TV presenter Sarah Beeny has been made the subject of a complaint to Ofcom, the broadcasting watchdog.
According to yesterday’s Sunday Times, the allegation is that Beeny is using the Channel 4 programme about online estate agents, How to Sell Your Home, to promote her own online estate agency, Tepilo.
Ofcom told the paper that it is assessing the complaint. Its broadcasting code has rules to ensure that editorial content remains distinct from “unduly prominent or promotional references”.
Beeny has not mentioned Tepilo by name in the two episodes of the programme so far aired.
However, she has said: “In Britain we sell 1m homes every year and pay nearly £5bn in estate agency fees but all that is about to change.”
She also asked viewers: “Are you brave enough to turn your back on the traditional estate agent and sell your home online?”
Nor has she attempted to hide the fact that she owns Tepilo, telling viewers last week: “As the owner of an established online estate agency, I know how important researching price is.”
A Channel 4 spokesman told the Sunday Times: “Sarah was chosen for her expertise on this type of house selling.
“We were aware that she had her own company and the contributors were told not to use [the name] Tepilo.”
Beeny’s mention of the £5bn apparently made by estate agents each year was questioned by Eye previously.
Our story attracted a number of comments, including one suggesting that Beeny was indirectly promoting her own business via the programme.
The third part of How to Sell Your Home is due to air tonight at 8.30pm. Eye’s top tip is to look out for the on-screen captions. Last week, one identified a Cheltenham agent, Nick Chivers, as working for Frank Knight.
We are not sure what Mr Chivers, who is head of Knight Frank in the town, made of that, but it must have made Mr Rutley (an old friend of Eye) turn in his grave.
Comments (15)
I found it hard not to shout at the telly when the optimistic owner "couldn't afford" something like £100 for some minor improvement … but didn't seem to bat an eyelid when asked cough up over a grand in advance for the online agent. Perhaps if if you hadn't paid the online agent in advance my love, you could afford to pay the decorator (rather than ask him to wait for payment after the house had sold) and pay about £100 for a small imprevement. Another fully signed up member of the "Something For Nothing" brigade I suspect.
THINKING OF USING AN ONLINE AGENT? – Sellers be careful paying upfront fees… 1. When they've got your money it doesn't matter if it sells or not. 2. Their margins are so low they could easily go bust and you've lost your money. 3. You get what you pay for. 4. Cheap marketing = less buyers = less offers if any! 5. Read this review on review stars by Gary Ward trustpilot stars Not good
My experience so far is that Purplebricks are great at selling their services, but once you become a customer, as I am, you hear nothing more from them. After all, they're getting paid whether your property sells or not, so what's their incentive? They may be cheaper, but an established agent has a big incentive to sell your property and give it a push. Purple bricks has none. I also find their paperwork misleading and full of jargon. It appears that because I chose the option to defer paying their fee that I must take conveyancing from a business partner of theirs. My contact with them is barely worth one star and I feel badly misled. So, after starting out full of hope that purplebricks is the way forward, I really have my doubts.
Took her 10 minutes before mentioning she was the owner of an established online agency last night. The house was on the market for £750,000 with an high street agent and had what, 6 viewings and no offers in 3 months, yet a similar property sold for what, £695,000? Instead of emphasising the fact that the high street agent hadn't given much feed back on viewings or in other words done their job properly, Sarah should of pointed out that the reason their property hadn't had much interest might of been due to the high price it was currently on the market at.
Tuned in last night for some mind-numbing viewing – despite the large number of online agents available to choose from, the peeps on the show are only ever seen using the one online agency. I wonder which one that is?
The Essex one was sold via housesimple. Search Gidea Park as the area. Annoyingly they seem to have done a reasonable job in this instance although I'm sure that the unsuccessful agent Beresfords would have done better if they could have marketed with a new bathroom and kitchen. They were also only on 1% not 1and a half that was mentioned with the "money saved"
Thanks wilko I missed that bit
PeeBee the other cheesy points that stands out for me are the estate agent gets to do the valuation BEFORE improvements/re-decorating/de clutter and Sarah doesn't report the cumulative hours each of the target vendors spends who seem to place zero value on their own time
Pleased they are looking into this and rightly so. This programme may as well be a 30 minute advert for Tepilo in so far as it is biased against the traditional agent.
I expect a vast amount, perhaps the majority, of ‘online agent’s’ business comes from those clients who feel their property is worth far more than market value and want to pay as little as possible to sell it. We’ve seen two examples of this already in the first two episodes with, I believe, just four properties featured so far. Not a great sale rate for team online but do they care? They’ve already been paid!
The programme made a big point in the first episode of how an agent valued a property at £210k (one wonders if they had other higher valuations which they chose not to show), but the couple went on to sell online at £220k making a ‘saving’ of 1.5% +vat in the process.
