According to Gibraltar’s OFT Code, Estate Agents Should Advise. So Why Are most Just Listing and not advising?

"What do you want for it?"

It sounds like a perfectly reasonable question.

After all, it's your home.  You know what you paid for it, how much you've spent improving it and what your neighbour sold for.  Naturally, you have a figure in mind.

But if those five words are the very first thing an estate agent asks when they come to value your property, you should pause for a moment.

Because if you're the one deciding the asking price, what exactly is the estate agent being paid to do?

Estate agency has never been about taking photographs, uploading properties to a website or putting a board outside a house.  Those things are simply marketing.

The profession has always been about advice.

That, after all, is why people employ an estate agent in the first place.

At Richardsons, we regularly meet homeowners who have invited several agents to appraise their property.  Many describe almost exactly the same experience.  The agent walks around the property, admires the view, compliments the kitchen and then asks the inevitable question:

"So... what are you hoping to achieve?"

The owner names a figure.

The agent smiles.

And somehow, almost by magic, that becomes the asking price.

❌ No discussion about comparable sales.

❌ No explanation of current buyer demand.

❌ No evidence.

❌ No professional recommendation.

Just agreement.

It may be the easiest way to win an instruction, but it is certainly not the best way to advise a client.

A proper valuation should begin with the market - not with the owner's aspirations.

That doesn't mean ignoring what the seller wants to achieve.  Of course those conversations matter.  Every client has different circumstances, different ambitions and different financial considerations.

But they should come after the valuation, not instead of it.

✅ An estate agent's first responsibility is to provide an honest opinion based upon experience and evidence.

✅ Sometimes that opinion is exactly what the client was hoping to hear.

✅ Sometimes it isn't.

✅ Either way, it is the very service the client is paying for.

There is another trend that deserves mention.

Many people naturally assume that the largest estate agencies must also provide the best advice.  Bigger office, bigger team, bigger property list - it feels reassuring.

Yet size alone has never been a measure of professionalism.

In fact, one could argue that the opposite is often true.

When an agency is carrying well over a hundred properties, it becomes increasingly difficult to give every instruction the time, thought and individual attention it deserves.  The business inevitably becomes focused on winning the next instruction rather than advising the last one.

At that point, there is a danger that an estate agent quietly becomes something else altogether.

A listing agent.

There is an important difference.

A listing agent's objective is to collect properties.

An estate agent's responsibility is to advise people.

Those are not the same thing.

If every appraisal ends with another property added to the books - regardless of whether the asking price reflects reality - then the valuation has ceased to be professional advice.  It has simply become a sales exercise.

It may create an impressive-looking portfolio, but a window full of overpriced properties is not a measure of success.

Sold properties are.

This is not simply Richardsons' opinion.  It is exactly what Gibraltar's Office of Fair Trading (OFT) expects.

The OFT Code of Conduct states that when advising a client on the value of their property, an estate agent's advice should be given "in good faith" and should reflect "your professional opinion."  It goes on to state that the advice should reflect the characteristics of the property, prevailing market conditions and, wherever possible, be supported by comparable evidence.

Finally, it makes something else abundantly clear:

"You should never directly or indirectly misrepresent the market value of a property."

Those words matter.

Notice what the Code does not say.

❌ It does not say an estate agent should ask the owner what they would like for the property and simply market it at that figure.

Professional bodies take precisely the same view.  Propertymark, (the National Association of Estate Agents), teaches that market appraisals should be based upon comparable evidence, local market knowledge, current market conditions and informed professional judgement.

In other words, the estate agent should do the thinking.

Not the client.

Pricing a property correctly is one of the most important decisions in the entire selling process.

Price it too high and buyers simply move on.  The property sits on the market, interest fades, price reductions follow and eventually buyers begin asking the wrong question:

"What's wrong with it?"

Price it sensibly from the outset and the opposite happens.  The greatest interest comes in the first few weeks of marketing, when the property is fresh and buyers are paying attention.  Enquiries are stronger, competition is greater and negotiations begin from a position of strength.

None of this is guesswork.

It comes from years of analysing the Gibraltar market, watching buyer behaviour and understanding what genuinely motivates purchasers.

Experience cannot be replaced by simply asking a seller what they would like to achieve.

At Richardsons, every valuation begins in exactly the same place.

With the market.

We analyse comparable sales, current competition, buyer demand, location, presentation, specification and the many subtle factors that influence what purchasers are prepared to pay today - not six months ago and not what someone hopes they might pay tomorrow.

Only then do we recommend an asking price.

Sometimes that recommendation is higher than expected.

Sometimes it is lower.

It is not our job to tell clients what they want to hear.

It is our job to tell them what they need to know.

That is the difference between marketing property and practising estate agency.

Anyone can ask, "What do you want for it?"

A professional estate agent should be answering a far more valuable question:

"What is your property genuinely worth, and how do we achieve the very best result?"