We are now getting a stream of stories about high street agents launching online services.
The latest is FranKeys in Claskegate, Lincolnshire.
The firm is offering people the chance to have their property marketed through savvyseller.co.uk for a one-off fee from £834 including VAT and zero commission. The cost slightly undercuts Purplebricks at £849.
The service includes a free valuation, advice and support from FranKeys staff throughout the sale process, and listings on both Zoopla and Rightmove.
The agent takes professional photos of the property and writes a brochure description, while the home is added to FranKeys’ mailing lists as well as being marketed through social media.
Frances Warrine, managing director of FranKeys, said: “The beauty of using Savvy Seller is that you are still getting the full package from an estate agent with local knowledge but at a reduced rate.
“If you’re savvy you can save a lot of money just by doing your own viewings and chase-ups.
“It’s cost-effective and we keep on marketing until a property is sold.”
Viewings are organised by FranKeys with the seller, who show prospective buyers round themselves.
EYE would be very interested to hear from agents as to their tactics, whether they are launching online services themselves or using an outsourced service, and how well (or otherwise) it is working.
http://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/business/lincoln-estate-agent-keeps-local-175574
How interesting.
I suspect that this offering ( or similar ) will become increasingly popular amongst estate agents throughout the country. It seems a very sensible idea to be able to offer range of services and charging models to prospective vendors and landlords. It’s a matter of choice.
My only issue is with the now generic description of this proposition as being “online” and, as in the article above the “… launching online services”.. as if other models are NOT “online” and do not offer “online services”.
Surely the most honest description of this type of model is simply “Upfront Payment”.
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Waste of money. And only weak agents embrace it.
Never surprises me how short sighted some agents are.
Instead of spending time and money promoting a cheap option why not educate the public why you are worth the fee you charge.
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HI “smile please” (by the way I am smiling!),
Respectfully, I disagree.
Plenty of estate agents already offer a “cheap option” as you describe it. This may or may not involve an up-front payment but can exclude certain marketing facilities or personal services.
In fact huge numbers of agents already offer a “premium service” often targeting the upper or middle market. These offerings are sometimes even branded or sub-branded to emphasise a distinction and are generally more expensive than the standard proposition offered by the same agent. Consequently, by definition, their core proposition is cheaper and those agents therefore already offer a “cheap option”.
This is just an extension of that concept – a concept that is already widely accepted and utilised by numerous estate agents up and down the country.
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There is no money to be made in the offering. Its all about vanity saying you have more stock than others.
If you take on a property for £800 what profit margin is in it for you? – Factor in the buying of the valuation through advertising, the time spent winning the instruction, the process you have within the office (post, email, hand deliveries) Money spent on equipment (camera), staffing costs associated, time spent listing it, factor in the portals costs, pay your tax, pay your insurance. – Now tell me its not a vanity issue.
Even PB are still making a loss despite being the largest player in the list only service. And if you beleive them they are listing 1000’s
All you are doing is watering down your knowledge and expertise and destroying your own profitability.
Honestly, if more agents are doing this i would have no problem in RM taking FSBO, its cheap, its nasty and its lazy – Any agent doing it should not be classed as an estate agents and i question how bright they are at running a business.
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I completely agree SP. I simply dont understand why agents are rushing to do this.
Most agents I know are at about the same level of instructions as last year, we certainly are, in fact we are actually about 3% up. So why offer a cheap, low service option?
Do you know I get agents adding technology to compliment their offering to sellers but frankly unless you completely change your business model and only take upfront fees then frankly its got car crash written all over it.
Sellers STILL want accountablitlity, where is the accountability in taking money upfront without the promise of ANYTHING except a rightmove advert?
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No surprise i agree with you.
And you are right, Other than an expensive RM listing what do they get? – ****** All!
If agent are going to go down this path, can you really blame RM is they start up a “sell your home for £295” – Why should agents be allowed to charge the public a fee to list?
RM need to go pback to their T&C’s and clamp down on this.
And business owners should go and spend the money on training rather than promote this lazy unprofitable service.
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I suspect that Rightmove will consider that agents are simply acting as “resellers” for their product at which point they will squeeze the margin!
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Just an idea, but surely if you really need to, you can do this under your own agent’s identity.
You can just have an ‘online basics’ range where the vendor pays up front, carries out their own viewings, chasing and negotiating. You can provide the post sales service.
At any stage the vendor can choose to upgrade to your full service, with the amount already paid taken off the final fee.
Otherwise, to keep the brand totally separate, will cost extra money, and extra resources.
If I am wrong, and there is a desire amongst many for a separate brand, say so here……and perhaps we could think about setting up a ‘collective’ solution.
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The agent takes ‘professional photographs’…
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Actually Marc, your wrong, as their site states “professional quality photographs”, be careful here, that’s not “we use professionals” …just that they consider their photography is “professional standard”….another little untruth discovered…..oh, and that fee saving does not stack up. Apart from I dont know of any agent in Lincoln charging 1.8% (what they base the saving on) the actual “saving” does not take into account the £834 the customer pays upfront…..another untruth…..ASA come on.
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Hi Paul,
Have had a look at their website and it clearly states ‘take some professional photos’ as highlighted in the copy below taken from the ‘SO HOW DOES IT WORK’ timeline on the SavvySeller website homepage:
Make The Decision
Once you’ve decided to go for the Savvy Seller package, we will get in touch and then we will come by and talk you through the process, take some professional photos and write a description of your property. We’ll make it as irresistable as possible!
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We’re online because the internet exists.
What we’re talking about, again, is slashing of fees, to slash our throats. And we’re not going to do that.
Brilliant summary by Smile Please – “There is no money to be made in the offering. Its all about vanity saying you have more stock than others.”
