Hi there

My name's Ian Stuart and I'm the Managing Director of Dominic James estate agents in Ipswich.  

For the last 10 years selling property has been so easy you could give a monkey a bag of details, stand him on a street corner and get him to hand them out, and he'd have sold properties. It really has been easier than falling off the proverbial 'log'.  

You can understand why people dislike our profession so much, and to be honest there's more than a bit of truth when upset sellers said all their agent did for the £1,000's paid to them was:

• Take some average pictures
• Cobble together a few scrappy details
• Sling up a 'For Sale' board and...

'Hey Presto!' buyers were lining up ready to throw any amount of money at them.  I think we all agree this certainly wasn't value for money.

Now the market has turned and the easy pickings have come to an end.  Everyday, you read about more and more agents packing up and closing down.  

It's now more important than ever you choose your agent wisely, because you'll need the help of a professional marketer, keen to provide a real service, who's survived the tough times by adapting quickly to a rapidly changing market.

"You kept in touch by phone and email and were the only company who I didn't have to chase up, or remind I was actively house-hunting. Your web site is clear and easy to navigate (even for my mum - complete techno-phobe!)." Carol Ann Burke - BUYER

And that doesn't mean using one of the large corporate estate agents

They're just too big and slow to act quickly to change. They can't do 'change'.  Mention change to any of them and they immediately go all wide-eyed, start sweating in their shiny suits and turn pale with fright.

And to succeed in this new world, immediate change is the single most important aspect any business must have to provide it's clients with the best experience possible.

Because of their size, even the smallest change for the corporate estate agents means spending huge sums of M-O-N-E-Y, and that's something their shareholders don't like them doing.  Until now you've been paying top money for an old, out-of-date service which hasn't changed much in T-W-E-N-T-Y years.


But thanks to the internet you've now got real choice

You and I both know, the internet has transformed the way we live, work and communicate in just a few short years.  It is the ultimate playing field, thankfully tipped heavily in the favour of smaller, more agile businesses who can adapt and change almost instantly.

While the big agents have been relaxing and filling their pockets with your cash, smaller, more pro-active estate agents have been investing, learning and engaging in new technologies knowing big changes were just around the corner.

To show you just how fast you've got to move now, take yourself back only two years to 2006.  Few people had heard of Myspace and Facebook but just two years later over 60 million of us had become involved.  

Why?  

Because new technology has produced new tools helping us all maintain and build relationships easier and simpler than ever before.  

And it's because of these new ways to communicate, no business, no matter what size they are, can hide anymore.  It's now 'the people' who have the ultimate power.  

All it takes is a blog post or forum post from one unhappy individual and within hours it can spread virally to thousands of people causing unbelievable damage to a company. (Jeff Jarvis caused massive damage to Dell in 2005 - http://www.buzzstreams.net/DellHell#hn_B )

You've probably guessed by now, I'm not a fan of the corporate agents, even though I was one of them for a while.  Because of their deep marketing pockets they'd rather create slick advertising campaigns to convince you they are the ones leading from the front, rather than investing in the tools which would make this a reality, and because of market conditions having the deeper pockets has worked.  But not anymore.

And the truth is...

It's the smaller, really local, really professional, independent agents who've built their businesses with trust, knowledge and communication who've always been in a better position to give you a more personal and professional service. 

I know I shouldn't knock the competition, it's not professional, but I am just so fed up with the large agencies trundling through with their production-line estate agency, 'one suit fits all' method.


So what can Dominic James offer that's better?

"I was very impressed with the service from the first valuation visit through to completion. I was kept informed at all times and unlike other estate agents, I felt that Ian was honest and upfront. ...Thank you very much for making this a stress free move. I will definitely recommend you." Mr & Mrs Grant, Goodall Terrace, Grange farm, Kesgrave

You won't pay for expensive ineffective offices

Four months before closing our last office for good we did a test.  We closed 3 days a week and worked from our home offices.  

Result - No one batted an eye lid.  Our sales remained consistent, as did valuations, viewings and completions.

