Estate agents have earned up to 9.5% more in commission per sale over the past 12 months thanks to the surge in house prices, claims GetAgent.co.uk.
The estate agent comparison site says that it pulled data from all of the major portals which was then cross-referenced with the Land Registry using their proprietary algorithms and input from partner agents.
The latest data, according to GetAgent, shows that the average agent fee charged is currently 1.48% inclusive of VAT, down slightly from 1.5% a year ago.
With the rate of commission charged by estate agents remaining largely unchanged over the last year, growth in property prices naturally means that agents are earning more money year-on-year.
The average fee of 1.5% earned 12 months ago equated to a fee of £3,591, however, since then house prices have climbed across Britain, meaning the current fee of 1.48% equates to £3,755 in today’s market – a 4.6% uplift.
Based on GetAgent’s calculations, agents in the North East have seen the biggest increase in earnings, with the average fee now £2,146 having increased by 9.5% from £1,960 in the last year.
In Wales, the average take-home fee has increased by 7.5%, with the East of England (6.1%) and East Midlands (5.1%) also seeing an increase of more than 5%.
The East of England has seen the biggest uplift in terms of the actual increase per transaction. A year ago, the average agent made £4,410 per transaction on average. Today this has increased to £4,678, an increase of £268 per property sold.
The London market has struggled to keep pace with the rest where the current house price boom is concerned and this is reflected in the average earnings on London estate agents, according to the research.
A year ago, the average London agent charged 1.74% and took home £8,401 per property. Today this average fee has climbed by just 1.8% to £8,555 per transaction. The lowest increase of all regions although it remains the highest monetary fee by far.
Colby Short, founder and CEO of GetAgent.co.uk, said: “The property market is currently booming and it’s fair to say that it could have been a very different story if it wasn’t for the nation’s estate agents who have put in a tremendous shift pretty much since the start of the pandemic. Not only have they had to negotiate lockdown restrictions and social distancing requirements, but they were also some of the first back in the trenches and since then they’ve had to service an overwhelming level of buyer demand.
“It’s also pretty commendable that despite the market going from strength to strength, agents haven’t tried to take advantage of this heightened activity by increasing the commission charged. Of course, they have seen a slight uplift in their take-home pay due to an increase in property values, but I think many will agree this is fully deserved.”
| Location | Ave house price – July 2020 | Ave fee % (inc VAT) – July 2020 | Average agent fee £ – July 2020 | Latest average house price | Latest ave fee % (inc VAT) | Latest average agent fee (£) | Ave agent fee – annual change (£) | Ave agent fee – annual change (%) |
| North East | £130,699 | 1.50% | £1,960 | £144,032 | 1.49% | £2,146 | £186 | 9.5% |
| Wales | £168,851 | 1.59% | £2,685 | £185,041 | 1.56% | £2,887 | £202 | 7.5% |
| East of England | £292,082 | 1.51% | £4,410 | £313,964 | 1.49% | £4,678 | £268 | 6.1% |
| East Midlands | £200,195 | 1.46% | £2,923 | £213,308 | 1.44% | £3,072 | £149 | 5.1% |
| South East | £325,445 | 1.55% | £5,044 | £341,358 | 1.55% | £5,291 | £247 | 4.9% |
| North West | £171,211 | 1.38% | £2,363 | £183,299 | 1.35% | £2,475 | £112 | 4.7% |
| West Midlands region | £203,692 | 1.45% | £2,954 | £216,973 | 1.42% | £3,081 | £127 | 4.3% |
| Yorkshire and the Humber | £169,347 | 1.48% | £2,506 | £179,408 | 1.45% | £2,601 | £95 | 3.8% |
| Scotland | £154,422 | 1.25% | £1,930 | £161,401 | 1.23% | £1,985 | £55 | 2.8% |
| South West | £264,375 | 1.60% | £4,230 | £279,951 | 1.55% | £4,339 | £109 | 2.6% |
| London | £482,833 | 1.74% | £8,401 | £491,687 | 1.74% | £8,555 | £154 | 1.8% |
| England | £253,273 | 1.52% | £3,850 | £268,380 | 1.50% | £4,026 | £176 | 4.6% |
| Great Britain | £239,377 | 1.50% | £3,591 | £253,702 | 1.48% | £3,755 | £164 | 4.6% |
| Average house price sourced from the Land Registry House Price Index (July 2020 to April 2021 – latest available data) | ||||||||
| Average estate agent fee sourced from GetAgent (July 2020 to June 2021) | ||||||||
Yet the Daily Telegraph leads with the story due to a shortage of stock
” Estate agents cutting fees to entice homeowners to sell up”
For example, Ewemove who have been recruiting on steroids, 9 of the fresh lambs who have recently started have 0 stock listed.
In an effort to garner instructions In the Manchester area,according to their Facebook accounts
Hyde & Mottram are offering to sell at 0.75%
Ewemove Droitwich at 0.6 %
In Ewemove’s information pack pitching for new franchisees state they place a warning for sellers
“DON’T MAkE THE EASY MISTAKE OF PICKING THE CHEAPEST ESTATE AGENT AS IT MAY COST YOU A LOT MORE ”
Quite!!
Where does all this end?
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You can almost hear the duvets being thrown back as agents who rarely surface before 10am rise up from their bedrooms, deeply offended by Hillofwad’s analysis which is always frighteningly accurate.
