Online agent easyProperty’s launch into sales has attracted national newspaper coverage.
The Mirror – which also claims that 95% of vendors are “wasting” money on high street agency fees – carries the story under the headline “easyJet launches easyProperty online estate agency as company aims to ‘wipe out’ high street businesses”.
In fact, easyProperty licenses the ‘easy’ brand and directors of its company, E-prop Ltd, as far as EYE has been able to check, do not include easyJet’s Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou.
The Mirror story goes on to say: “Budget airline easyJet is aiming to consign high street estate agents to history after launching its own online business serving property-hunters.”
It quotes easyProperty boss Rob Ellice as saying: “Consumer behaviour has changed. No one walks into an estate agent’s office to start their search for a property any more.
“With traditional estate agents, you are still paying for their high street offices, a fleet of branded cars and cafes – even if you don’t want these services.”
Ellice told the Mirror that a lot of early business has come from people in London owning houses worth between £500,000 and £1m because they cannot afford standard estate agents’ fees.
In another story, the Mirror claims that “an incredible 95% of people are wasting thousands” when selling houses.
Asked, online, whether readers would sell online, 81% by yesterday evening had said yes, and 19% said no. However, actual numbers were not revealed.
easyProperty offers vendors packages priced between £475 and £1,500.
The Express meanwhile runs its story under the headline: “Now easyProperty takes on ‘rip off’ estate agents with new budget service.”
easyProperty has a TV advertising campaign promoting its sales service. It currently has around 130 sales properties on its books after launching in beta mode last month.
The Mirror’s latest advice to its readers on how “to dodge” estate agent fees is here
It is published under the headline: “Online estate agents: How to save £4,621.85 when selling your home.” It goes on to claim that “an incredible 95% of people are wasting thousands of pounds when they sell their house”.
Comments (61)
I don’t have a shop from so I’m not a ‘high street’ agent. I have a very successful local office which offers an alternative service to my local ‘high street’ competitors. The only cost I am saving is the cost of a shop front, which I could pay for if I wanted to at the cost of just a few extra sales a year. I offer a full range of services which includes sales, lettings, property management, financial services and land and new homes. I employ the best team and my offering is both personal and thorough and comes with a great deal of industry experience. I expect that if I had a shop front it would pay for itself as I would gain the few extra instructions a year to pay for it. My reason for not having a shop front is purely a logistical one. It gives me a logistical advantage not to have a shop front. I have gained a client base who appreciate my service and my local competitors do not have any less regard for me not having a shop front. I am based in an area with some very strong ‘high street’ independents, chains and national/ international brands. I could not offer such a high quality service for such low fees as EasyProperty suggest. I do not consider myself an ‘internet agent’ just because I don’t have a shop front.
There will always be people who want a cheap service but there are always more people who value a service and who are happy to pay for it. I charge the same fees as my ‘high street’ competitors and in some cases I charge more. None of my clients expect a discount just because I don’t have a shop front. Make yourself ‘indespenible’ and the ‘internet agent’ will not gain territory.
Here’s the thing… I have so much I want to say.
A lot of it would probably see Ros receiving some official documents to be served on me via EYE. Not that such shenanigans would bother me because firstly anyone wanting to sue my @r$e off would simply get my @r$e and nothing else; secondly because last time I looked you can’t be sued successfully for telling the truth… the whole truth… and nothing but the truth.
BUT… as this story is built around quotes from Mr Ellice I thought it was wise simply to quote him again.
THIS TIME, however, I am quoting not from his apparent manifesto to become ‘Slayer of the Traditional Agent’ – you can read those quotes in the main body of the article and the multitude of column inches that have been devoted to Mr Ellice and the online agency he now fronts…
…but instead from the Vendor and Purchaser Guides of the HIGH STREET AGENCY he is Managing Director of, Clarke Hillyer – so I guess they have his seal of approval. He may even have written them himself:
“At Clarke Hillyer we strive to stand out from other agents, not only in the way our offices look and feel, but by going the extra mile for our clients.
This is apparent from the moment you set foot into one of our bespoke air conditioned and comfortable branches. You will be greeted with a warm and friendly smile by one of our experienced and qualified property consultants; whose main aim will be to help you move home and make your moving experience as exciting as possible.
Selling your home can be a stressful time. That is why all of our fully trained members of staff are available to guide you through this process with the care and attention it deserves, because after all, we are discussing the single most valuable asset that you own.
