Let the Work Advertise

In a town the size of Tzaneen, an estate agent's reputation is decided mostly by people who never see the adverts: the conveyancers and bond originators who handle the files after the board comes down. They see the work from the inside, and they talk.

Picture two offers to purchase landing on a conveyancer's desk on the same morning. One has the right erf number, signatures from both spouses where the sellers are married in community of property, suspensive conditions written out with clear dates, and copies of the FICA documents attached. The other has the wrong street number, a missing initial on the third page and a bond clause that never says how much the buyer needs to borrow. The first file moves. The second turns into a week of phone calls, corrections and apologies to a buyer who wants to know why nothing is happening.

Neither agent paid for an advert that week, and yet both of them were advertised. The conveyancer remembers whose files arrive clean, so does the bond originator, and when a friend asks either of them who to list a house with, the answer comes from those files rather than from the size of anyone's billboard.