At 7am, which is an ungodly hour for late risers, they whine – “how dare you criticise bedroom agents for having zero instructions, low fees and millions of pounds of losses!”
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I see [Word removed as it breached posting guidelines] Hillofwad is at it again!
I am guessing you have nothing better to do than diss Ewemove members, in fact you’re a little bit obsessed
Plenty of the “flock” making very good money thank you very much. Yes there will be those that fail but plenty succeed
Unfortunately too many middle aged men in this industry clinging on to an outdated business model my advice would be to spend more time running your business less time worrying about what others are doing
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Norfolk Retired
As far as I am aware nothing has been removed from the post
Yes a very well done indeed to those franchisees who are making a success and pleasing to see that many franchisees have managed to take advantage of the recent market and put some hay in the barn That’s great news
Certainly not “dissing “them at all
“Plenty of the “flock” making very good money thank you very much.”
Yes,indeed and all credit to them.
However you seem to suffer from the same singular lack of empathy as the Head Shepherd A total antithesis to the
role of the shepherd whose duty is to look after the health of the flock not just the prize rams
“So we can throw example after example of highly performing, highly successful franchisees at you and other contributors here and you’ll simply retort with, “yeah but x agent failed” like a child in the playground that has run out of sensible arguments”
“Yes there will be those that fail but plenty succeed”
The failures just collateral damage in the success for others .I guess?
Not good enough by far with the staggering number of failures which far outweigh the successes
You see its the failures I am slightly obsessed with All 75 of them Many with life changing debts
Those that are currently trading with a handful of instructions and 6 figure debts
The poor mites suckered in with a frothy pitch and kick off without even a single instruction in a market short on inventory .Any agent knows trying to start up with not a single instruction & no colourful board is a handicap let alone no experience Some hoping to run the franchise as a 2nd business alongside selliing phones and cutting sandwiches
9 fresh lambs without a single instruction amongst them in some desperate attempt to double the size of the flock .How is that likely to work out ?
Today on Twitter The Negotaiterer highlighted the new franchisee for Sutton & Cheam andquestioned the appointment
He is Dean Du Plessis , a former lumberjack worker recently arrived from South Africa who tells friends on LinkedIn that he is ‘starting again from scratch’ in the UK.
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I’m still trying to figure out the methodology, and how many participating agents?
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StephenH
1. There isn’t one. Simply a few unconnected statistics chucked together in the hope it stirs them up a bit of business.
2. Not sure if the correct definition is “participate”. I think you’ll find it’s ‘Any Agent that accepts a lead’.
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Rubbish. Iam sure fee’s up north screw the data as agents have to charge minimum fees. My town has gone from 1% to 0.75% since lockdown. There is no stock!
Also boycott getagent . They are a parasite.
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Get Agent = parasites. I cannot believe that after all the money agents pay for staff, premises, portals etc that some agents are willing to pay 0.25% to these leaches for passing on a telephone number!! Unbelievable
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If someone walked through your door and said I’ve got an instruction for you but want 0.25% in the event you sell it would you really tell them to sling there hook and watch them cross the road to a competitor ?
The thing that infuriates me when we get a Getagent lead is why did the client not contact us directly. Makes me think about our marketing and get some interesting answers from the prospective vendors.
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I wonder how many agents quote a higher fee on GetAgent just to cover the 0.25% cut that they require if you sell? I have. As a price / quality “comparison site” it also seems wrong that they take additional revenue to feature one agent – who is not the best. One corporate has managed to get them to remove the “% sold below initial asking price” statistic because they grossly over-value and tie vendors into 6-month contracts.
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“I wonder how many agents quote a higher fee on GetAgent just to cover the 0.25% cut that they require if you sell?”
Judging by the complaint reviews on Trustpilot that have somehow avoided being #NUKED, a good many of them do, singing agent.
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What absolute twaddle.
No methodology. No statistical backup.
This could be one “partner agent” per area or five hundred. Three fees in the sample – or three thousand. Unknown. Therefore wholly unreliable.
LandReg house price figures in no way correlate to the “Fee” %ages quoted by Get A Gent, as they will be for properties instructed three, six – sixty, even – months earlier. Utterly farcical.
Then to what’s said.
“growth in property prices naturally means that agents are earning more money year-on-year.”
Absolute [Word removed as it breached posting guidelines]. You only “earn” more if:
* you sell the same volume at higher fee values than previous
* you sell higher volume at same or lesser fee values
* the increased income is higher than any increase in previous expenditure
NONE of this flim-flam analysis provides an ounce of substantiation to any of that.
As if I need any evidence whatsoever to back my long-standing distrust of this company’s every word, from their website:
“And we’re proud of our thousands of Trustpilot reviews!”
Tell that to the “flagged” reviews of the last 12 months – EVERY ONE OF THEM rated 1- or 2-stars.
My guess is they weren’t so proud of those…
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We still charge 2% plus vat so to pay 0.25% as a fee to GetAgent is fair. I suppose if you’re a weak agent and charge a weak fee of say 0.75% the 0.25% to GetAgent is a third of your fee instead of an eighth. The other agents in our patch are all sub 1% for the record (before you start saying it’s different in your area). Best advice is to learn how to charge decent fees, don’t match the competition and grow a pair! Oh, and by the way we’re listing the most and selling the most too!
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Sunbeam175 how many listings would you say you get per year as a result of GetAGent?
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What is the name of your company where are you located ?
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