Agents ‘have earned £303.6m in commissions so far this year’, claims online firm

Home sellers have spent £303.6m on high street agent commissions so far this year, research claims.

Analysis from online agent eMoov looked at Land Registry records for all properties sold since January and applied an average high street agency charge of 1.3% plus VAT.

The research claims that so far in 2017, £26bn worth of property has already been sold, equating to £303.6m in high-street commission.

The higher price of London properties meant the capital has seen the largest amount of fees paid at £70.1m.

The south and east of England made up most of the top ten, with fees of £13.3m in Surrey, £10.2m in Essex and £9.4m in Kent.

Greater Manchester is home to the fifth highest amount at £9m, with Hampshire at £8.9m, the west midlands at £7.4m, West Yorkshire at £6.7m and West Sussex at £6.3m.

Russell Quirk, founder of eMoov, said: “This research demonstrates the eye-watering amount of money that’s still being paid due to the outdated practice of charging based on a property’s value.

“The only silver lining to this research is that in years gone by, this figure would have been a lot higher.

“Although the online and hybrid sector still only accounts for 5.51% of the market, it still represents a considerable saving and one that is only set to keep increasing as we take more market share.”

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11 Comments

  1. 40yearvetran08

    I think they need to do the maths again! They are miles out. Way more than that. Then again online agents cannot count!

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  2. Robert May

    £26b at an average transaction price of £280k, err under 100,000 completions in 6 months?  There is either something not quite right about this research or transactions for the year are on track to be just 22% of last years numbers.

     

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  3. Herb

    I wonder how much money sellers have lost selling  with DIY call centre agents in lost fees and lower selling prices? That’s if they actually sold?

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    1. Robert May

      Based on this research 53,226 vendors will part with about £42.5 million to not sell their home compared with paying traditional agents £0 for the same result.

      The 56,974 who are lucky enough to save on average  £2853 will  undersell their homes by a total of  £5.44b, about £9550 each. The net loss averaging about £6700.

       

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  4. Malcolm Barnard

    Perhaps Mr Q could tell us what his fees would be if his firm’s market share was 10%?

    I’m sure they wouldn’t be £795 with at least another £200 discount in the various forms of discounts offered in their #permasale (copyright PeeBee).

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    1. Robert May

      Stop being mean, he would drown in a puddle of his own drool at the thought of 10%. Emoov  have a register that places them 3rd in  the micro niche of passive intermediary/ internet listing firms  that makes up the 5.51% claimed market share.  He would need  about 4x  his current stock to hit 1%

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  5. ArthurHouse02

    “Online agents cost vendors millions of pounds and months of wasted time in un-sold properties”

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  6. CountryLass

    And yet no figures on how much each of those Agents spent on overheads, and what the actual profit was? Using that argument you can say that every petrol station in the country is ripping people off, if you just look at the income, not the outgoings! The vast majority of petrol price is tax, not profit.

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  7. 40yearvetran08

    Figures worry me so I checked. According to Gov website to the end July Transactions were 719,990. average price £223k. I make that £160.5 billion at 1.3% is just over £2 billion in fees not £303m.

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  8. gk1uk2001

    So we aren’t allowed to make money like hundreds of thousands of other businesses do? What a non story.

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  9. Deequealy

    Perhaps Russell Quirk should spend more time trying to work out how to run a profitable business rather than promoting himself as some sort of champion for the consumer.

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