Great care will be taken to accurately value your property, calling upon the vast experience of our staff as well as our company history. We have been established in the area since 1885, meaning that no other company has more experience in the local area than Clarke Hillyer.”
Or what about:
“At Clarke Hillyer we strive to stand out from other agents by making the purchasing process as comfortable and friendly as possible. This is apparent from the moment you set foot into one of our branches. You will be greeted with a friendly smile by one of our experienced and qualified property consultants; whose main aim will be to help you find your dream home.
The consultant will discuss with you over a cup of coffee your property requirements and at the same time take contact details from you so that we can keep you updated going forward. Regular updates will be sent to you via SMS or email and you will have the ability to view properties on our easy to navigate/simple to use website. Our offices are open at times to suit you, from 7am – 7pm and agents are available for viewings after work or at weekends.
The consultant will be able to show you relevant available properties on a large screen using the latest iPad & touch screen technology, whilst describing in detail why these properties may be suitable for your needs and assist you to shortlist properties which you may want to view. We will then make the appointments for you to view the shortlisted properties, provide you with full colour detailed property particulars and chauffeur drive you to the viewings; you will be accompanied throughout so that we are available to answer any questions you may have.”
I’m not sure that anything I could say could possibly be a better advert for TRADITIONAL ESTATE AGENCY that the words above, as opposed to an ONLINE offering.
Thank you, Me Ellice. You’ve done HIGH STREET AGENCY proud.
Just so i understand this correctly, Mr Ellice the High Street Estate Agent Slayer (and face of EasyProperty) is himself a Managing Director of a High Street Agent?
Wow surely this is a news story worth running EYE??????
Think it already has been, smile please – but one consigned to the Archives, it’s amazing what is forgotten, innit?
I DON’T FORGET.
Hmmmmmm maybe a few well placed comments on “Review” sites (knew they were good for something!) and social media accounts maybe in order ……………
Alright, let’s put aside the normal drivel from easy and Quirky Quirk and his melting heart, it’s the same stuff they always trot out while deep down being confused why they can’t deliver any bit of the business plan they gave their bosses.
With Quirk it’s the brilliant way he can rinse through cash (while charging upfront??) and shouting about how brilliant he is while having the equivalent of a western film set as a business that I admire most…….the easy bloke meanwhile holds tightly to the comfort blanket that is his permission to use the easy brand all the time he’s paying them for the pleasure.
The thing is they may be a bit weird and certainly shouty but they are a breath of fresh air in comparison to the lazy, dull witted journalists that spout the badly researched, inaccurate, recycled horse manure they splat onto the people that buy their papers.
Jonnie
P.s Mrs Jonnie and I went to see friends in London over the weekend, the agent in me meant I spotted every EA board in leafy West London on the way there and most of them seemed to be ‘Foxtons’…….im told they charge £400 upfront, do I understand that correctly?
You might not like it but no matter what, they are going ahead and the High Street is in the firing line. How many times do agents have to be told if you support the likes of RM & Z you are slowly but surely cutting your throats. The TV ads and newspaper will not provide them the support they need long term, it is the High Street agents plugging the same outlets for them….. WAKE UP.
I think the next venture for the ‘easy’ brand should be comedy clubs as they obviously have a great sense of humour!
Effortless money-raising via crowdfunding (and a swish pitch with a couple of well known names), has brought out all the wriggly watch brigade and incredibly ‘investors’ can’t wait to part with their cash! It seems to be i(forgive the pun) ‘easy money’ doesn’t it! It would appear that many of these investors don’t know about the existence of Endole of Duedil (an online source readily available to anyone) to see what the real story is behind the so called onliners – particularly those who make outlandish claims on their websites and TV ads. What I am really dismayed at is why we aren’t fighting back. NAEA and On The Market pay for expensive TV ads – where is the reminder of no sale, no fee, instead of, pay now – may sell later. Why aren’t they shouting from the rooftops promoting our professionalism (yes there are still a few around who love the job and want to do their best) and dedication to getting their property sold /let, which is where no sale no fee works so wonderfully for both sides. Furthermore, how are these people allowed to state, as a matter of fact, ‘we save you £5000’ – a high street agent would have to make it very clear – IF we sell your house we could save you X Y or Z. I wonder if the ASA should be looking at this, or at least NAEA or OTM pushing them to do so. Yet again where are the NAEA and ARLA in all of this – still pushing for the government to introduce mandatory licensing with them mopping up the fees for doing, frankly, absolutely nothing.
