A complaint about online agent eMoov has been informally resolved by the Advertising Standards Authority.
A spokesperson for the ASA said: “The complainant was concerned whether savings claims via a savings calculator on eMoov’s website were misleading and was concerned about the use of VAT-exclusive prices.”
Normally when a complaint is informally resolved, it means the advertiser has agreed in writing to amend their claims and address any other issues raised. The ASA then closes the file on the basis that a formal investigation would achieve the same result.
eMoov now quotes VAT-inclusive fees on its site, where it says that the average seller saves £4,200, and claims that eMoov sells homes at an average of 99% of the asking price.
Comments (16)
just spoken to a guy from movewithus.com he is valuing a property (unseen from his office in Cardiff) and has put a valuation of 95k on a property, that’s funny all the other properties in the block are all in great condition and up for between 107k-110k.
He said they value properties ‘to sell’ he was asking about the property I have for sale in the same block at 110k. I just ignored his questions and pecked at him a bit.He was phoning me for MY expert opinion. and I told him that he shouldn’t be valuing properties if he doesn’t know the market.
Just come back from a market appraisal. I double checked everything before I announced £400K asking price to then be told that another high street (corporate type) had come in at £500K.
Now I know I’m right, the owner even agrees with me. So where is this leading?
If we had any real on line competition (which we don’t) would they have used the spiel: ” well Mrs Vendor as you can see the high street agents don’t know the price so as we only charge a fairy’s fart to list on our websites including RM & Z why not start at over optimistic and drop the price every 10 days until you sell ? Either way your still saving a cheeseburger and French fries on agency fees”
See my point.
Doom and gloom, as long as corporate types screw up the front end it leaves us all wide open to the online Wally’s.
There, I’ve said my peace.
Now off I go.
It has been an offence under the 1979 Estate Agents Act and, arguably, under several other laws too, to deliberately misrepresent the likely sale price of a property to a customer in order to gain their business*. Furthermore, all agents are expected to show a reasonable standard of professional competence and skill when advising customers.
Until the current TPO rules and Laws are properly enforced, this practice will continue. Public source data will and is beginning to expose these agents. At some point, the public will start suing and professional liability insurance will start to rocket.
At that point, if the government hasn’t acted to require minimum standards of competence in the form of recognised qualifications (some hope) then, the insurers will.
*It could easily be argued this amounts to a charge of “obtaining money by deception”
Now I do agree, so when I asked the question (as you do) “so how many agents have been around she said 4, incl me, and I was the lowest. !!!!
Like I said I did my research based on currant demand, historic sales & what’s for sale. I also used my, not inconsiderable, gut instinct too.
Everything pointed to £400K
Blooming stupid, if you ask me.
Are you willing to give an outcode ( the first bit) or a postcode it will be interesting to see if the valuation trend stuff I’m working on shows up anything you’ve not spotted
Anything you have not spotted…….how about trying to get the BEST price for the vendor from an agent that markets on all national websites, not just one plus a 5% coverage mutual and has direct access to London buyers who pay more for property in a market that has high demand and fewer properties for sale lol.
Trouble with that is the data is being manipulated to demonstrate best price is being achieved when in fact the asking price is being amended to tie in with the agreed sale price. (Portal juggling plus)
Not sure why you are trying to troll this into an OTM story but you are wasting your time with me I know the benefits of AM and understand the opportunities being missed by OTM.
10am and emoov still not commented?!
Must be in a meeting working out how to put a positive spin on this.
What’s that radio program where you have to defend the indefensible? I’m sure Russell Whatsit would do very well on it. I don’t suppose those crowd funders will be very happy though!
It is already a win for them; prove to the ASA with a micro sample of data that what they reckon is right, add a * note to say how come and the whole thing gets resolved informally which then let’s the ASA off the hook from explaining or discussing the utter farce of the whole process.
I have built the calculator so that the full 20 years of fee analysis data from 1.5% in 1995 to 1.2% now can be used to demonstrate to ASA that the claims do not factually or morally hold water.
eMoov are probably considered a joke in parts of the country where fees don’t even reach £4,000. The public see them for what they are.
Vendors won’t ever get lazy when it comes to their single greatest asset and Home. Once there is widespread understanding that many sales since 2011/2012 have been unduly influenced by an erroneous algorithm and those that have used it have under sold property to the tune of about £238 Billion there will be a review of who and what is allowed to give advice on value. Anyone who can not evidence their historic valuations has a problem, especially as all the unverifiable data is currently going missing from a certain system (just in case you hadn’t noticed)
Remote valuation is flawed and local valuation is more expensive. While there is fear of loss honest, proper and professional will triumph over cheap
Short term I don’t worry about emoov or other onliners as they, as Mr May fairly points out, often don’t know the local market and therefore can miss the sale price by ten or more thousands of pounds.
But as vendors get lazy and selfish they will ultimately lose out as will the high street agents.
Just a prediction of times to come
Dunno When though.
If anyone would like to report any agent making an unsubstantiated claim about fee savings I have built a system to debunk the ASA’s apparent bias in favour of George Osborne’s industry innovators.
Based on land registry data it’s now possible by outcode, postcode, multiple outcodes etc (your selling area) to produce a to the penny estimate of the “savings” claimed for using a fixed fee upfront for listing on the internet agent. Along with Stephen Hayter’s analysis of average agency fee (1.2% plus vat) against a £595 fixed fee, the average UK agent commission is £4190.43. Take away £595 and the average saving is £3595.43. However….. me being me (irritatingly fair and independent of influence) I have also calculated ‘valuation lag’ By unpicking the data I have worked out that anyone without local knowledge is (algorithm) month’s out on their valuation comparables. Valuation lag average for the UK is currently (October 2015 data) £11642
Nice simple calculation £11642 less £3595.43 means vendors can be demonstrably worse off not using an agent with an appropriate level of experience, qualification or local knowledge, i.e people who look up valuations on the internet (not just online agents)
You folks knew that anyway but if you would like a bespoke report for every market appraisal or your own discussions with ASA I would be more than delighted as a “learned academic” ** to show every decent, honest, local agent how to calculate these numbers.
** that’s not me being big headed that is the ASA reason for why I can’t make an anonymous private complaint against people who claim to be Qualified when they aren’t, Local when they’re not and open 24 hours a day when they’re not.
“eMoov now quotes VAT-inclusive fees on its site, where it says that the average seller saves £4,200….”
They make these claims based upon a “survey” they state was conducted in June – which attracted a mind-shattering forty respondents.
Strangely, there is no mention of this on their website. Normally every column millimetre they attract is featured in their ‘In the Press’ section.
Funny, that…
You’ll do, example Emove (the other one) v Doncaster 1.23% plus vat calculation will get posted @ you on twitter in a few minutes 08:38