Online agent Settled has said that it is cutting the time it takes to sell a home in half and reducing fall-throughs from 33% to just 7%.
The claims were made in an announcement about its latest funding, while its website says that it achieves 98% of asking price, and that it takes 17 days on average to first offer.
Yesterday, a spokesperson for Settled backed the claims.
Asked about the claim that Settled cuts the time it takes to sell a property in half, she said: “Settled’s online platform enables customers to list online in a matter of days and our average time to receive the first offer is within 17 days of listing – strong efficiencies which significantly improve the time it takes to sell or buy a home.”
Asked about the claimed reduction in fall-through rates, she said: “Settled’s online platform directly connects buyers and sellers which allows for greater transparency, facilitates communication and gives more control to consumers over the sale process.
“Thanks to our method of connecting buyers and sellers we’ve seen a great impact on our fall-through rates and 93% of our home sales go through to completion, compared to the industry average for completion of only 66%.
“We believe this is a huge improvement and one we’re really proud of.
“Our customers get to have open, honest conversations which ultimately manifest in mutual trust, making it much more likely that each party will stick to their word once they have agreed on a price.”
Earlier this month, Settled announced raising £1.2m in funding led by Connect Ventures and Piton Capital.
It said it will use the funding to further develop its successful platform and to reach more customers with its philosophy of liberated selling and buying.
Settled charges £499 which can be paid upfront or deferred for a month, and claims that since its launch last year, £250m worth of homes have been sold through its platform, saving customers over £5m collectively in estate agency fees.
CEO and co-founder Gemma Young said: “We’re passionate about creating platforms and technologies which empower a new and growing segment of consumers who simply want buying and selling homes to be more straightforward, modern and digital.
“Think about what’s been achieved when companies like Uber applied fixes to the taxi industry allowing us, now, to travel at the click of a button.
“We all strive to own our own home and to move along the property ladder but we tend to dread the processes we have to go through to get there. We’re focused on tackling the problems, creating a next-level approach to buying and selling homes which will help everyone feel more ‘settled’.”
Yesterday on Rightmove, Settled had 290 available properties listed for sale.
Comments (19)
So…
…as per the article:
1. ‘…its website says that it achieves 98% of asking price…’
Funny, that. Try this search on Zoopla:
https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/branch/settled-london-66761/?include_sold=true&page_size=100&results_sort=most_reduced
For those that can’t be @r5ed here’s a wee breakdown
568 listings in total (including SSTCs. 285 listings marked fully available.
Of the 568, ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY SIX of them -that’s 29.2% – have had price reductions in excess of of 2.1% from the original listing price.
Do the same exercise with the 285 ‘available’ listings, the number reduced by 2.1% and above is 107 – which is 37.54% of the total!
2. ‘Settled… claims that since its launch last year, £250m worth of homes have been sold through its platform…’
According to Zoopla, the current average listing value is £292338. Take 98% of that, and you come up with a supposed average sale price of £286491. Let’s allow a variance of, say, 3% overall from the day they hit the bottom of the barrel scraping and you come up with a figure rounded to the nearest fiver of £277900
That would make a total of 899.6 ‘sales’ – whatever their definition is of being “sold”. Let’s be proper generous and call it 900.
In a year. And a bit. Across the entire UK. Even BeenyBint claims to do the biz on “hundreds of homes EVERY MONTH” – so basically they haven’t really settled (see what I did there?) the NSPR world alight – have they?
3. ‘…saving customers over £5m collectively in estate agency fees.’
THEY charge £499 – so they are obviously working on an average of £5499 or above. Taking the above theoretical price of £277900, that would make the fee they claim ‘Yer Average Estate Agent’ charges would be near as darnit 1.98% inclusive or 1.65% plus VAT.
Their woeful website’s ‘calculator’ states the figures are “…based on an average high street estate agent commission fee of 1.8% + VAT…”.
Guess that proves my ‘back of a fag-packet’ figures of how and from where their unadulterated billshut emanated weren’t so far out, then…
…and these chancers forget that us “dinosaurs” know all the tricks they think they’ve invented – and more.
We just don’t use them to spread #CONmisery the way they do.
