When Complacency Takes Hold

One of the things that consistently amaze us here at SaleBoards is why people let agents make a mess of advertising their properties. The property websites are full of listings with blurred or poor-quality photos as well as misspelt or bizarre descriptions of houses. Now we’re not trying to say that we get everything right all the time, but these are schoolboy errors that are easily avoidable and simply show an agent that is taking absolutely no care over their work.

So when you are invited to sell a £3m country home just outside Exeter, you would think a simple read-through of the advert might be a good idea.  In this example, there are typographical errors all through the key features, which are also not exactly expansive in their details, given the size and nature of the property.   As this is the first thing people will read, it’s an immediate turn off for any prospective buyers and makes the agent look amateurish. 

Think about it more carefully; this type of error does more than damages a well-respected national agent’s reputation. If this were my house, I’d be the first off the mark to get down to the agent’s office with a letter cancelling my instruction.  Assuming estate agency rates of around 1.75%, the agent involved might be waving goodbye to a fee of more than £50,000!

If you’re looking to market your property with an agent, do look at some of the properties they have marketed; both what they look like on the internet or on their particulars. We at SaleBoards cannot promise to get it right 100% of the time, but we do take real pride in how we market our properties; doing everything we can to make sure that your property looks good on the internet and in printed media, as well as employing a professional proof-reader to make sure that mistakes like you see above don’t happen.

89% say they would not trust an estate agent in Which Magazine Survey

At last – Estate agents are deemed more trustworthy than politicians or bankers – but only just!

In 2004 Which Magazine compiled a survey of the least trusted professions.  Topping the list was the good old Tabloid Journalist, but in second place was the Estate Agent.  Seven years on, the survey has been repeated and, would you believe it, second and third are now taken by Bankers and Politicians.  Estate agents have gone from 2^nd to 4^th place in the latest survey.

Have there been any changes in the last 7 years that could have lead to this slight improvement in trustworthiness?  Well, in theory, yes there have.  Since the last survey was taken, compulsory membership of the Property Ombudsman Scheme has been introduced and tenants have greater protection with the new deposit protection scheme. 

In practise, however, it probably hasn’t made a blind bit of difference to the average estate agent.  Whilst the Ombudsman is supposed to protect the consumer, the annual report, aside from giving some very entertaining stories about what can go wrong for an estate agent, details numerous case studies where the agent has been found guilty of deception or incompetence.  In almost all of these examples, the agent has been forced to pay the most derisory compensation payments imaginable (I’ve written a separate article on this previously!(https://saleboards.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/the-property-ombudsman-a-help-or-hindrance/)).  In the last 7 years, the country has seen a banking crisis and numerous examples of bankers behaving badly or stupidly with our hard earned money; Politicians have fared little better with their own expenses scandal.  Don’t forget,  the number of housing transactions is running at an all-time low, meaning a much higher proportion of the population may not have used an estate agent than in the boom times of 7 years ago.  With only 11% of those surveyed saying they would trust an estate agent, and having only moved up the rankings because other professions are now perceived as being even worse, this is no cause for celebration within the industry.

Yet a quick skim of the customer reviews from our own agency paints a very different picture.  Founded on ethical values, customers who have bought or sold through the agency often comment on how they felt they could trust the staff and directors to be completely honest in this somewhat tarnished profession.

So if you’re looking for someone to trust to look after the sale of what is probably your most valuable asset, check out the growing website www.allagents.co.uk , where customers are invited to review their experiences of estate agents.  Furthermore, if an agent is making claims such as “We’ve definitely got buyers for your house” (which there is no way they can promise if the buyers haven’t already seen it) or they are prepared to value at a figure which is significantly higher than what you’d expect, then this is probably the first indication that you should stick with the 89% who don’t trust estate agents!

Primary School League Tables 2012 set to shake up schools admissions in Exeter

The Department for Education has issued the latest set of primary school league tables for the UK and it makes for some very interesting reading. These results rank their schools in three categories; what percent of children at that school will get the target level 4 in Maths and English, what percent of students are “high achievers” (the proportion of students likely to achieve significantly above the level 4), and the rather ambiguously titled “value added” score. This, put simply, rates the schools on how much they improve their pupils as they pass through the school.   For this reason, the “value added” score is generally regarded as the most indicative of the quality of a school, rather than schools who have smarter kids or more ambitious parents.

With all this in mind, let’s look at some of this week’s results in more detail.  Firstly, Broadclyst primary seems to be the best all-rounder.   97% of its students are expected to get Level 4’s at KS2 and their value added score is 102.9. It’s leading the way in the Exeter Area and is second in the whole of Devon. Running a close second on Value Added, St Sidwell’s Primary School is a surprise performer, which is all the more surprising when you consider that 41.5% of students don’t have English as their first language.   

The most interesting results for me are, however, the schools that aren’t doing so well.  Competition is fierce for places at St Leonard’s Primary School and at Ladysmith Junior School, yet neither of them are really capitalising on the students they’ve got, ranking 17^th and 28^th respectively in terms of the amount of value added to their students. Furthermore, neither of them are ranked in the top 10 schools for any of the categories.  As St Leonards is regarded as the ‘most professional parish’ in Exeter, one might expect more.  So while it may be that your child is socialising with the “right” kind of pupils and the school-gate experience is very much more in keeping with the parent’s desires, the children might not be capitalising on their education potential.