Conclusion - The vast majority of people aren't visiting estate agents' offices anymore, so why waste £1,000's a month keeping each one open, when we can use the money to lower your selling fees. So we did two things:

1. We used some of the savings to lower your fees
2. We used more savings to sponsor Suffolks first social network where we can all communicate together  http://www.domjam.com

You won't pay for ineffective advertising

For the whole of 2007 we slashed our newspaper advertising and were lucky if we did 1 ad a month.  We believed 2007 was the year people abandoned papers in their masses and they did. Why spend Forty or Fifty pence to look at a fraction of the property available when you can go online at home and get full details of all of them in seconds?

Result - It's now a fact over 95% of buyers and sellers search for property online, we just saw this trend ahead of time.  

What we did was spend the money on Google Adwords and online advertising which has been much more effective at driving buyers to view our sellers properties.  Now, instead of a few hours on a Thursday our marketing works for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  


Since then Rightmove have published their findings from over 32,000 homemovers in their 2008 Property Census and 83% of buyers found the internet more useful when searching for property.



Conclusion - People like the convenience, speed and completeness of viewing properties online which is why newspaper advertising by many agents has either been greatly reduced or stopped altogether.


You will have professionally produced, larger photo's

We realised a long time ago that the bigger the photos, the more impressive your property looks.  However, the bigger they are the better taken they have to be.  That's why we take many more photo's than we need of your property and only pick the very best.


You'll also benefit from fully detailed and scaled floor plans

The last thing you want is the world and his dog walking through your living room, you've got a life to get on with.  So we provide complete floor plans of your property to scale, free of charge.  They will save you countless hours showing your home to uninterested buyers and will give you an unfair advantage when people try and remember what the layout was of every home they visited that day.


Your property will have multiple pages, not just 1

The longer you can keep people looking at your property the more time it has to make the right impression.  Because of this we make sure your property has at least three full pages of it's own on our site and also a summary page when people search.


Your property is set up with it's own unique SEO campaign

What's SEO? Basically SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation.  We use our skills to set your property page up in such a way to be found on the first page of search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN.  When people do a search they end up on your property page to get you even more interested buyers.




Weekly seller reports improves communication

If you want to know exactly what we're doing to sell your home as quickly as possible you can be involved from start to finish.

One of the most important aspects of this digital age is it enables you to track virtually anything.  

We know how many people visit our site, which properties they view most.  We can even tell you whether they found your property from the search engines and which words they typed in to find your property.  Basically we can completely monitor all aspects about how well your property is performing.  

From these results we can simply work out what needs to be done to achieve the sale you want.  Below you'll find one of our weeky reports showing you the interest in a property over 28 days.  

Obviously we call you after each viewing and we also send out regular viewing reports which are handy to build up a complete picture when it comes to the marketing.




If your property ever needs an injection of interest we can do it

Sometimes, after reviewing your results and talking over the actions required, you'll need to re-launch the property and we've just the solution.  On most agents sites you'll find the longer you're with them the lower down the pile your property goes which means less and less interest.  

Our Featured Property System sorts this out to make your property really stand out to revitalise your new marketing strategy.  Placed on the front of the selling site, you will be given pride of place on the Home Page, the most visited page on any site.



Where else are you going to find all this in one package?

As you can see we've packed in all the 'good stuff', the 20% which really matters and discarded the 80% of fluff every other agent says you need.  Believe me, and please excuse my French, if all that 'crap' worked do you really think we'd have kept ripping our business apart just to rebuild it again and again.  

If it worked, there's no way I'd have gone to all this trouble over the past few years?  

Getting all these systems to work together in harmony has been a logistical nightmare, but one I knew was worth every minute because of the information we were receiving from constant testing, testing, testing.

So what am I trying to tell you?
  
Simply because of our size we've always had to try harder.  We've never been able to sit back, relax and watch the money come tumbling in.  And this is where our major advantage now comes into play.  You see, while the big companies have been sitting back relaxing, we've never stopped testing and adjusting our systems.  And now, because of the internet, I believe we're streets ahead in being able to get you the result you want in this hardened market.

We can now not only match like for like as far as marketing is concerned because of the internet, we can also offer a tailor made service to you which is completely out of reach for 'the others' because of their standard systems.