Fair enough, but compare this scenario to last weeks’ episode where the agent valued the property at £90k but the vendor decided to go online with an asking price of £83k. They paid £1000 to the online agent (and still had to take their own photographs!). So, at Ms Beeny’s standard rate of 1.5% +vat, that’s a grand saving of £500 on the fees but they were, potentially, £7k worse off on the sale price, and without the full support and service of a local agent!
These facts were played down and Beeny spun it out as to how the online agent was successful in achieving the sale.
The concern is that a large element of the public won't do the maths and don't have the experience to know what a traditional agent does to justify their fees.
I too have been watching this programme and have been left speechless, not just by Ms Beeny blatantly plugging her online estate agency and I quote "As an owner of a successful online estate agency" 4 minutes in the the first episode and then again "As an owner of a successful and established online estate agency" This time just 6 minutes into the second programme but at the total lack of coverage of the conveyance process once those apparently brave enough to have used an online estate agent have accepted an offer. This part of the process is something that is constantly overlooked by sellers, and indeed by the makers of this programme. I suspect this is because it is one of the hardest parts of selling a property and is really where we and I am sure the majority of us traditional estate agents come in to our own. For example would the online estate agent that has already banked their up front fee really want to make almost sixty phone calls to both buyer, seller and their respective solicitors in order to keep the sale together when it emerges that the seller has built a gymnasium, solarium and shower room in their back garden without any building regulations, adequate foundations or drainage!! And following confirmation that the lender will not accept any form of indemnity would they meet building inspectors at the property while the owner has to go to work as it is critical this inspection takes place because the mortgage offer is due to expire. And would they negotiate a suitable price reduction when it is established that this building needs to be demolished between exchange and completion. I very much doubt it. This was just one case we were working last week which I am proud to say did exchange. I am sure we all have stories like this to tell and I would like to invite Channel 4 into my and maybe some other agents offices for a week and let them film just how hard we all work for our fees. Lets make a programme with a pro high street presenter (preferable one that does not own a successful and established high street agency) that really shows just what is involved. Both of the couples featured in the programme that did sell when asked by Ms Beeny if they would do it again said NO! So no repeat business there then. We have acted for some of our vendors two or three times before and are constantly recommended. Traditional Estate agency is a long game, one that will continue for as long as people value the service they are provided.
I'm pleased they are looking into this. However I think she could be getting more complaints from people who pay her money to fail to sell their property. The house we were instructed on from a disappointed tepilo customer (no viewings during the extensive marketing period ) enjoyed its first weekend on the market with us this weekend past. It seems that the first viewers that we got had been trying to view when it was on with tepilo for some weeks, but in spite of further calls, no one from tepilo ever got back to them!
The best bit? The part where they ask a local agent to value the property first hand. I wonder how long it will be before high street agents start charging for valuations again to prevent this happening.
Yes, I'm all for keeping market appraisals free, but a short "free valuation" contract form should be signed when we attend a valuation clearly stating that if they go on the market with an online agent then a fee of say £100 + vat becomes payable to the valuing agents?
Love the idea wilko – but we all know it simply couldn't and wouldn't work! a) the competition watchdogs would be all over you like a rash, if the Quirkster had anything whatsoever to do with it… and b) there's always someone, as you well know, who will break rank. And when you consider that the Onlinies usually recommend prospective vendors get TWO of us out to do their professional assessments for them, another £240 (for the benefit of Ms Beeny – THAT is how to add VAT to a figure and not sweep it under the carpet…) makes going down the online route quite a bit more expensive. Anyway – they can do an AVM for bot-all… or just accept any nutter's kite-flying aspirationist figure, cr@ppy photos and details like we see happening all over the place!
Agreed, but surely there must be a solution along these lines to prevent "being used" I know we are all used to being used (divorce cases, sales to family, or just interested owners) but there is something very different about an "industry within an industry" that is actively recommending that their clients use a professional local company to advise on price with the sole purpose of using an online agent to then market on the portals. Guess we will just have to put up with it and use a small part of the appraisal process to warn of the significant gulf in the levels of professional service each model provides.
Ms Beeny has made the point EVERY week so far (and I am certain will continue to do so for the rest of the series…) that she owns an online Agency. I'm sure the word used is "successful" and not "established" – but I'm usually in fits of hysterical laughter by that stage already so I could well be wrong… The whole programme is ridiculously biased – and "information" fed to the viewer straddles the line of legality. Listen to what she does when "comparing" fees. Where does the VAT disappear to when quoting the Onlinie's charges and giving the "saving" that these so-called pioneers are going to make? She's even almost a decade late with THAT phrase – giving Messrs Day and Quirk SOME credit for being there at the off – unlike those jumping on yet another rolling bandwagon so as to ensure quarter of a chance of success.