So what does all this mean for house buying then? Firstly, it means that buying a house in St Leonard’s Parish shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all of your school choices and there are many alternative options out there for your children, where you get more for your money. Properties in Broadclyst do command a premium on price, but then it’s the whole lifestyle you are paying for with a pretty, idyllic Devon village location with an excellent school.   It is likely that with the latest league table, prices are going to be on the up.

In Exeter, properties around St Sidwell’s are much more reasonably priced with plenty of four bedroom properties with a courtyard garden selling for the region of £225k. This area is a little bit of an oddity, as it was significantly influenced by investors snapping up the family size properties for student accommodation.  With the recent restrictions on converting houses to multiple occupancy, picking up a bargain around St Sidwells is become a possibility, as long as you don’t mind sharing your street with an ever-decreasing number of students.

Of the 30-odd schools in the Exeter area, there are lots of positives; there are plenty of good schools, the majority of which are doing well at getting the best out of their students, 82% of students will get the level 4 grade (the government standard level) in their year 6 assessments, and some 30% of students in the Exeter area will be classed as high achievers; working at the same level as the government would expect an average 14 year old to work.

Until now, when families moving to Exeter have asked the local agents where they should live to get their child into a good school, the answer would most likely have been St Leonards.  In light of the recent results, the advice could soon be changing. 

Our Picks:

• Top Overall School:  Broadclyst Community Primary School.

Achieving the highest Value Added score in the area, this village school is forward thinking and community based –  One of many good reasons to move to Broadclyst!

• Top Inner City School:  St Sidwells

A relatively small Church of England school with a definite multi-cultural feel.  Popular with Universtiy families and the local community.

• Top Small School:  Ide. 

Located in a village, just a few hundred yards from the outskirts of Exeter, this school has an intake of only around 15 children per year group.  This makes it a contender for those looking for a smaller school with a community feel. 

In order of Value Added Score the local league table looks like this:

1. Broadclyst Primary Academy Trust
2. St Sidwell’s Church of England Primary School
3. Exminster Community Primary
4. Dunsford Community Primary School
5. Redhills Community Primary School
6. Woodbury Church of England Primary School
7. Exwick Heights Primary School
8. Ide Primary School
9. Clyst St Mary Primary School
10. Kenton Primary School
11. Kenn Church of England Primary School
12. The Topsham School
13. Pinhoe Church of England Primary School
14. Stoke Canon Church of England Primary School
15. Newtown Primary School
16. St Leonard’s (CofE) Primary School (VC)
17. Bowhill Primary School
18. St Nicholas Catholic Primary School
19. Alphington Primary School
20. Newton St Cyres Primary School
21. St David’s Church of England Primary School
22. Brampford Speke Church of England Primary School
23. Stoke Hill Junior School
24. Clyst Heath Nursery and Community Primary School
25. Starcross Primary School
26. St Thomas Primary School
27. Countess Wear Community School
28. Ladysmith Junior School
29. St Michael’s Church of England VA Primary School
30. Walter Daw Primary School
31. Lympstone Church of England Primary School
32. Whipton Barton Junior School

Is Housing at its most affordable level in 10 years?

There’s all sorts of conflicting information sloshing round the internet at the moment about the various strengths and weaknesses of the housing market, with different commentators prophesying either a sooner recovery than expected or imminent doom depending on which headline their aiming for. However, the piece of news that has caught my eye in recent days was the report from the Halifax, claiming that housing is at its most affordable level in 10 years. Given the current economic climate and the pessimism about mortgage lending, this prompted me to do some digging to see if our experiences on the front line backed this up.

 

Once you dig into the reports that the Halifax have been putting out, it does seem that the BBC (who brought the story to my attention (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18839255)) were guilty of a little bit of headline seeking – Housing is only really at its most affordable in Scotland. However it’s Halifax’s methodology, and overall subsequent findings, that seem most worth of attention. They worked on the premise that buyers would be looking to borrow up to four times their income and so multiplied the average earnings of a Local Authority area by the average house price in the same area. This showed that, of the areas surveyed, “54% were deemed to be affordable” which “was the highest figure since 2002.” So this all sounds very lovely but even more interesting was the news from the Halifax that “Mortgage payments for a new borrower remain significantly below the long-term average as a proportion of disposable earnings.” (http://www.lloydsbankinggroup.com/media1/press_releases/2012_press_release_brands/halifax/0507_HPI.asp) Not only do houses seem to be more affordable but the proportional cost of paying for a mortgage seems to have dropped as well in real terms. When combined by news of rising rents (http://www.propertydrum.com/articles/20120415_4), it looks like we could be set for a return to a buoyant housing market.

 

But is this borne out in the open market? While we saw a rise in viewings and sales in March and April (probably attributable to the change in stamp duty), things have stayed fairly uninspiring. The total number of viewings we’ve conducted have stayed constant over the last few months and, while the percentage of viewings that lead to sales has increased, this isn’t very helpful as the number of viewings is down on what it should be at this time of year. So while Halifax’s news is probably good news, we’re not seeing the effects on the market yet.