PeeBee I actually love you ha ha
I love you too, Ted58
In fact – I reckon I love you more…
From that picture it would seem that she is deciding whether to accept an offer from Johnny Cage, caution advised, my youth informs me that this is a character from Mortal Kombat, double down on those money laundering checks if it’s cash and if he’s getting a mortgage as a self employed fighter of man, beast and spirit you might need to talk to a specialist lender..
This is like when you see actors suddenly appearing for interviews anywhere and everywhere talking about their new film……..you know the film is faltering at the box office and they are trying to raise interest in it, that the public aren’t giving.
Say or do anything controversial to try and get yourself noticed!
“Thanks to our method of connecting buyers and sellers we’ve seen a great impact on our fall-through rates and 93% of our home sales go through to completion, compared to the industry average for completion of only 66%
This would imply that by talking to each other direct and cutting out the middle man, the fall through rate is lower.
so its us agents that cause the fall throughs! – that explains everything.
Surely key points are:
Offer received is not a transaction time. As we all know, the frustration in the sales process is the time for conveyancing not the time to offer. (The wording of ‘1st offer’ is also very vague- as this is not an agreed offer).
On Rightmove they have 574 listings of which 288 remain on market (not UO). If you switch the filter to ‘most recent’ 7 of the listings on the forst page are marked ‘reduced’- ouch.
Their oldest current listing was listed 22/12/2015. Again….Ouch!
Surely these claims have to be reported to ASA no?!
Don’t let us stop you 😉
Dear Settled
if you think “£250m worth of homes have been sold through its platform” whether you charge £1, £499 or even £3000 per sale I cant see you making a profit.
You must be making serious losses ?
Isn’t that what the £1.2 million is for…… to pay Gemma a serious wadge of wages and subsidise the losses at the same time.
She just needs to keep saying the right things to keep her investors happy and its pay day all the time!
Just a thought. First things first, PIE and Ros, you’re great, but…
would it be worth checking these figures before you agree to publish? Perhaps you already do, if so could the source and workings out be displayed otherwise you automatically become a platform for these guys to spout whatever they like?
if they are simply ‘implying’ or ‘suggesting’ that they have these results then don’t publish until they have evidence, perhaps?
So, in order to combat the “dread” that people have to endure they suggest the public ditch the experienced professionals who deal daily with the multitude of problems and issues that unfortunately are simply unavoidable, and handle everything themselves.
How can you expect the public to be proficient in something they do just a handful of times in their lives when compared to agents who do it for a living.
It’s a classic case of people who know nothing about the industry assuming they know best.
Oh, and on top of that they make up a load of numbers in order to dupe both investors and customers. Surely somebody somewhere has to stop this nonsense.
Does Diane Abbot do sums for them ?
£250m of property at transaction average £281,000 is 890 properties sold. £5m saved on 890 sales is £5600 saved.
Add £500 so average fee quoted by agents is £6100, on £281,000 is 2.1% (173% higher than accepted average) err there is something wrong with either the maths or the claims made
I think this says quite a lot about VC’s and the whole disruptor mentality. Disruption is good even if the profits and maths is rubbish.
This is actually starting to get entertaining VC’s and investors duking it out to be the best loss making firm. I suspect each of them believe they have what it takes to make a profit out of not charging enough. Good luck all!
Or they could have sold 500 @ £500,000 however in order to save the public £5,000,000 in fees for that £250,000,000 worth of property we high streeters must charge 2.2% and with the challenges of the market that we currently face I think 2.2 is stretching it a bit or am I alone in willing to admit my fees are greatly lower than last year and last years was lower than the year before that too!
Achieves 98% of asking price. Is that of original asking price or last asking price?
93% of our home sales go through to completion, compared to the industry average for completion of only 66%.
Message to Settled. Your claim may well be absolutely true.
However unless you are prepared to reveal the actual number behind the percentage it is meaningless. On the face of it you seem to be saying you have sold c 1,000 properties since you launched last year. (1000 x £250,000= £250m)
Have you?
Aw, bless them. They’ve got a spokesperson spouting lies. Parents would be proud.
Good luck! 🙂
If you do not list or sell anything you cannot get fall throughs. GENIUS!
So, Settled is an effective FSBO platform, yes? Presumably, Rightmove and Zoopla will be withdrawing them from the platform with immediate effect?