Almost all home owners would consider using an online estate agent to sell their property, it has been claimed.
According to estate agency comparison website netanagent.com 85% would consider the option.
The site, which allows home owners to research fees charged by both online and traditional agents, said this was among the responses in an independently conducted survey of 1,000 home owners conducted betwen July 18 and 2.
However, it said that its research showed a “clear appreciation for the services offered by traditional agents, with reasons not to use an online agent including a desire to speak to people face to face” and a preference for “local people” to sell property in the local area.
Other findings showed that only 18% of home owners view estate agents as helpful, while 20% view them as knowledgeable. Against that, 35% think estate agents are pushy, and 30% perceive them as poor value for money.
When choosing an agent, fee is the most important deciding factor (56%), with personal recommendation a close second and local knowledge and responsiveness also ranking highly.
Crucially, however, findings show that home owners expect a lot for their money with a quarter (25%) expecting to pay as little as 0.5%-1% fee to cover all estate agency services.
As part of the fee, consumers expect services such as photography (52%) and the listing of their property on property portals such as Rightmove (49%) to be covered, with 10% expecting the running of open days, 6% video marketing services and 10% virtual tours to be included as standard.
Despite wanting to pay a low fee, 38% of consumers expect estate agents to provide support and guidance from valuation to completion as part of their service.
Alex Thorpe of netanagent – which does not charge agents a subscription fee or for leads, but does charge per completed deal – said: “Estate agents have often come under the cosh in the past and are an easy target for consumers who think they aren’t getting value for money as part of one of the biggest sales or purchasing decisions they will ever make.
“With more savvy consumers who are willing to shop around and the rise of online and hybrid estate agents enabling sellers to do more themselves, the pressure is really on to show people that they are getting value for money.
“What’s clear from our research is that home owners don’t necessarily understand the sheer amount of work that goes into selling a property.
“From local knowledge and an understanding of the marketplace, to an awareness of what a target audience is looking for and an understanding of how best to promote property, estate agents work very hard for their fee to deliver the best price for a home owner.
“There is a real need for estate agents to better promote the value they can bring consumers so sellers can truly understand the best estate agent for their needs.”
Thorpe said that the findings revealed a “huge disconnect” between vendors and agents when it comes to understanding what is involved in selling a property, and that agents face a challenge when convincing consumers of their value.
Asked about his service, last night Thorpe explained:“Listing on netanagent is free and we charge nothing for leads or valuations.The only time a fee does apply is when a property sale or let completes. We ensure agents pay nothing until they have been paid themselves.
“We have over 6,000 agents providing automatic proposals to consumers, so when a property is listed, these proposals show straight away. We then go out to the rest of the local market and offer the lead to all within a small radius of the property and agents manually respond to enquiries as they would with other leads.
“Our aim is to provide every agent possible to our users to give them the widest possible choice and allow them to make an informed decision.
“We market our service through various channels but the majority of our users find us through search engines when looking for estate agents in their area, or when trying to understand the fees they may be charged or the services agents offer.”
Unfortunately some fool for the “we’ll SELL your home for 50p” ********.
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Some also fall for English lessons for £1
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Only yesterday I was chatting to someone who said they would never use an online agent preferring face to face contact, she must therefore be the person who is not the almost all !!! Anyone I have spoken to who has used an on line agent (& there’s not many) have all said never again.
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Depends on who they asked. 1000 recent home purchasers.
With it coming from netagent wouldn’t be surprised if they only asked those who used PB or similar.
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Aren’t all agents ‘online’?
Some are call centre with their ‘local expert’ 40 miles away who has never ever seen your road in their life.
Zoopla will soon be like Autotrader for house sellers!
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Had a meeting last week with an agent who told me that they understood PB was only converting around 15% of instructions into sales.
Anyone heard similar?
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it doesn’t matter to PB if they only sell 15%, they’ve already been paid.
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Clarkuk. it does matter because you won’t have a business for long if 85% of your clients have to go elsewhere to get the deal done.My point is 85% are probably reverting to traditional agency to get the property sold. It also provides pretty strong ammunition when negotiating for an instruction. Finally it makes the hybrid model where you can use the online as the lead generator and traditional as the earner a whole lot more credible.
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Monitoring my patch only that would be about right.
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“consider”
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My thoughts exactly, and was going to comment the same thing.
I’d consider pulling out my own teeth to get rid of toothache. I wouldn’t do it, but I’d consider it. I’d just go to my dentist to see what he reckoned.
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Well said mrharvey. I also agree with ‘Frown Please’ see above – When a truly independent source comes up with facts derived from a sensible sized poll of totally unbiased people, and not from an online agencies PR department, then that is when we as traditional estate agents need to get worried. As Mark Twain once said ‘ there are lies, damned lies and statistics’.
