Displaying a property’s address – yes or no?

Hatched by Paul Ten-Bokum on Thursday, June 25, 2009

 Loading ...

    

Estate Agent’s needs vs buyer’s needs

Estate agents are heavily disincentivised from disclosing the address of a property in any marketing that they do, unless they are protected, by a sole mandate, from private sellers and estate agents going direct to the seller. The estate agent justifiably does not want to spend money and effort marketing a property, only to receive no reward at the end despite a job well done.

On the other hand, I as a buyer want to know a lot about the property before I go and see it. I want to know exactly where it is so I don’t waste my time driving around looking at properties that don’t match my needs. In fact, with internet technology today I can create a shortlist of 4 or 5 properties that I’m really interested in because I like the location, I’ve seen photos, a virtual tour or video of the property and read up about the other details of the property, without leaving my house.

So is there middle ground?

We think so.

Privateproperty.co.za has bought into this dream and we are working hard to make it a reality. At the same time we understand that estate agents cannot always divulge the address of properties as mentioned earlier, particularly when they are marketing on an open mandate. That is why we decided to hide the street numbers and unit numbers of all open mandate listings a while ago. Some may feel this does not go far enough for them and want to display only the suburb the listing is in.

So what do we do?

From early July we will make available the ability to control which part of the address displays on your listing (if you are using the Private Property Listing management system agents.privateproperty.co.za). Its VERY important to note that how much of the address you decide to display will affect your quality score for that listing, and the better the score the higher your listing will rank on all privateproperty.co.za’s marketing platforms. (Address elements will make up 55 points of the 150 points max score for a listing)

How does it work?

In the Private Property LMS (listing management system) you will be able to select what to display:

1. Full address details and map – 55 points
2. Full address details – 45 points
3. Street or Complex name but no street number or unit number – 30 points
4. No address details – just the suburb – 0 points

This means that a basic listing that has all the info will rank higher and get much more exposure than a listing with hidden address details. The idea is that buyers want high quality information so we make sure the high quality listings are at the top of the list.

This is also a powerful argument for the seller of the property to afford you a sole mandate on the property, so that you can give the listing all the marketing vooma it deserves. You’ll also be sure that the buyer you do take through the seller’s house is very interested and the chance of getting the sale is high.

We’d love to hear your comments on this so please add your thoughts below.

Cheers for now, Paul