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The market is very different in many towns, different quantity and standard of competition etc. In London they would be unhappy at 2%sole whilst 40 mins away in Thurrock I have agents already doing 0.5% +vat full service. Others offering £595 fixed upfront fee for full service. We still can get 1+vat but with 23 agents in the town we have often included the vat to compete. There is a drive to the bottom in some towns due to competition but these agents are the weaker ones perhaps and the cheap fee has not changed their circumstance as far as I see.
But I feel there is a movement to offer an alternative full service structure, to give a choice, within an established brand. something Im thinking about but I cant see how it can be done for less than £1500 and stay profitable and successful.
A website that did not accept on-liners would be an advantage right now to dilute the threat – or did we collectively dismiss that? If Rm are looking to offer a seller direct service then we should create an alternative that works for us.
Interesting topic right now though
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AgentV I agree with you, why can’t agents simply adjust the services they offer within their current business model. I think it is becoming clear that the need for an #online’ sister company is diminishing. If you have a trusted name and reputation in your location then why would you bypass that to set up something with no connection to your current business?
I also agree with Mark Walker – the internet exists, we all use it, therefore we are all online agents. This term has been adopted to represent a model that simply allows contact between sellers and buyers directly to arrange viewings and communicate re offers – using the internet. There are other ways to implement the same arrangement without going to the expense of setting up a new online representation and paying a healthy sum of money to the tech heads for the privilege.
It comes back to the same problem – public awareness of what an agent actually does. I meet a lot of clients who make all the right noises when we’re talking to them about what we do but at the end of the day the lure of a fixed low cost version is too much for them to resist. So they go for the ‘online’ company, pay the fee and then come back to us when they don’t get the offers they want or the sale is not progressing after 8 weeks because there’s nobody there to make the calls that need to be made and who understands the process well enough to actually get results. That’s not to mention the issue they have of trying to buy on… those who chose to sell through a high street agent are choosing to do so for a reason. They understand and value the importance of getting it right and so when they get an offer from someone who has chosen to sell via an online only company they are reluctant to accept. It is becoming more and more known that the contract chasing side of things from these online offerings are poor to say the least.
Unfortunately I think it will take time but eventually those clients who have experienced the ‘online’ up front fee way of doing things will no doubt return to using a good old high street agent. The difference in service is inexplicably evident but the public aren’t going to just take the word of an estate agent on that are they, they need to experience it themselves.
Those agents who know what they’re doing, have a good understanding of their business and their location just need to bide their time in my opinion. Agents have been around for a long long time because they provide a service that is essential. We need to fight the ridiculous old stereotype of the money grabbing, dishonest estate agent and be proud to offer a service that for many, enables them to make the biggest transitions they will ever take on. And not only that, we make it possible for them to do it with peace of mind that they have someone in their corner, making the endless calls, listening to the hours of deliberation and musings of both nervous buyers and sellers, staying calm when we’re in the firing line of frustration and lets not forget dealing with the ever charming surveyors and conveyancers along the way. Knowledge is power, the way to fight the low up front fee fever that seems to be causing a lot of anxiety for agents is simply to educate and be totally transparent with what you charge and why!
ok, rant over…
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Knowledge is power, the way to fight the low up front fee fever that seems to be causing a lot of anxiety for agents is simply to educate and be totally transparent with what you charge and why!
Thats why we need Collective Adaptive Intelligent Marketing!
We need to link together to put forward a common powerful message.
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Totally agree. Agents need to stop trying to under cut each other in their locality (which just feeds the public perception that we charge too much in the first place) and instead work together to raise awareness of what the job actually entails. Only then will people value the service as they should.
Consumers are savvy now, they want to know what they are paying for, and quite rightly. Agents have a responsibility to do themselves justice and proudly shed light on what 1 sales transaction can entail. Multiply that by how many sales you do in a year and add on the chains and you’re talking about a serious amount of work.
Let’s stop talking about the selling of properties, that is no longer where the skills have to be, the skills are in the back office work that holds the whole thing together. Until that is publicised and highlighted it will never be respected and therefore you will always have the public pushing and wanting lower fees.
It’s like any industry / job / service – people don’t know what’s involved unless they either do it themselves or are enquisitive enough to ask the questions. Look at the Hospital programme on BBC2 shedding light on how difficult it is to run a busy hospital in the centre of London – it’s an exceptionally informative programme that has increased my already high level of respect for the people who work in the NHS to keep us all ticking along. How about there’s a similar programme about agency – one without a spin! Just an honest programme that shows what it’s like to have a client in tears on the phone, or having to entertain toddlers in the office while people go through paperwork or having to move furniture around for photographs because an elderly client can’t do it themselves. So often people have said to me, ‘you should go into counselling’. Tongue in cheek because I have just spent an hour, free of charge, listening to them pout their heart out about selling their family home. None of that gets talked about.
This is a hard and mutifaceted job. It’s about time people knew that…
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Couldn’t agree more, and we do all that we do for months without being paid, at the risk of not getting any payment at all ultimately……unless we use all our skill and knowledge to keep everyone happy and hold it all together until the final day.
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If only people knew how much was riding on each and every transaction for most businesses they’d soon understand why we put in the hard work and why without the agent most sales wouldn’t happen… Funny how people like to use the phrase ‘what am I paying you for’ quite freely while simultaneously forgetting that they haven’t actually paid us for anything at that point.
There should be some sort of blog (if only I had the time) to document the daily activity of an average agent. I’m sure that would soon shed some light on what we do and what it actually is that people are paying for…
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I’ll keep it short.
Cr@p offering in a market already overflowing with cr@p.
Although it pains me to give the majority of the others any credit whatsoever for anything – at least they give enough of a fuppenny to do a spell- and grammar check on their sites…
…my ten year old grandson would struggle to make some of the typos published on this site.
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