Blog / Buyer Management
Supporting the buyer to build trust with Steve Cromarty
With Steve Cromarty, Love Realty
In one day, a single presenter from Love Realty in the Hunter region of NSW could do between five and seven appraisals. Owner Steve Cromarty says, “We're trying to bring that back to four.” Steve and his team are kicking goals on the selling side of the business – and they are also supporting buyers through the buying process.
Steve has prepared a document just for buyers which builds trust through frequency of genuine and authentic contacts. He explains, “The document is called The Complete Purchasing Plan. Lee (Woodward) developed a Complete Selling Plan - we developed the Complete Purchasing Plan. Most purchasers are guided based on how agents respond. So they go from one agent to the next agent and we all pretty much sound the same. We sound like we're going to be the blockage in helping them purchase a home. So this is built around fracturing the stereotypes, giving the purchaser guidance and having them, I guess, feeling supported."
He adds, “It just made sense that when someone's purchasing a property it helps get them to understand what process they're about to embark upon. Therefore, when they're in the mode and they're getting ready to purchase, they're less fearful because they're only fearful of what they don't know. Also, it places our sales people in a position where if you have a good person that loves the industry, it's a case of following a process in sequential order. It gives anyone the ability to sell a home."
By managing the buyer well, supporting them through the process, Steve and his team deliver for the owner - but they can also take advantage of referral business and cross sell business such as property management if the property purchased is an investment property. Sounds like a win/win, doesn’t it?
Features of the Complete Purchasing Plan
Steve says, “The very first part of the process is identifying the right home. That's where someone has looked through a home, they've identified they might like the home, and it meets their needs. They've identified key features, but at that point their standard response might be that they want to think about it.” The next step is:
How much should I offer and Your Best Chance document.
Steve says to clients at this stage, “Look, the best way for you to showcase your offer is to put it in writing and put it in a document that we call the Best Chance Document. Because at that point, it's documented and you can rest assured that the owner is going to receive your offer and it's going to be taken seriously.” He continues, “We talk to them about using the Best Chance document accompanied with a contract and utilising the cooling off period along with the benefit connected to the cooling off period and they're not paying 2.5 per cent deposit to secure the home. So we talk about their risk attached in this part of the process."
The next step is: Confirmation of purchase and due diligence.
Steve says to a buyer, “Why don't we gather these terms and conditions and the price that you're thinking and why don't we package that together in a formal offer and we document that up and patch that up in the Contract for Sale?” The Plan also identifies, as part of this process, that Steve or a member of his team would then contact the bank or broker and drive through the valuation.
Steve says when working with a buyer and they are purchasing a property using the Complete Purchasing Plan, they get the broker's details, and Steve gets them to understand that they need to be part of the process as well, not sitting back expecting or thinking that the service providers would just automatically do it. Steve says, “These are the things that hold up a sale. We would also talk to them about the valuation, how the valuer values the property and what happens if it comes up short? What would we do then? So, we've had a couple of valuations come up short recently and the sale still proceeded because it's part of their process. Because people are only fearful or only feel nervous around what it is that they don't know. So the more engaged we can have them in the process, and the better informed the purchaser, the smoother the process."
The final step, once the property is purchased is: Organising the move.
Steve says, “At that point we'd talk about Direct Connect or whatever service provider we use to connect their services as well. We’d talk about using one phone call to look after the connection of all their services. At this point here, we would also talk about the final inspection. We're talking about the points of contact that they can expect up until exchange and what they can expect with contact up until organising the settlement inspection and the final walk-through and explaining to them why they're doing that. Because their solicitor's going to tell them to do a final walk-through, agents at this point in the process don't even think about talking to them about it so they get confused about something as simple as a final inspection. And then obviously, we're explaining to them after final inspection we have the settlement date. It's your home. It's all about a relationship. We're talking about getting referrals at this point. We're talking about our ongoing relationship."
Steve’s comprehensive guide builds trust, smooths out the buying process and creates happy clients at the end. Isn’t that the point of the whole process?
← Go back
