this, providing a comprehensive range of property services is the key to being successful in the current market.”