Game Estate Agents

20/09/2026

19/09/2026

50 YEARS. AND STILL VERY MUCH LOCAL. 💙

Estate agency has changed enormously over the last 50 years.

Technology has changed. Marketing has changed. The way people search for their next home has changed.

But behind every move there are still people.

People selling homes full of memories. People buying their first home. Families needing more space. People starting again somewhere new.

And ultimately, people helping them make it happen.

We’re incredibly proud to be celebrating 50 years of Game Estates and even prouder that, after all that time, we’re still a local independent estate agent serving the communities around us.

50 years of people, property and community.

And we’re nowhere near finished yet. 💙

18/09/2026

17/09/2026

Have estate agents lost the art of actually selling houses?

It is a question I have found myself asking more and more recently.

Has estate agency become too focused on winning instructions, building the agent's personal profile and getting as many properties as possible onto Rightmove, while quietly hoping the portal does the selling for us?

Because Rightmove is an incredible tool.

But Rightmove is not your estate agent.

As I travel around speaking to sellers and buyers, I keep hearing stories about viewings that make me wonder whether we have forgotten one of the most important parts of the job.

An agent was too busy to conduct the viewing and asked the owner to do it.

Another apparently allocated just ten minutes for a viewing.

I even heard of an agent telling viewers they could not stay too long because they needed to leave to collect their new Mercedes.

You couldn't make some of it up.

And recently I experienced it myself.

I have just moved home and while viewing a property I asked the agent showing us around a very simple question.

"What is this property actually on the market for?"

They didn't know.

That genuinely surprised me.

Now, I need to be fair.

This is absolutely not every estate agent.

There are some excellent agents out there and I regularly hear buyers tell me about fantastic viewing experiences they have had with other companies.

But I do feel there is an increasing trend where the actual art of selling the house is getting lost.

A viewing should not consist of unlocking the front door, standing in the hallway and allowing somebody to wander around.

We are supposed to sell the property.

That means understanding it before the viewer arrives.

Where is the boiler?

Where is the consumer unit?

What appliances are integrated into the kitchen?

What has been extended?

What work has been carried out?

Where is the storage?

Could a room be used differently?

Could a wall potentially be opened up?

Where does the sun hit the garden?

How have the current owners used the space?

What is included in the sale?

And, perhaps most importantly, what is it about living in that particular house that somebody scrolling through twenty properties online would never know?

You learn those things by talking to the seller at the beginning of the process.

You learn the property.

Then, when you conduct the viewing, you can actually sell it.

I always believe you should arrive a little early, have the property ready, know who is coming through the door and allow them enough time to properly experience the house.

Not rush them because another viewing has been squeezed in behind them.

Not stand silently in the hallway.

And certainly not spend the entire appointment looking at your phone.

A good viewing is also about reading people.

Some buyers want to be guided around every room.

Others want space to imagine themselves living there.

Part of our job is knowing the difference.

Perhaps this obsession with listing numbers explains something else we see in estate agency.

Overvaluing.

If the objective is simply to win as many instructions as possible, it becomes tempting to tell a seller the number they want to hear, put the property online and hope that eventually somebody buys it.

If it doesn't sell, reduce it.

Then reduce it again.

But surely our job should be better than that.

Our job is not simply to list houses.

It is to advise sellers properly, market their homes properly, create genuine interest, conduct great viewings, negotiate properly and get the move through to completion.

Technology has transformed estate agency.

Social media matters.

Video matters.

Photography matters.

Personal branding matters.

Rightmove matters enormously.

But none of those things replace the fundamentals.

Sometimes you still have to walk into a house, know everything you possibly can about it and sell it to the person standing in front of you.

Maybe that sounds old fashioned.

Personally, I think it's just estate agency.

Anyone can list a property. Selling it is the real job.

15/09/2026

Game Estates
Property sales & Lettings
🏆: Member of the National Landlords Association.
📍: Covering the Essex area
📩:[email protected]
🌎: www.game-estates.co.uk
📞: 01206 384810
Established 1974