The market share of self-employed agents across the sales sector has grown 33% in the last year and 500% since 2019, new figures show.  

Data provided by TwentyEA, part of the TwentyCi group, found that by October 2023, self-employed agents had launched 1.8% of all new instructions in the last year. This is despite the older model online agents seeing their market share drop 36% in the last year and 52% since 2019.  

TwentyEA defines self-employed agents as those without a physical branch, usually working under an umbrella brand such as eXp, Keller Williams or iAD. They define their own operating patch and multiple agents may work under the same brand in the same area. A percentage of their earnings goes to Head Office, but they are fully responsible for how they run their businesses. 

These agents operate similarly to the likes of a Purplebricks agent and appear to be gaining back the ground that the older online brands have been losing.

While the overall market share of hybrid agents has been falling across all new instructions since 2019 and has decreased from 7.6% in 2019 to 5.5%, this overall drop hides the rapid growth of self-employed agents who are a subset of online agents.  

The chart below demonstrates the rise in their market share and may mean the reported ‘death’ of online agents has been greatly exaggerated.  

 Typically, online agents have average instruction prices which are lower compared with traditional agents.  

However, the chart below shows the spread of instruction prices outside of London during the last year. The orange boxes marked with an X show the middle 50% of instruction prices. This reveals that self-employed agents are instructing at price ranges which cover and exceed the instruction prices of the top 10 UK agent brands. Obviously, location is key but the data suggests self-employed agents are strong competitors for traditional established brands.  

 Katy Billany, executive director of TwentyEA, said: “While at first glance the market share of online agents has fallen, this trend masks the astonishing momentum behind the growth of self-employed agents who now account for almost 2% of all new instructions. This is not an insignificant achievement given the largest traditional branch model brand, William H Brown, has a market share of 1.4%.  

“Many agents may dismiss the growth because they believe hybrid agents appeal to the lower end of the market, but that’s not the case with self-employed agents who are pricing competitively against the top 10 agent brands.  

 
“Gaining a competitive edge has never been more important and key to this is an agent’s understanding of what’s happening in their marketplace and their ability to identify the right opportunities with a targeted strategy.  

“For example, in the last year, more than 83% of all instructions came from vendors whose properties were not currently or recently on the market (off-market instructions), with 64% not on the market in the last five years. Our products use AI and Machine Learning techniques to accurately predict who will move in the next two months, allowing agents to get ahead of their competitors and contact those who are most likely to instruct.” 

Generally, hybrid agents have not been as successful in the lettings sector, but they are now gaining ground due to a cannibalisation of the market through the rapid growth of OpenRent. Within lettings, hybrid agents’ market share has increased by 14% in the last year and 88% since 2019. Specifically, OpenRent accounts for 12.6% of this year’s 14% total.   

OpenRents’s average listing prices are the same as, and slightly higher than, those of the top 10 traditional lettings agents. 

Billany added: “For both sales and lettings, it’s important agents have the relevant data to showcase their strengths to demonstrate to potential vendors and landlords why they are the best agent to market their property. Obviously identifying landlords who list on OpenRent and communicating the advantages of using a letting agent is the first step. The next is transparently supporting their claims with valuable data. 

“Many of the newer self-employed agents are winning instructions with a promise of excellent service but this should be a standard practice. Having the right data at their fingertips to prove their performance levels is key for agents to win over their competition, whether that be the branch next door, or a hybrid agent.”