Isn't it amazing; because of new technology we can get back to the traditional values of good estate agency: A People Business

This out-of-date, crumbling system needs an overhaul and I'm not afraid to roll my sleeves up and get dirty.  In fact, as you'll see below, we changed ages ago and it's working brilliantly.



Now for the bit which always comes last but you always want to know first, how much is all this going to cost?
 
You probably won't be too surprised to find out I've changed this outdated way of paying as well.

As you know, most average estate agents have the one way to sell and if it doesn't suit your requirements, tough.  They'll usually charge you a % of the value of your home, which I've never understood.  Surely, you're paying an estate agent to find you a buyer by marketing your home, it's got nothing to do with it's value, has it?


I'd like to give you a choice...

First off, I won't charge you a percentage of the value of your home. And second, I'll let you choose which method suits you best.

It's common knowledge the value of an average home in the UK is around the £200,000 mark.  And the average estate agents fee is 1.5% which means you'll be paying £3000.00 + VAT.  In total your bill could be £3,525.00 and that's before your removals and conveyancing bills are taken into account.

Obviously if your home is worth more then you pay more, simple as that.


Dominic James do things differently

You pay us for the job of marketing your home and running your sale to completion for a FIXED FEE

Option 1:  £1697 + VAT =  £1994 On completion, whatever your home's value

Option 2:  £197   + VAT up front.  Then on completion £950 + VAT = £1348

So you can see, not only do we provide a modern, professional service which helps us build a trusting relationship with cutting edge communication, we can also offer this service for way less than the average estate agent who still has to pay for all the expensive, out-of-date marketing methods we both know just don't work anymore.


So my question to you is

Do you go the old, expensive way and get much less for your money or do you embrace the new, faster, more efficient way which allows a more personal, traditional approach and moves you more speedily in the least stressful situation you can have?

Oh, I nearly forgot, you'll also save yourself a bucketful of money.



Let's recap on what you get

Membership to Dominic James Selling Clients - Selling is a lonely experience so we've set up an online group where all our selling clients can talk to each other, swap tips and get ideas to make the process easier.  Communication between all of us is transparent, simple and easy.  No more waiting hours for a call to be returned.
But this doesn't take away from our personal service, it just adds to it.

Professionally designed floor plans to scale - You'll save hours not showing your home to the wrong people.

Professionally taken, larger photo's - Remember the larger the photo the more valuable your property becomes, but only if it's great quality.

3+ Pages on our site - The more pages your property has the more effective the marketing is and the more time buyers spend with your property the higher the chance of a sale.

Rightmove marketing - You just have to have this as it's THE place right now most buyers go to find property.

Clear statistical reports - Getting your marketing absolutely right takes time.  Clear, simple marketing reports slashes that time in half getting you on the move quicker.

Targeted SEO campaign - By setting your property pages up in a way Google like them will bring even more people to see your property.  We don't just wait for people to find us, we go out and find them.  This alone is worth our fee as it brings hundreds of new people a week to our site and no other local agent we know of has any idea how to do this.

DomJam 2.0 Suffolk's First Social Network - This will be a place where thousands of LOCAL people 'hang out', and at some time these people will want to buy a house.  As the main sponsors, this will bring even more viewings to your property.  As you know Social Networks are really 'hot' right now.

Use of 'The featured Property System' - If your property needs a quick push or re-marketed we make sure it is seen by the largest number of buyers by promoting it on the Home Page of our site.  There's no point in changing your marketing and be hidden away like on most agents sites.

Access to one of the largest buyer databases - I've not really covered this as it's a consequence of everything else we do above.  Because of all the extra work we put in to make sure your home is seen by the largest buying audience it builds our buyer database at a much quicker rate which you can benefit from.

You'll never pay more than £1697 + VAT - All I can say here is; we've trimmed off all the fat to leave a lean, efficient marketing system.  Because of this, you're only paying for the 'stuff' which really matters and not all the expensive excesses you'll pay for elsewhere.

So if you'd like to find out how to get much more for a lot less just fill in the form and I'll contact you very shortly.

Regards

Ian Stuart