Meet the agent Part 1 – Madison Oakley

Meet the agent

You might think you already know what goes on inside an estate agents or have seen one of the many programmes on the industry but there’s a lot more to our day to day life than whizzing around in branded cars jangling keys. Agents do operate in slightly different ways dependent on their business model and preferences so we thought it might be useful to lift the lid of our own agency a bit and explore certain roles we have to make sure our clients get the best experience in their sale or purchase.

We are a single branch independent estate agent – all our partners own and run the business together, which is quite unusual in the industry. Based in Bath and covering the city plus close villages, we have been operating now for over 15 years and some of our partners have worked in the city for much longer than that.

Sales Progressor

This week, we’re focusing on the often unsung heroes of any estate agency office – the sales progressor. Lets dive into the murky back of the office world of these hugely important folk. In the main, they don’t drive about meeting clients or greeting visitors to the office but, if you’ve ever bought or sold before, you’ll know how valuable they can be.

Once you’ve got past viewings and offers being accepted, the sales progressor takes over and is tasked with shepherding an agreed sale through to completion and key handover. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Far from it.

If you look at the average timeline of a sale, the total is usually around 6 months. Two thirds of that is between the offer being accepted and completion so the sales progressor has the longest amount of involvement of anyone in the office. Added to that, they have to deal with a variety of involved parties including solicitors, surveyors and mortgage brokers. That’s on top of communicating with both buyer and seller during a very stressful and sometimes emotional time.

All of the above assumes the buyer and seller aren’t involved in a chain – if either or both are, the difficulty level rises dramatically. Every link in the chain in any direction adds more people to the communication – solicitors will only speak to the links directly adjacent to them so it often falls on the sales progressors to keep talking across the whole chain.

As an example, we have recently dealt with a chain of seven links stretching in geography terms from a first time buyer in Bath all the way to a property in County Durham. That’s seven different solicitors & five different agents – some of whom have been either no help at all or actively difficult throughout. Even getting agreement on a completion date that suits all parties has taken well over a week of constant co-ordination (all done by agents as the solicitors chucked it onto us as they often do).

The job of a sales progressor requires a great deal of patience, a firm grasp of spreadsheets and an unflappable manner. Every day and every sale brings something different to deal with or to learn.

Progressors also need to have more than a passing knowledge of all kinds of legal terms. Sometimes, they even need to help clients work their way through local council regulations & permissions like planning & building regulations. For example at our office, we deal with quite a few sales of HMOs so we are very familiar with Certificates of Lawful Use, licensing and suchlike.

The short answer with sales progressors is that they are the glue that holds a sale together and the necessary link between the buyers & sellers sides. Good solicitors recognise their value and will work with them collaboratively. Sellers and buyers value them to keep sales trotting along and smooth over any bumps in the road. If you’re buying or selling, make friends with your sales progressor – they will save you a lot of stress.