Seller of £24m home which sells for £17m ‘saves’ £30,000 by using online agent

Might EYE readers have a slightly different take on this story compared with the Daily Mail?

The Mail is full of praise for a “savvy” home buyer who bagged a £7m discount by paying £17m in cash for an 18-bedroom mansion the day before the referendum.

The property was put on the market for £24m by a seller who shunned high street agents and put it on with Manchester-based My Online Estate Agent.

“They paid an up-front fee of £549 – saving themselves around £300,000 in estate agency fees,” says the Mail – which seems to think it wasn’t just the buyer that got a bargain, but the seller too.

The price for the London property is thought to be a record for an online agent, says the Mail

Separately, the Financial Times has suggested that online agents could do well in any gloomier environment post-Brexit.

The piece, by Judith Evans, quotes Purplebricks chief executive as saying that tough conditions present “a real opportunity for us to continue to put pressure on other people in the market. We’re seeing customers being very conscious about costs.”

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8 Comments

  1. agency negotiation limited

    Where’s the “back story”? How many viewings? How many offers? What was the opening offer? Why was the initial valuation so far off? How much did the online agency negotiate? Were the vendors prepared to sell  at any price? Did they approach any high street firms? I think we should be told.  How will the online agency use the £549?

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  2. AndrewOverman

    Superb effort Daily Mail. Sensationalist journalism at its best. I bet call centre agents up and down the country are thanking you for pointing out what we have known for years.

    They saved the client over £300k in fees by being “cheap” and it only cost the client £7 MILLION of their asking price!

    #Bargain

     

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  3. belly1234

    The cheapest agent is the one who gets you the most in your pocket at the end of the transaction.

     

    Only 1 winner here!

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  4. Mark Walker

    Thanks Ros 😉

    Who’s keeping track of the world record set for an online agent costing their client money.  Is this circa £7 million the benchmark?

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  5. LocalAgent201625

    What awful journalism. Nice to see the article avoids the fact the property sold £7 million under the asking price. Buffoons.

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  6. Trevor Mealham

    Save a fortune ????????? – The Emperor’s New Clothes. ………………

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  7. PeeBee

    A post spotted on Tw@tter seems to suggest that the property wasn’t ‘sold’ by a Call-Centre Agent after all.

    Anyone know more…?

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  8. PeeBee

    Okay… I’ve done some digging.

    Postcode for the property is SW1W 0DH.

    Rightmove Best Price Guide shows two listings for that postcode.

    There seems to be more story in the detail than detail in the story.

    I’ve emailed Ros the relevant info.  I hope it gets a second airing.

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