TV personality Sarah Beeny has claimed that it suits agents if the public think that home buying and selling is complicated and difficult.
Beeny – owner of online agent Tepilo – said: “It’s staggering to see just how many people think that buying a house in the UK is complicated and unfair.
“It shouldn’t be this way, as the actual process of buying and selling houses is fairly straightforward if you understand it.
“However, many estate agents and solicitors benefit from people thinking the process is complicated, as it allows them to charge astronomical fees to look after key elements of transactions on behalf of buyers and sellers.”
Beeny was speaking after Tepilo carried out a survey of 2,001 people who had bought a home in the last year, or are in the process of buying, or are planning to buy in the next year.
The survey found that 61% found buying confusing.
Nearly one in three (27%) said the buying process is too complicated and expensive, 21% think transactions take too long, and 14% worry about a sale falling through after spending money on legal and survey fees.
Out of 37% who think the buying process is unfair, when asked how they think it could be made fairer, 40% said that once a sale has been agreed it should be made legally binding.
The survey also found that 35% think gazumping should not be allowed and 31% think sellers should pay for the survey.
Many buyers did not know what conveyancing or EPCs were.
Comments (22)
61% found buying confusing.
27% said the buying process is too complicated and expensive,
21% think transactions take too long,
14% worry about a sale falling through after spending money on legal and survey fees.
Many buyers did not know what conveyancing or EPCs were.
So by using TEPILO, instead of an agent, all of the above go away and as a bonus you can talk with authority (at dinner parties) about EPC’s.
Works for me!
Anyone ever seen “who wants to be a millionairre? well much like in that quiz the truth was in beenys comment “if you understand it” well the question is easy if you know the answer ms beeny! just like in any other career, its easy if you know what you have to do but for most not only do they not know but they don’t have the time they need to devote to getting the job done in working hours hence we are there to deal with it or in beenys case she has some sad cheap agents desparate to cover the job for her.
wasn’t 2001 a work of science fiction?
Find me any agent who has not negotiated or saved a sale that wouldn’t have happened without their input. Sarah wouldn’t last five minutes with some of our customers. She would soon be complaining of having to sort out unscrupulous venders, purchasers and incompetent call centres, surveyors, council departments and solicitors. She needs to wake up the the real world, they are not all good and it is with our help where we really earn the cash.
I’ll tell you what is unfair Sarah, you professing to save unsuspecting sellers thousands when you could lose them 10 times as much.
I had my property valued by a local agent, the company and the individual have been in the town for years. I was told as demand was so high and it was near a Crossrail station, it could get up towards the £600,000 mark.
When I put the details through your online valuation service it told me £442,000. That was after it had taken them 5 days (and a chase) to get back to me.
When I asked what documents you needed from me to get the property on the market (I was thinking of ID as it was all done online) I was told nothing at that stage just the payment. I thought the money laundering regulations required sight of all the ID beforehand?
If it’s that easy I would question why Tepilo’s first ever instruction in my patch has come to market about 15% over the going price for similar stock. Of course I know the answer to be they didn’t have a clue what they were doing and used Zoopla’s valuation tool. The owner has already been in touch for professional advice.
I think Sarah Beeny is a bean short of a full tin if she thinks on line agents are a better solution.
I am bored of her nonsense, she knows that online agents are not the answer however she needs more instructions so she can finish her renovation job.
So if the conveyancing process is so easy why are we solicitors regulated to the hilt in terms of conveyancing? We’ve got to answer to The Law Society, The Solicitors Regulation Authority, The Legal Ombudsman, Lexcel, Every lender we deal with and more importantly of all, our insurers.
Think one Beeny is getting desperate…luckily we don’t have to deal with the complete tin..of Beenys! Certainly not Hienz..so local pound shops own??
How much credit is advanced to the Client for advertising? Isn’t that a significant part of the transaction?
Love the note about few respondents knowing what EPCs are.
It’s not a case of making them think it’s difficult but being on hand to provide support and in every case doing what is necessary in order to successfully progress the sale from instruction to completion.
Something that the online only model doesn’t really seem to care about… Even the one with a ‘local’ expert doesn’t assist their seller with progressing… I know this as I’m in a chain with them and the local expert never answers his phone and has never called me back in 7 attempts!
Im all for offering a consumer friendly product but the only consumer friendly part of this model are the fees. If you take into account that a local expert is more likely to get you a higher selling price the fees can’t be justified!
A little off topic towards the end but Beeny pushes the right buttons!
What we do is not difficult but it is hard work, keeping chains together, ensuring transactions proceed smoothly with difficult parties etc etc etc. Being an online agent Ms Beeny wouldn’t know this as her vendors have to do it! If I were to buy a new bathroom or kitchen I wouldn’t try to fit it as there are people out there who could do a much better job as they do it day in day out. If I were to sell my house I would want a professional person handling every angle and by dint of this achieving the best possible price.
Compensation is a direct reflection of perceived value. When people value a service, they willingly pay more. Sarah B obviously doesn’t value the services, provided by their firm, highly enough to charge more and likewise the vendors that still prefer traditional over opportunist.
Low fees have a relative value, whereas time and energy, because they are finite, have more perceived value. The process of selling is an emotional one where vendors choose any agency based on how it made them feel. Online agencies that set the bar so low do a disservice to vendors who, from this article, appear somewhat confused by the whole process. A perfect environment for those seeking to manipulate.
we have not agreed on other topics before, but on this post I salute you.
It is probably a very good idea to make sure one is standing on very firm ground before sounding off like this Ms Beeny.
As a matter of coincidence I was asked to investigate the valuation system you describe as “this tool is now an invaluable weapon in our marketing armoury”
How much due diligence did you do before starting to use it or did you have a look and think, “simple enough, seems to work brilliantly”?
I have had a look and used the system to value my property. It looks very much like it is based on incorrect data collected in some unexplainable manor by a firm that doesn’t appear to be registered with ICO.
If you did due diligence on the suppliers of the system, brilliant let me know, you’ll save me a few days work seeing if I can work out how like yours is apparently side stepping legislation and regulation that governs ordinary agents.
It might be simple to do what you do but doing the job properly costs both time & money.
insert ‘a firm’ in the above post.
Another way of reading this survey would be to say that about 80% of respondents think that the transaction does not take too long and that nearly three quarters (73%) did not believe that the process was too complicated or expensive.
Interestingly, a significant and majority of respondents appear to have no problem with gazumping and do not believe that the seller should pay for the survey.
A survey of 2001 … As a sceptic I hate seeing this number reported , this is clearly a survey of over 2000 house purchasers
Nothing like a bit of spin to keep people on their toes!
Exactly – features like this are put in as a wind up and should be treated with the contempt they deserve.
I’ll take the bait though and forecast Beeny will become a HasBeeny sooner rather than later!
The basics are straightforward, if you understand it (and the survey shows a worrying amount of people don’t). However, it’s the bit when you hit problems when a good agent is worth their weight in gold and inexperienced agents can cost people thousands and a great deal of stress.
Ms Beeny is clutching at straws to conflate this survey results with agents fees