In-house valuers speed up our service as property market bounces back

May 2020   |   Home Page   |   Back to articles
It’s been great this week to see our housebuilder clients swing back into action and opening up their sales centres, albeit by appointment only and with special social distancing measures in place.

As a result of their activity Property Perspective has been receiving new referrals for Part Exchange and Agency Assist transactions and our in-house valuers have hit the floor running. 

John Jarvis, Property Perspective’s managing director, says: “Having an in-house valuation team is one of our USPs and, unlike some of our competitors, we’ve been able to respond very quickly as the wheels of the housing market start turning again. 

“One week in and I’m delighted to say that we’ve been able to undertake valuations and return full appraisal reports within similar timescales to pre-lockdown. We’ve also adapted our valuation practices to make them Covid safe for customers and staff.”  

Measures in place for valuation visits include:

  • Collecting as much information pre-visit by telephone as possible
  • Ensuring the customer is happy with our visit and they understand the necessity for the safety rules 
  • Making sure no-one is displaying symptoms, is currently confirmed as positive or is considered to be in any vulnerable group
  • Our valuers wear face masks and gloves during the whole appointment 
  • The customer stepping outside the property during our visit 
  • Discussions held on the doorstep or in the garden with social distancing being more manageable 
  • Highlighting areas in the house that the valuers may have had to touch, eg. door handles 
  • Safe disposal of PPE and cleansing of hands and equipment following each visit

Property Perspective’s valuations manager Jon Bryan adds: “By having our own experienced in-house valuation team, we are not reliant upon the delayed reopening of some estate agents or their prioritising of more profitable customers.  We have been able to provide our developer clients with thoughts and opinions and to visit homeowners from day one of reopening. 

“Already this week our valuation team has successfully visited a number of new customers' properties, completed comprehensive appraisal reports and submitted them to our developer clients for their consideration.

“Even during the lockdown period, we prepared by sourcing suitable PPE for all our valuation team and adapted our business practices; for instance we have been very successful in providing digital desktop valuations for our developer clients, most of which have now come to market.

“Our new safety protocol for home visits has been enthusiastically welcomed by the vast majority of customers, as they are now able to progress their plans to move. And this invaluable consumer confidence in what we do helps our developer clients immeasurably as they can plan ahead with their sales forecasts and building schedules.”

It’s not just valuations that are going well at Property Perspective – with well over 300 properties on its books, enquiries and viewing requests have also bounced back.

John Jarvis explains: “During lockdown we received 150 requests for viewings, which we were unable to arrange in person. Instead we encouraged homeowners to film videos tours of their properties that we could send to prospective purchasers to help keep their interest warm. Since the Government relaxed its restrictions on property viewings we’ve been going back to everyone to arrange those visits but, last weekend alone, we received 70 brand new viewing requests. Consumers are sending a very strong signal that they still want to move home.” 

Property Perspective are Part Exchange and Agency Assist experts, offering seven days a week service, speedy valuations and expert advice, all backed by relevant housebuilder and property industry experience. See www.thepropertyperspective.co.uk or call 0845 6800 262 for more information.

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