Saturday 7th May 2022

‘The definition of insanity is doing something over and over again
and expecting a different result’.
– Einstein. 

And welcome to May!  And possibly the busiest months Sam and I have had since stepping out of High Street agency and into our business, under the umbrella and protections of Julian Bessey and the Martin and Co team, for whom we are eternally thankful.

We started May with some fabulous instructions, from a pretty Victorian terraced cottage in Fulflood, to an attractive bungalow in Olivers Battery with enviable far reaching westerly views, an immaculate five bedroomed family home with huge garden and parking, with built in coffee maker and wi-fi to the bottom of the garden, and a brilliant three bedroomed house in Harestock.  Those four alone kept us busy on Bank Holiday Monday with 36 viewings, 12 offers, and three out of four of them are under offer, and the fourth will be equally so by the time this missive finds its way to the website!

We immediately followed these with being invited to market two houses in Twyford (soon to be listed), a sweet two bedroomed house in St Giles Hill, and a four bedroomed house in Abbots Barton. Sam and I never take our clients trust in us for granted, and are eternally grateful and honoured for the faith put in us when entrusting us their homes.

Each of these houses has been beautifully presented as well. May is a wonderful time of year for photographing property.  Gardens are looking green and lush, lilacs are in full bloom, the roses are coming up, and clematis is flowering.  Many home owners fill vases with large bunches of tulips (personally my favourite to have in houses for photography, relatively inexpensive, don’t have strong scent, and have a wealth of colour!) or other flowers, which really does help add warmth and attractiveness to a home for the marketing. 

This leads me to a subject I thought could be worth covering today.  

To be fair, it is one I also covered about a year or so ago, under the subject of 

‘Don’t treat your mortgage like a haircut!’.  

In this, I wrote about how we often do the same thing, over and over again, (like visiting the same hairdresser for years, and wondering why we get the same haircuts, over and over again).

In 2021, I was referring to mortgages – and how it is worth spreading the net wider than your usual broker or mortgage lender, to see what other ideas other lenders ideas might be.  Many lenders have diverse ideas, so always worth checking with others that the mortgage one might think is the best for you is, indeed, the best for you and your circumstances.

The same could be said about mortgage and hairdressers, as choosing an estate agent.

So many sellers will walk the well-worn path to the High Street, and the usual agents to discuss selling their homes, for until recently there haven’t been many alternatives. However, those who have come to us, have reporting being so happy to have done so.

Sam and I offer a totally different service to most agencies; we personally come and meet you to do the valuation, attend the photography sessions to help ensure the photographs are as fabulous as they can be (a property has one chance to get attention on line, it has to be as good as possible when it hits the internet portals); and in so doing, we get to know your home well in order that we may be as knowledgeable as possible to answer questions asked at the viewings which we undertake ourselves; we get to know your buyers well, and undertake the sales progression personally once a sale is agreed.

All of this means that, unlike the national average of 30% of agreed house sales falling through, our ratio of fall throughs (ie buyers changing their minds) is negligible.  Out of 68 sales agreed over the past year, only three sales have fallen through. One of these is because the seller decided not to move house after all; the buyers’ solicitor firm on another was so awful that, after three months, nothing on the sale had moved forward (no searches, no enquiries etc) that we changed buyers, and the third was the buyer changing their mind, but, because we keep our numbers so low, we had the time and ability to get straight onto the case, and had it resold within 48 hours.

The same analogy could be said for us today …!  Sam wanted to go to Homebase to buy new pots and plants for the garden. However, there is a garden centre in Four Marks which we had heard about occasionally in the years we have lived here but never visited.  As with the hairdressers, and estate agents, we always went to the same place to buy our plants.  However, we decided to try this garden centre today, and what a joy! We will never go to Homebase again … Garthowen for us from now on! Great plants, beautifully watered and maintained, and a small family business to boot.

If you are looking for a different level of service, honesty, commitment and where you truly come first as clients, then please do give us a call. Sam and I would be delighted to have a chat and see whether the level of service we offer, would match one you might be looking for, and indeed we believe has been missing in agency, and the service industry in general, for many years.

Just one of many testimonials we have received this spring, from a seller who had previously been trying to sell with another agent:

‘Nony and Sam rescued me from an incredibly stressful situation. My house in central Winchester had been marketed by one of the national agents for over 2 months with few viewings and no offers, even though they had assured me that the market was buoyant. In desperation, I contacted Nony and Sam on the basis of a leaflet dropped through my door, and I have never looked back!

They redid all the photos to a far higher standard, tweaked the asking price, and within days I had two buyers bidding against each other! We have now exchanged contracts, and Nony has been with me and my buyers throughout the process, checking in very regularly, chasing solicitors, and sorting any problems immediately, including putting me in touch with a wonderful, family-run local removals firm.

I have bought and sold many properties in my life, and I have never before come across an estate agent offering such a cheerful, dedicated and responsive personal service, and I can’t recommend them highly enough.  Having experienced what Nony and Sam have to offer, I will never, ever go near a generic high street agent again!’

All that aside, and onto a little bit of exciting news!

Sam and I are honoured and delighted to have been nominated by the Winchester Business Awards in two different categories for their 2022 awards – both in the New Business and also Service Excellence Awards.  

Whilst of course we would love to win, we are relatively new to running our own show, and competition will be strong with some amazing other nominees (some of which we know personally) but simply to be nominated is a great honour, and we are enormously touched and honoured to have even been noticed!

Have a wonderful month, and we look forward to catching up in June!