In the changing housing market, the real estate agent has to do just that little bit better

The interior of the top floor of the stately Amsterdam mansion on Rombout Hogerbeetsstraat is somewhat curious. Spread over almost 100 square meters are a few large pieces of furniture. A sofa, two beds, a dining table, a bookcase without books. No photos anywhere, no stuff on bedside tables or cosmetics in the bathroom, clothes in the walk-in closet are missing.

On the other hand, there is no shortage of accessories. There are editions of the magazine here and there Home, about seven prints are framed against the walls waiting to be hung. In the kitchen a hip salt and pepper set, the book Must eat Paris, a set of ceramic bowls. At least ten vases and candlesticks in the bookcase, as many in the rest of the house. The plants – two large ones in the living room – are fake. Bubble wrap and large shoppers are scattered on the floor.

Here’s Esther Ririassa, self-proclaimed home styler, working. Her company specializes in furnishing houses ‘ready to sell’. The house on Rombout Hogerbeetsstraat was for sale for a while in October and did not sell. Now it comes on the market for a second time and Ririassa is on. The owners have already moved, as has their furniture.

Read also: The ‘party’ on the housing market is now really over

Ririassa has been in the business for over twenty years, but in recent months she has experienced something she has never seen before. The demand for her work exploded: Ririassa estimates that she has three times as many assignments as other years during this period. She says it laughing. But after a short silence also a sigh: “We are really looking for new staff.”

The housing market has been stable for years. Price increase followed price increase, viewings were crowded, no new home without outbidding. That trend seems to have changed since last summer – and with it the work of sales brokers.

Homebuyers are more hesitant, real estate agents have signaled. The latest sales figures support this observation: in the last quarter of 2022, 8 percent fewer homes were sold than a year earlier. There were also more than twice as many homes for sale as at the end of 2021, and it also took longer for a deal to be completed. In short, if you want to buy a house, you can take your time and negotiate. And it leads to homeowners and real estate agents knocking on her door more often, says homestyler Ririassa.

Boring work

“If you put a new property online last year, you had thirty applications within three minutes,” says Sjoerd Bijstra of the real estate agency of the same name in Tjerkgaast, Friesland. Boring work, he thought. “It was a matter of opening the door, letting a lot of people in, selling three days later. And in the meantime disappoint a lot of people.”

That is different now, says Bijstra. In his region, Southwest Friesland, the number of sales fell by more than 20 percent in a year. “The problem is currently the supply, we cannot fill our portfolio,” he says. “We always only have two or three houses to sell. For us, a healthy portfolio consists of thirty homes, and at the peak we had a hundred.” Bijstra does not want to complain: after a number of fat years, his office can handle a little less clientele.

Marilein Chapelier-Harpe has fewer problems with supply, but sees that houses are now on average for a lot longer than before. She is a broker in Sluis, in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen (more than 16 percent fewer transactions). Also difficult: sellers often have an unrealistic image. “They look around when they put their house up for sale. And then they want the same amount for their house as the neighbor did a year ago,” she says. “While the market was very different then.”

What should brokers do differently now? Their most important task is to deal realistically with the sales price, says Chapelier-Harpe. That means: convincing customers that the high price is no longer possible, because then you miss the ‘momentum’. “If you put a property online, it will be at the top of everything,” says Chapelier-Harpe. The longer a house is for sale – because the price is too high, for example – the further the house sinks on a sales site like Funda. “Buyers do not quickly look at page seven. And if they do, they quickly think: there must be something wrong with that house, because it has been there for so long.”

Bijstra from Tjerkgaast is mainly concerned with his own name recognition. He called in a marketing agency and advertises more actively on social media such as Facebook and Instagram. And he thinks of creative actions to win the attention of customers. “We bought a moving van that customers can borrow when they buy a house from us,” he says. Bijstra started his office around the crisis of 2008. “That made us creative. At the time, we once raffled a car among all home buyers.”

Estate agent Mark Staats from Haarlem (15 percent fewer sales) is looking for the solution in improving the houses in his portfolio. “Now that energy prices are so high, you see that well-insulated houses sell much better,” says Staats. He sometimes advises clients to make adjustments to raise their home to a higher energy label.

“And the importance of a tidy and neat house has become even greater,” says Staats. As chairman of the local NVM department, he hears that colleagues are increasingly using styling agencies, such as that of Esther Ririassa. The idea behind it: hip, beautiful furniture and accessories make the house look habitable. And that will tempt viewers to make an offer.

Connect with the target group

In Amsterdam, Ririassa and her employees – three women in their twenties and thirties – run through the upstairs apartment, up and down the stairs. They hang lamps, decide which candle looks best in which window frame and choose a print to go with the light blue wall in the bedroom. For her services, Ririassa agrees on a rate in advance, depending on the size of the house and how long the furniture will stay. In this case about 2,500 euros for three months.

In the end, it’s about fitting the interior as closely as possible to the target group of the home, says Ririassa. Here that means: a young family with a big wallet – the house was previously for sale for more than 8.5 tons.

She has some tricks. Most larger items are neutral in color — beige, gray, white — so they go with everything. A round table in the fairly small living room – “then the room looks bigger” – and a print that has to cover four holes in the wall, where the television used to be. She once placed editions of a business newspaper at a villa in Amsterdam South Financial Times on the dining table, here she sticks to magazines about furnishing.

Estate agent Staats from Haarlem has not hired a styling agency himself, but not because he does not consider furnishing important when selling. “My wife is an interior designer and I learn a lot from her. I already give a lot of unsolicited advice to many customers myself.” Because: “Ultimately, as a real estate agent you have to ensure that a house is that one red apple in a basket of green apples.”