News
In the Loop - October
How to Succeed in a Changing Market
24 September 2007
Rising interest rates and the tailing off of the credit boom have affected the housing market considerably. Many developers throughout the country have seen a significant reduction in site traffic on both their websites and in their showhomes. Developers are having to become more innovative in their strategies to generate sales.
“It is no longer good enough to simply offer a limited amount of part-exchange deals on selected property”, said Kevin Belsham, Group Sales and Marketing Director of Taylor Wimpey, “We need to offer more flexibility to allow anyone who wants to purchase one of our homes an attractive and convenient method of buying it, whether they are first time buyers or people who already own a home that they need to sell first.”
The extent to which Taylor Wimpey are willing to help their buyers is reflected in their easymover scheme. movewithus will carry out the valuations of the customer’s existing property and after helping to agree a realistic marketing price, will oversee the sale of the property whilst remaining in close contact with the developers and the consumer. The focus is on helping the customer get into a position to buy their new home in a timeframe that suits all.
Kevin Belsham added, “We make the whole process easy for them - from getting the initial deal agreed to the marketing of the buyer’s home to organising the moving in date. It’s a great deal for our customers and we make it easy for ourselves by using movewithus to manage the process with us.”
Russell Cade, Sales Director of movewithus, is seeing an increase in this type of transaction across a wider range of developers, “We have already dealt with over £135million worth of assisted sale property so far this year, which equates to 891 newhome plot sales for our clients. Bearing in mind that only 30% of our own clients use this scheme at present, the extra opportunity is huge.”
He added, “Many developers look at part-exchange as the only option. Obviously this has its advantages for both parties but it’s also limited to the relatively small amount of customers who satisfy the criteria and can offer the required price differentials. This still leaves plenty of motivated customers visiting site who don’t fit that scheme but are open to work with us to secure a new home.”
