It’s of little surprise that selling your home can be filled with anxiety and stress. There’s a lot to navigate and it’s not something people do regularly, so there’s usually uncertainty about the path ahead. And the same is certainly true for those looking to buy. This is where the stability and certainty of experience can turn a potentially difficult experience into a rewarding one.
Selling or buying a property usually happens in a just matter of months, and in this small window of time, it’s the years of practice, familiarity and wisdom that can create genuine value. Let’s look at some of the key areas where experience comes into play and ultimately leads to better outcomes.
“The only source of knowledge is experience” – Albert Einstein
Insight deepens with every interaction and experience, and if you’ve been deliberately hands-on throughout the process for years, it translates into an acute understanding of people’s needs, the journey they’re walking and how to lead them effectively to the best outcome.
Similarly, living in an area for decades makes you a bit of a library for local property knowledge. Having an intimate knowledge of the local north shore area means people often phone up for a chat rather than searching through Google for generalist advice. This is what I love about the job, you become a trusted advisor and have the opportunity to share your knowledge and experience in a way that truly makes a difference to the outcomes for that person. This is where I see tangible value for our clients. There are often so many questions and to have someone alongside them as a specific source of knowledge enables them greater confidence in the process.
As your experience grows, inevitably you always come back to the fact that good communication is the foundation of trust and assurance. Many starting out can overlook this and miss the opportunity to listen and guide people, instead of responding reactively as things come up. Good communication is proactive – it’s not about ticking the boxes but about going above and beyond, pre-empting concerns or questions that may come and addressing them before they arise. Experience develops a natural intuition that enables you to serve better, foster certainty and deliver better outcomes.
Devoting time to listening and responding to queries, ensuring clients are fully informed from beginning to end, providing daily updates and keeping them ahead of any relevant news or developments are a natural function of caring for people and come instinctively with experience.
I often set up Whatsapp groups so we can communicate on inspections and relevant activity each day, schedule weekly meetings and provide weekly reports consistently.
During the process of selling a home, clients will often second-guess things and are looking for someone who can provide the right advice for their particular situation and help navigate them through it. Listening, understanding and providing reassurance through good judgement is what makes the difference. Experience teaches you to listen before you speak. This simple art of listening has helped our clients to enjoy the experience of selling their home and has enabled buyers to have a right-mind when making decisions.
Deep knowledge and a will for integrity means the right advice is delivered. I can’t tell you how common it is, especially in recent times, for people to be given the wrong advice when it comes to things like property values and method of sale. This breaks trust, particularly with buyers, and creates uncertainty. We use recent sales and our knowledge of the market to determine the price guide and focus on finding the right buyer, not drumming up quantity for the sake of driving false competition.
Reassurance also comes from knowing that someone has been around property for a long time and has likely experienced every market condition and scenario that you can think of.
Established foundations, like a strong team, is another benefit that comes along with experience. Having a diverse team of people who genuinely work together to share information, ideate and support a client brings a level of value unmatched by lone horses or a handful of offsiders. A steadfast, established team ensure measured decisions, a great experience and reliable results.
Sometimes clients can describe the benefits of a unified team better than I can:
‘I want to express my deepest gratitude to your exceptional work and service of selling my house on Erith Street, Mosman. During the marketing campaign, my family and I have been very impressed by your excellent real estate knowledge, fantastic negotiation skills, and professional manner in dealing with all parties throughout (lawyers, buyers and myself). Most of all, the great factor we highly appreciated is your extraordinary teamwork which brings the vendor (myself) all the stress relief. That was also reflecting on efficient advice and timely communication day and night. To be perfectly honest, we can’t thank you enough. “The best or nothing”. That may be the perfect definition to describe your great work! Once again, thank you very much indeed.”
– Victor Mao
“Overall the experience with Geoff, Stewart, Richard and the whole Ray White Lower North Shore Group team was an extremely positive one. Their offering is without peer on the lower north shore in terms of professionalism, capability and focus on delivering the best possible outcome for their client. We were blown away by the depth of the team when they came through our house ahead of the first open – that is a lot of salespeople with knowledge of our house, and ably supported by the marketing and admin teams behind the scenes. A stark contrast to most of the competition in the area who are 2-3 people franchises. That being said, the proof is in the pudding as they say, and, ultimately, Ray White Lower North Shore Group delivered an outcome that we were very happy with.”
– Guy & Georgina Fergusson
Experience brings layers of benefit when it comes to selling your home. It’s not just about having competence in the steps – it’s the intuition, preparedness, assurance, familiarity and people around them that enable an agent to be truly agile and think on their feet to add genuine value along the way.
Geoff Smith, Director
Ray White Lower North Shore Group
geoff.smith@raywhite.com
0418 643 923
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