Online estate agency is now mainstream, says a property search firm.

Purplebricks is the current leader of the pack, according to Property Vision,  with its total fee for selling a property at £1,158 inc VAT.

“For this you will get a local expert coming to value your house and it placed on their website. That’s it. To be fair, if you want it, they will help you negotiate for nothing extra and will offer a viewing service for £210 inc VAT – and the viewing service is open ended. Too good to be true?

“Well it depends on what you are expecting. We did a bit of mystery shopping to find out how it worked in practice. The responsiveness and speed of reply were good and the ‘local expert’ was punctual and pleasant.

“The only problem was that he was neither local nor an expert in that he had never worked in the areas he was an ‘expert’ in and he was covering eleven – that is eleven – London post codes. How he would have time to see all the potential instructions, let alone help in any negotiation, is hard to fathom. Purple Brick’s aim is to have one ‘local expert’ per postcode. Even then that would be a stretch for a service which is, by definition, mass market.

“This week two big estate agents announced their own forays into this space. Savills have taken a 20% stake in YOPA. Their aim, one would guess, is to have a ringside seat to see how this market develops; it’s not their market but they want to see how it does from close up.

“Countrywide are being a bit more innovative. They are piloting a scheme in three areas of the country where they offer a suite of services, from the under £1,000, purely online offering – but with a menu that sellers can plug into as and when they need it: if the negotiation gets too tense they can buy some handholding, for instance.

“The traditional estate agency model, that everyone hates, has, like a vampire, refused to die quietly. Videos and the internet have failed to kill it off – so far, so it would be foolish to bet too heavily against it.

“It’s hard to see how the Purplebricks model can make money even in a mass market – because sooner or later their costs are going to have to rise to deliver even the barest service other than a simple website presence.

“Countrywide seem the most realistic and sensible with what looks like an Easyjet model – cheap basic flight costs but you pay through the nose for every sandwich you eat and suitcase you put in the hold.”

http://propertyvision.com/en/residential/thoughts/property/online-estate-agency