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“What’s clear from our research is that home owners don’t necessarily understand the sheer amount of work that goes into selling a property”.
Now who’s fault is that? A missed opportunity for the High Street to not only promote what and why they are charging but to highlight what the competition isn’t able to (everyone is hearing complaints about poor service with cheaper options). For decades I very rarely heard an agent try and justify their costs. When was the last time you explained it to your vendor or was it shovelled out as so common ….. “that’s what we charge for our service”. No wonder the public have it instilled into them that the fees are a rip off (some are) and think it can be done for the less at the cost of a new kitchen for example.
Long over due for estate agency staff to start to sell themselves correctly. Over 30 years I rarely witnessed it and that failure is now starting to haunt you with budget business who are not as good as you?
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Agreed Woodentop but wouldn’t it be so much better if the NAEA and RICS spent some of their members not inconsiderable annual subscription fees on actually educating the general public as to what there members will do for them that online sites can’t. Not just that we are professional and have passed examinations – most people couldn’t/’t give a stuff about that but so much better if they could promote the fact that your NAEA/RICS High Street agent will do half the solicitors work for them and iron out many problems that an online agent just wouldn’t understand nor know how to resolve.
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“…wouldn’t it be so much better if the NAEA and RICS spent some of their members not inconsiderable annual subscription fees on actually educating the general public as to what there members will do for them that online sites can’t.”
I’m not saying I disagree, however the trouble with what you’re suggesting, easternagent, being that many Call-Centre Agent types ARE members of those ‘professional’ bodies.
“Not just that we are professional…” Be 100% truthful and you will freely admit that not all are – they simply fly under the radar of detection.
“…and have passed examinations…” Again – you have to admit that not all have (NAEA-wise). Back in the day I was subjected to an “Entry Examination” consisting of 20 or so multiple-choice questions on the difficulty scale of ‘How many legs has a three-legged donkey got?’ Had I taken the plunge a couple of years or so earlier I would have simply had an “interview” by the local appointee and given the designation of ‘Fellow’ if I’d been in the industry for more than a fortnight or so.
I ‘left’ the NAEA when it all went Pete a canny few years ago (and for the record I’m not referring to the ‘Pete’ that everyone seems to blame it on, either…). During my time in the club (not to mention time both before and after), I have witnessed all sorts of shenanigans by those with designations – from both camps.
Does not being a Member make me a bad Estate Agent? Less trustworthy than one who pays his/her dues then milks the designation as best they can and gives nothing back? Unprofessional?
Answers on a postcard, please…
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Agree Peebee – Groups should be promoting better agency. Gosh Ive given you a like 🙂
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Thank you, Mr Mealham. We’re not as opposite as we make out… sometimes ;o)
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Point taken BeeBee. Perhaps the Professional bodies should be policing their members a little better than they do now. Oh how silly of me that would result in fewer members and loss of subscription income and we can’t have that can we. PeeBee please be assured that I know as many truly professional and homest estate agents who are not members of the ‘big two’ as I do who are.
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The company website states “Used and trusted by 24,000 homeowners”
That ‘use’ and ‘trust’ certainly hasn’t done their accounts any favours in the last four years…
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Don’t suppose you fancy dragging yourself away from the relative comfort of the ‘Dislike’ button and actually debating?
Didn’t think so.
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How come netanagent are flying under the radar on this? As far as I can tell, they are just another unwanted third party trying to leech off the industry. I have serious issues with their model, whereby they supposedly tell the vendor who the best agent is for them, just so long as the agent is willing to pay them a commission.
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Gravity naturally drives things to ground zero. Right where the fees race is going. We’ll soon be seeing the £99-£199 listers offering publication to main portals to save sellers £100’s on today’s budget agency models.
As fees fall and last weeks new budget listers roll in for training on how to take a cheque.
Jackie previously from Yucky Donalds and Kev from KFC or KwickProfit will be trained in how to take pics on their iphone and how to get a seller to sign a finance agreement for not a lot of pence, subsidised by the big VC’s ponzi fund raising scheme ready for their 5 year exit.
In 2-3 years there will be little cost to getting listings listed. The cost will then come in the form of proper negotiators fed up with low fees and changing from game keeper to poacher and ******** down budget agents sellers asking prices by 10’s £housands in cases.
Well funded budget brands value will be their public recognition and a few agents will buy them up and change their revenue models to profit. Other VC’s will get burnt as sellers move to better representation models from people who get property negotiation rather than novice budget operatives.
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Just about to saddle up to get on my high horse sorry. There you go
Right I have been in agency for 30 years in financial services and also ran my own 2 branch outfit.
