An online versus traditional estate agent battle was last night won by the onliner, as screened on The One Show.
Gemma Young, of Settled, was shown by presenter Dan Donnelly competing with Bath agent Madison Oakley, on a £460,000 property.
While not quite clear what the competition achieved, the apparent purchaser said she appreciated being shown around the property by the vendor, because “she could tell me what it was like”. By contrast, the agent was able to tell the viewer what sounded like interesting historical local information.
The vendor said she would be saving £8,000 by going through online agent Settled.
Three viewers had two viewings each and then gave their opinions as to whom they preferred.
While they voted two to one in favour of viewings with the owner, the one who voted for the agent said they could ask the agent more questions.
There wasn’t any verdict from the vendor, while no offers or justification for the agent’s expertise in getting a possibly better price were explored.
The One Show guest, Ross Kemp, sounded equivocal, with the big EastEnders name saying he was “all for the personal touch”.
The £8,000 saving in fee suggests that the high street agent was charging 1.5%, to make the fee £8,280 including VAT. Would the online agent really have been charging £280 including VAT? Perhaps – but there again, perhaps not.
If you missed it, it’s shortly into the programme here
Comments (20)
I estimate 20% of houses will be listed by low grade budget listers come 2-3 years.
Listers will likely be last weeks MacDonalds manager, the guy who worked at the local garage etc etc etc. They will operate on low upfront fees and lack the ability to negotiate. But then again they’ll have their fee up front.
Good agents who can negotiate a sale upwards today, will part find a new role in negotiating prices down for buyers – especially where budget operatives don’t have the negotiation skills required to gain a best price for their client.
We’ll also see more budget listers coming in at £200-300 for RM and Z listing. How will 3-4,000 budget operatives affect the current 8-10 big budget operatives charging £500-£1000 when tomorrow they are seen as expensive for just portal listing.
Pay peanuts and you get. …………… Budget will back fire on todays budget operatives. Hit rock bottom and premium is the only way it can go.
Imagine four people walking into Curry’s and ordering a TV at the till and all paying over their £500, only for 3 of them to be told that they can’t have what they paid for, as things didn’t go as well as they had hoped between taking the order and delivering the goods!
That’s the story The One Show should be running.
One in four??
If they’re lucky…
Did you hear about the new online rubbish collection service? they send you different colour bins and you have to sort it out into different types and then take it down the tip yourself. Oh wait………
Have you heard about the new online decorating service? Dulux send you some paint, you then simply stamp on the tin, paint hits the walls, job done. Only £49 and you literally save hundreds in uneccassary labour costs. And what’s even better, if it all goes wrong there’s a number you can call. Apparently they are saying it’s the future of home decor.
I thought this was a very biased report the one thing we know for sure if the market hardens people will want to use high street agents to maximise the value of their home its interesting that its never reported that online agents fall through rate is double the rate of a high street agent I am very surprised at the BBC would love the opportunity to have a proper debate with an online firm about service!
Of the 2000 clients we look after a year, almost only a handful use online estate agents. I personally would not dream of using their service.
Go cheap and buyers wonder where else in the property you have been cheap, and also, go cheap and it fails to incentivise the Agent to secure best price for the property.
You save a small agent fee upfront, to lose £000s on the eventual sale price? That won’t happen to me.
Would be interesting following a seller from start to finish. One using an online agent. One using a high street agent.
All the twists and turns and how frustrating / easy process is.
Think it would expose some of the myths.
Smile please, simple solution; make certain you use an online conveyancer!!!!
From a sample of just 3 people! ….and no mention of sales progression… Let’s see how they like it when something goes wrong!
…and this for me is the crucial point, since when has “selling” a property simply been about merely getting an offer??!
I would love to know how many sellers over the last few weeks had their online only agents working frantically hard to save their sales or their purchases, making calls to reassure chains, renegotiating prices where necessary and relaunching with vigour those that couldn’t be saved.
I can answer that myself. None of them.
Dead right Real Agent! When will we agents start advertising our negotiating skills and making it clear to people that this is one of the most important assets in dealing with a High Street estate agent. The word “NEGOTIATORS” needs to be added to all our office frontages.
Ahhh yes but PB have “Property Experts” 😉
Interesting that The One Show made their bias on the reporting in favour of the call centre agent. After all it’s the buyer who pays the fee, right?
Laughable BBC, absurdly laughable!
A better report would’ve been 10/100 last Maddison Oakley clients versus a random 10/100 last call centre clients seeking the “fee payers” opinion on value on having used them.
And yet, around 97% of the population continue to choose professional, genuinely local agents with local knowledge and skills. Remember 2016 was supposed to have been the “tipping point” for Mr Quirk and Easy Property, with PurpleBricks forecasting to be £26 Million in profit by now.
The call-centre model is dead and rejected even by its own creators with all of the major players who ridiculed local knowledge, now suddenly professing its value. All we have seen this year (and will continue to see, I suspect) is a litany of call-centre and hybrid agents who are repeatedly breaking the law, misleading customers, investors and the wider public. Mainstream journalists are now alert to this fact. The passionate love affair of the media with the ‘disruptors’ is, I suspect, about to experience a messy public split.
Here Here Chris. This is nothing more than a competition to see if buyers prefer the agent or the owner to show them round. That can hardly be called a competition between the service of online versus high street. Ridiculous waste of time.
Most points are fair and well made.
I’d like to know how all hybrid agents are repeatedly breaking the law please?
BillyTheFish
At no point has anyone claimed that ALL ‘hybrid’ Agents break the law.
They don’t have to – there are a ‘few’ that are doing everyone’s fair share… and more.
Thanks, just wanted to make sure that bit was clear.
Agents of ALL ‘models’ play the game different ways – most play by ‘the book’ – some have decided to write their own.
It is the latter that bring THE WHOLE industry into disrepute and need to be stopped from doing so.