Simple question folks (and no stupid, ironic, abusive or time-wasting answers please).
Nothing more than a one line reply is necessary.
What is, first and foremost, the principle job of an Estate Agent ?
I am talking about the most important aspect of their job.
Everything else comes second.
I have a bet with someone that no more than 3 people will get it right.
EAs responses are particularly welcome.
The job of the estate agent is to sell the house on behalf of the vendor.
There is no need for them in the modern market place. The internet does 90% of their job, and the other 10% can be done either by the vendor themselves, or to raise comfort levels a random person off the street for alot less money.
To make money for the company they work for.
They are sales people, with targets etc.
The job of an estate agent is to make money by any means possible (legally) for the estate agency and by inference, themselves.
Which brings about an interesting aside which I hadn’t really considered, what is the ratio between salary and commission typically?
So far no correct answers.
You are all jumping too far ahead.
It is my most important target.
It is the one I concentrate on for most of my day.
I would say it is to get the maximum money for a house in the minimum amount of time. The skill is in getting that balance right.
Or to but it another way their main job is negotiation.
Negotiating with buyers to get more money and negotiating with sellers to lower their price to allow a quick sale.
No answers that fit with your interpretation, Mr. Anderson. I’ll be looking forward to whatever rationalisation you produce to tell me that the job of an estate agent is not to make money for the agency overall.
To me, it’s sound like a stunning piece of doublethink.
Getting customers (vendors) on your books?
Showing property as the more you show the more likely you are to close.
To make sure it is in the interest of the company that they remain with the company, like any good sales person they should pay for themselves.
To my mind get sales completed and receive commissions for doing so…Let me relay my story about a month a go a property that I was intrested in was advertsied for auction for about 2 mths at 1m the auction was held nobody bid on the auction…I phoned to ask the EA after the auction what price were the vendors looking for now she said 1.3m…when I expressed my surprise…she indignantly told me that “that if the vendors do not get this price they will take it off the market”…this to my mind is the attitude that still pervades through the EA community whereby the seller is King and the prospective buyer is “gum on their shoe”…This was fine when the mkt was like the last 15 yrs but now it has changed they should be treating the prospective buyer as the favoured party…Wherby her attitude should have been to try and talk realistically to the vendors about reducing their price…her attitude was that I was the schmuck and time waster by not paying the 1.3…their attitude baffles me…in this mkt they should be marketing to buyers that we will get you what you want not the other way round!! that is the service I wwould pay for now!
To manage the estate of a member of the landed class.
Mr Anderson is probably not an Estate Agent and more likely a negotiator.
To get sellers to use them as the agent
Generate leads?
to act as a mediator between buyer and your client, achieving the highest possible price for the client?
[PS it’s really difficult not to say what you actually want to say in this thread 
]
well that’s me ruled out 
You are an agent.
In general - It requires you to accomplish the objectives of the principle (client) on their behalf.
Specifically, that could mean anything, for example:
A client says they absolutely need to sell a house withing one month. You would act to do that and it might entail dropping the price lower than you might otherwise advise, or,
A client tells you they wish to maximise the price, in which case you might allow the property to stay on the market lopnger than you might otherwise advise.
A client may even come to you and tell you they want to sell their house to a one armed dwarf. Still your principle job will be to help them accomplish this objective.
“Principal”!
But how and ever, this is only true if the remuneration for achieving said task = the best outcome for the business, this can of course include the development of goodwill and further client transactions, etc.
Still, it all comes back to making money for the business! Whether that’s selling houses or pretending to play with a turned off Amstrad CPC 464*!!
(*that’s my one abiding memory of my parent’s estate agent back in the 80s, to say the look on his face was sheepish when I walked in would be an understatement… Still I’m glad that was the only “joystick” he had out!!! 
)
I was asked a question like this once in an interview: “What should any company’s number one priority be?”
I answered: “to survive”.
Helped get me the job. 
The no. 1 job is to negotiate a successful agreement between the vendor and the purchaser of the listed property.