As a seller what do i want?, best price, low fee and half decent service. I also want my buyer to have seen my mortgage advisor because I would like to know if they are good to go. I don’t want to hear, He should be ok or I think he,s cash or it,s probably all sorted.
And yet for the last 30 years thats what i have been hearing from estate agents qualifying a buyer (with some exceptions)
And as a seller did you offer mortgage services….Nope because as soon as you had the instruction you ran.
With move with us and others we can now get updates from our conveyancer and with the mortgage in hand I don’t need an agent as much as I used to.
Lenders are incredibly picky as a result of the issues several years ago so qualifying is critical and yet we still hear the same old clap trap from weak young agents.
as for Purple well the valuers are people like us who simply operate under a different banner, and as for experience, well just pop in to your local agent and make a judgement. Personally I,m happy to give £900 a go and if it fails hey ho. Did they value it right well i can do that using right move/Zoopla etc, after all thats what 90% of agents do.
So are agents worth 5/6/7K fees. If they do all of the job then possibly, but they don’t
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Sorry guys 3 neg comments suggests that many of the weak agents who don’t know the estate agents act.
Reasonable endeavours to find the purchasing ability. Doesn’t mean “He said he was Cash.”
Look at the ruling from year ago against the then GA property.
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‘hodge’
I would suggest that the three ‘Dislikes’ are more to do with the basic content of your post rather than any insinuated lack of understanding of Legislation.
In the “reasonable endeavours” respect, you are correct and I’m certain no-one would dispute our position there.
It’s the rest that’s won you your small but perfectly formed following of ‘Dislikers’.
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It appears to me that online call centre business plans are proving to be terminally flawed as they are simply replacing branch costs with national advertising costs for a lesser service and unsustainable low fee.
The good news for branch based agents is that PB have now shown that their true cost to handle a property transaction with a limited service is not £900 but close to £2,700 to BREAK EVEN.
This is maybe why PB’s Australian offering is £2,616.
PB UK ‘investors’ appeared to subsidise every instruction ( 6,666 approximated instructions) by around £1800 each in 2015.
Thank You PB – for showing what full service agents have know all along. The best deal is to surely use a personal, local, branch based property expert who charge a fair fee for their SERVICE on a no sale, no charge basis.
The maths:
6,666 instructions x £1,800 investor subsidy per instruction = £11, 998,800. PB lost around £12 million in 2015.
6,666 instructions x PB average fee of around £900 = £5,999,400. PB turned over around £6 million in 2015.
Therefore £1800 + £900 = £2,700 approximated actual cost per listing.x 6,666 approximated instructions = £17, 998,200.
PB approximated total spend for 2015 around £18 million.
Can this truly shocking arithmetic be correct?
I personally do not believe that home owners will wish to use this on line agent if they charge £2,700, even on a no sale, no charge basis!
Roll on 2017.
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The end user (vendor) doesn’t see it that way and that is the trouble, they only see the glossy TV ads and believe everything they see, until afterwards when the property doesn’t sell or that service may be found wanting. The only person who can get this message over is the agent who is sat in front of the vendor and takes the time to prepare and sell themselves, not estate agency!
Someone mentioned FS not being pushed and a missed business opportunity. Very correct but sadly the average agent front line staff consider FS is a dirty word or to much for them to cope with. For years I did under cover work all over the UK, blimey I can right a book on some staff attitudes and often supported from the top down to the cleaner.
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Upfront costs to get established is normal. Once PB are established then watch the advertising and watch out for their own version of right move. For PB this is just the 1st peg in the hole,
I haven’t seen many new branches make money in Year 1. And the fact that you are all talking about them speaks volumes. PB will become a working business as a result of Agents not doing what they claim to do.
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I compare this argument to people who use Uber or a black cab.
Internet/Hybrid agents do not “craft” deals together, nor do they chain build like your high street agent would and does, which in itself justifies a higher fee. Nor do we charge up front, again with the market uncertainty at the moment there’s a higher % that a property will not sell, thus meaning any seller could lose out depending who they use up to £1000.
I often, rightly or wrongly explain to people the break down how we get paid, on average £250 per sale or instruction that’s sold which is potentially spread over on average 2/3 months and would they work for that period of time for such little return? This I have found works but only if they’ve bought into you as a person.
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according to my research less than 1 in 100 vendors would consider using an online agent. Could be BS of course !
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Well we certainly have more vendors selling with a High Street Agent than all the on-liners put together. But I wouldn’t take your eye off the ball, they are making in roads which is likely to hurt the smaller agents who are the bedrock of estate agency.
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95% of stats are made up on the spot….
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I thought it was 98.362%…
Ask me again tomorrow and I’ll give you the appropriate stat.
;o)
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