Estate agents’ fees are varying remarkably across the country.
The Telegraph, reporting on a survey by online agent Urban, is running an interactive map, apparently showing average fees in different parts of the country.
The paper says that fees vary between 0.9% and 2%, and asks its readers whether they are paying their estate agent “over the odds”.
The paper says that the online agent contacted 450 agents across the country to get a quote for a standard package, including photography, floor plan creation, online marketing and shop window marketing.
The Telegraph does caution: “Many will prefer the security and face-to-face interaction of using a physical estate agent, but billions of pounds worth of property is now sold successfully through online agents every year.
“Whether they are as effective at shifting your property as a traditional agent, or whether face-to-face service is irreplaceable, are still points of debate, but the potential savings are certainly significant.
“A package comparable to a traditional estate agent, including a floor plan, For Sale board and photography costs around £1,000 from an online estate agent, although this varies depending on the provider.”
The paper, whose owners are the wealthy Barclays twins whose sons are behind online agent YOPA, is also running a survey.
The Telegraph’s survey asks: “Can online estate agents ever replace brick and mortar establishments?”
There are two possible answers – yes, because of the savings; and no, because selling a house is too important to do online.
When EYE checked out the survey early this morning just 216 people had voted.
Of these, the large majority had said yes to the cost savings offered by online agents.
More here
Comments (21)
Herb asks do you want the cheapest agent or the best agent. As a solicitor I don’t want to do cheap either. Hence we try to avoid folk who try to dictate that we should offer low fees to clients and high referral fees to them. Therein lies a lose lose situation for the client. Quality personal service is what it’s all about.
Meanwhile… in another totally unbiased poll –
99.6% of Walls employees voted WALLS sausages be proclaimed Britain’s Best Bangers.
Are you happy with your wife alone showing buyers around because a ‘Call Centre agent’ can’t make it?
”a quote for a standard package, including photography, floor plan creation, online marketing and shop window marketing”
Since when is that a standard package for a traditional agency? If any of the 450 agents that were asked to quote by this guy over the phone actually answered and are reading this, please take a long hard look at yourselves.
More’s to the point, wardy – WHY is the above “standard package” being touted as the yardstick for comparing the two models when NO call-centre Agents can actually match it?
Beggars belief – the whole rotten shebang.
To whom it may concern
PLEASE explain what is to ‘Dislike’ about the above post.
At this moment you’re simply making any alternative argument seem like a spoilt child chucking their toys out of the pram.
Perhaps some reasoned debate might just restore some balance.
Then again – most likely not – as there is no reasoned debate to the above.
There is of course another school of thought.
Just how much would it take to get you out of Bed?
£500
£1000
£2000
More?
It’s all very well telling us poor saps we over charge for our services and should adopt a lower price point for our services like the on line agents.
But we need to make a living too
It’s just PR for the on line agent, they aren’t saying anything of value. The real story is how little on line agents can really do for their client.
There should be a law or strong guidance to protect vendors.
If you are selling a modern house with a valid NHBC/warranty still in place, Freehold, chain free and you are capable of dealing with strangers yourself. Then by all means you can sell through the online system.
Anyone else will need professional help and that’s not something online agents can do.
Buy cheap, buy twice.
Just wondering how The Telegraph came to sponsoring The Guild of professional Estate Agents annual conference last month…..now seems a little bit of a conflict of interest….
Do you want the cheapest agent or the best agent?
Regardless of the outcome of the “poll”, shouldn’t the DT declare its interest in YOPA (online agent, owned by the DT’s owners’, the Barclay brothers, sons)? In case you needed it, the article handily provides a link under its third paragraph to another “story” from June 2015 where “new arrival YOPA” is mentioned as heralding the “end of the road for high-street estate agents”.
The “article” also doesn’t state anywhere that Urban.co.uk is itself an online agent – which would kind of kybosh any pretence of independence of its “survey”, and therefore kind of make the whole article just an ad for online-only agents in general (like, plucking a couple of names at random, YOPA and Urban) …?
WELL SAID, Mal! You beat me to the punchline.
What puzzles me is what, I wonder, IPSO will make of it all?
Watch this space. Or Tw@tter – where the #portaljuggling 5h!tstorm is to be joined by some awkward questions being poked into the ribs of certain authorities relating to this malarkey.
Following in the style of great comedy I quote from the American TV sitcom, ‘Soap’
Confused…? You won’t be after this week’s episode!
;o)
(oh – you aren’t THE ‘Mal’ I invariably lock horns with, are you? If yes – pleased that we are on the same side on something!)
Someone without the ‘nads to debate lets the ‘Dislike’ icon do their talking for them.
AWWWW, diddums.
It’s all they have to offer on the subject. Wonder why?
The very same, PeeBee – worryingly in violent agreement here. Let’s not let it happen again, eh …?! 🙂
Actually, Mr McC – I would very much like to agree with you.
Life would be far less eventful if we all agreed on everything – but it would signal that at least things were ‘right’.
And THAT, after all, is what we all claim to want.
And that – dammit, here I go again – I agree with too …!
Why buy the Telegraph when you can get your news from free on the internet? The journalism and integrity of the stories will, presumably, be of the same quality?
Amongst the usual pro-online MDT we are well accustomed to from the rag in question, the article says
“Whether they are as effective at shifting your property as a traditional agent, or whether face-to-face service is irreplaceable, are still points of debate, but the potential savings are certainly significant.”
The author should seriously consider comedy writing – he’s better at it than the late, great John Sullivan.
Bang on Peebee .. don’t worry if they can’t do the job .. hey as long as they are cheap – everything is just ticktyboo 😉
Online cheap fee estate agents, who are you trying to impress when you are being cheap? Anyone can set up an agency and be cheap .. it’s like all your USP is .. ‘hey we sell or let houses but we are cheap’ ..and if you think about it, when agents offer cheap or free deals… what are you getting from it? .. being cheap?
To which I know the reply will be (especially from the online/hybrid/call centre agent brigade) something like, ‘We want to change the face of UK estate agency both offering a better deal for house sellers’, or ‘We don’t have a High Street office so passing the savings on to you .. meaning you save money’.
What would impress me beyond the stars is an online/call centre/hybrid agents charging the same as High Street agents?
I honestly believe there is a place in the UK for a hybrid estate agency to be as big as Countrywide and have no offices and price themselves at a decent fee level. In fact I have even written an article on how it would be done if anyone was interested?