More Carrot, Less Stick!
By Matt Gilpin, Sprift CEO…
On occasion, I am reminded how far Sprift has come since we started out, eight years ago last month in fact.
Our initial concept was simple and based around providing pioneering estate agents with more property specific information at outset to share with all parties related to a transaction, to test whether this would reduce transaction times and fall-throughs, i.e. what has now been popularised as upfront or material information – we just didn’t call it that at the time.
In our early years we were very fortunate to have met many great, forward-thinking property professionals who felt that we had the potential to solve a problem that did exist and therefore it warranted ‘giving-it-a-shot’, based on which we gained early traction. Their feedback hugely shaped the product that’s available today, for which we’ll always be grateful. In fact to this day, we’re still very appreciative of any feedback we receive and have always been humbled by the sheer amount of collaboration, direction and engagement from Sprift users. Fortunately, the concept did prove to be right and quickly thousands of agents started to benefit from using Sprift to generate reports to better inform buyers, sellers, landlords and tenants and thereby reduce transaction times and fall-through rates while also saving themselves time, winning more business and differentiating themselves from the competition.
Fast-forwarding to the end of 2023 when NTSELAT confirmed the details of parts B and C for Material Information, and inevitably a ‘bigger conversation’ started to arise in the industry around the pitfalls of non-compliance with the new legislation. Unfortunately, in my view, this means that we now have a cohort of agents engaging with Material Information more because they have to rather than because they can see the wider benefits of such an approach, whether it’s a legislative requirement or not.
I understand that for some agents I’ve spoken to personally, Material Information is viewed as a blocker to getting properties listed quickly, creating more paperwork at the point of preparing a property for marketing and also in some cases, an opportunity to be exposed by their competitors for non-compliance.
So, I genuinely feel that it is a great shame that the negative narrative has become the main event and that rarely do I read much to the contrary that focuses on the benefits.
I therefore wanted to bring some balance to the debate and point out, that Material Information really is more of a carrot than a stick, to use the old phrase.
In fact, I’ll go one further than that and leave you with this thought. If someone told me that I could potentially reduce my fall through rate by 13% over the course of the year, based on the fact that the average commission earned per transaction is £4,160.60 that could equate to an additional £32,452.68 on my agency’s bottom line over a 12-month period.
That my friends, would buy you a lot of vegetables. Carrots or otherwise.
