Prosperous, Positive & Exciting 2018

January 8, 2018 by Rob @ Scott & Stapleton

We start all over again. After what was yet again a record breaking 2017 we are ready to do it all again and more in 2018. In their wisdom the bosses have inevitably raised the targets for this year and we expect another bumper year in 2018. 2017 saw us take more properties on the market, sell more and exchange contracts on the most ever so another year like that will do just fine, thank you very much.

I don’t expect for the general housing market to do much more volume I am just hopeful that the slice of the pie for Scott & Stapleton gets that little bit bigger. I have no doubt that there will be challenges ahead. We of course have Brexit looming, Donald Trump might make another year as president and even Theresa May might hang on by her fingernails but there is also an awful lot to be positive about. Interest rates and the pound now seem stable, mortgage rates are still extremely competitive and prices in general, whilst increasing are doing so at a reasonable pace.

Locally there is a great deal to look forward to in 2018. The end now seems in sight for The Grand after finally a positive planning decision. The Broadway goes from strength to strength with new shops opening including a coffee shop opposite our office and the expected Marks & Spencers food shop due to open in the old post office site. With stamp duty changes there are some substantial savings for first time buyers with the new build apartments available on the London Road and surrounding areas and the fabulous outlook of at least another 51 of my blogs this year.

On that point I have had some really positive and delightful feedback for my blogs in the past year. People making the effort to come in to the office and thank me and comment which is always fabulous and welcome. It never ceases to amaze me that people take the time to read my articles and I hope that I can be informative and helpful to residents and people thinking of moving to Leigh on Sea alike.

I always encourage feedback and if anyone has any suggestions about what I could or should write about I will always look in to it and try and research the topic and include as best as I can. I am getting better with criticism! I have been an estate agent now for a very long time and have a slightly thicker skin but cant say that I enjoy it. The ethos that we set up when I joined Scott & Stapleton was for our service to excel. The vast majority of our business comes from repeat business returning to use us again or recommendation. We will never try to compete with the volume agents locally where our clients or properties are lost in a system with hundreds of others. We are always available to clients to be able to talk to and resolve anything as best we can. Unfortunately we cant keep all of the people happy all of the time (believe me, we try), when we do get less positive feedback this is always taken on board and dealt with as promptly as possible.

Recently, I personally had some feedback posted on line about me and my blogs. As you can imagine it can be quite hurtful when it is personal and targeted. I am not on social media myself so am always amazed about comments that people think are acceptable to post. My colleagues who are much more clued up than me at these things looked in to the chap that commented to see if we could assist him or get a bit more detail. Unbelievably it turned out that this chap was a young man who still lived with his parents who had never ever used our services to buy, sell or rent a property through us?

Oh, I have just remembered something else to look forward to this year. We are now only 17 months away from the wedding of the decade for my colleague Lisa in the office. We can look forward to another year of what already seems like the longest engagement ever. I am sure I will be able to provide you with intricate details of diets, dresses and important details like crockery decisions for the big day. This is something that I will take great pleasure in sharing with you all, watch this space.

So whilst all of us here at Scott & Stapleton are full of colds and have the scales out to see the damage that Christmas has done we can now put that behind us and look forward to a prosperous, positive and exciting 2018.

This article is by Rob at Scott & Stapleton
Email: rob@scottandstapleton.com 
Tel: 01702 471155