Yup..you got it.. the correct counter is exactly about no sale no fee and I love your strap line ‘ no sale, no fee or pay now – may sell later
I setup in April with an investment of about 40k, literally building from a blank sheet of paper.
EasyProperty have God knows how much money behind them.
I have more stock for sales and lettings within 3 miles of my location, after 5 months, than them. Wow, this online agent thing is clearly working.
Hope its going well for you, i remember starting up with a similar figure years back. all i will say is keep your nerve going into month 6 /7 gets ALOT easier from there!
If it were all about the fee, Foxtons, Knight Frank, Savills etc wouldn’t have been so successful. I have maintained that the flaw in the argument is that buyers don’t care how much a vendor is paying. The claimed £4,600 saving is a little misleading.
The average price of property in the capital is £488,782 in comparison with the average for England and Wales of £183,861. [Source – Land registry house price index released 28th August].
I am aware of the average fees most corporates achieve across the UK. I know what we achieve. To save the figure quoted would mean most companies would have to sell the property and give the vendor a cheque upon completion.
Good luck to easyProperty in their new venture. The challenge will be to keep their investors happy as patience is seldom an investors virtue.
No doubt these half truths will work against them. When Mr Jones has the local agents round and finds out the price difference isnt as much, and Easy have been overegging the figures, me thinks Mr Jones will decide the embarrasment of marketing on the cheap, coupled with the risk of not selling, will mean he chooses wisely.
There is really only one type of “air time” this company should get and I am pretty sure their brand name and reputation will attract a certain type of seller.
I think there is a place for companies who will attract the type of “want everything for nothing” client they will, sometimes just sometimes a well known brand name carries a message some people don’t want and the ones who don’t care are probably the clients the vast majority of HS Agents would be happy to avoid.
Getting fed up with reading the nonsense trotted out by these people. If I ‘promoted’ my business by being agressive about other industry members I don’t think I’d get very far – or be very credible. From what I’ve seen in the market place every vendor should try these guys at least once. Just so they know what it feels like. There is a similar situation in the conveyancing market. People are encouraged not to use the ‘rip off’ High Street guys. I’d like a £ for every seller and buyer who has said to us “never again” when it comes to using the ‘online’ remote service. Let’s face it, when we shop for anything do you automatically buy the cheapest? Would so many people be shopping in Aldi if the quality was poor? It’s a value judgement and time will tell, but at the risk of sounding like a kamikazi pilot “bring on the tough market” – it will 100% sort the playing field.
You want to pop up North and call in my office Rob – you will find its impossible to save £4621.85 on my fees and my cafe’s a kettle!
Yes and my average fee is only about £1500 anyway. Not much of a saving there then and that’s their USP. Ha!
I remember a couple of years ago Tesco got on the band wagon and threw loads of money at this and decided it was a wrong move before they even got started and they even had outlets to operate from.!
As most of us have said on these posts over time there will be a market for online but I don’t think its too much to be concerned about. The only thing that frustrates me is that there is no one flying the flag for proper agents in the media, there never seems to be a counter story.Could do with someone fairly well known to get on it and starting explaining to the public that they might save a few quid on the fee (for now) but the actual losses made by poor negotiation or lack of proper local knowledge would run far higher.
Get a proper agent, pay a proper fee and rest comfortably knowing you got the best price. Don’t leave it to someone who doesn’t particularly care if you got an extra couple of grand on the top line, who in a lot of cases has already been paid before it sells.
“…and my average fee is only about £1500 anyway…”
Careful, ‘inthefield’ – you’ll have Suvvern Agents all claiming new keyboards off you this morning when they choke on their Costas! ;o)
ESPECIALLY if they knew what we have to do to firstly secure the deal and then EARN it…
FYI we grind our own coffee here its much better than costa’s 😉
However please forward an address to send a bill for my keyboard.
Our butler grinds and serves our tea and coffee………..
wow £1500 for full high street agent offering, hats off to you my friend!
How can anybody complain about a fee like that!
I just hope you are enjoying it, a lot of hard work!
Id rather be getting more that’s for sure but its more about volume in my case. I have a rolling stock of over 400 for one office, selling around 40 per month. Maybe im a bit of a busy fool but Im just used to it now.
In any event Im not too precious about the North South thing Im sure you earn whatever you get and why shouldn’t you. You just operate in a different framework and price bracket than I do.
Wow 400 form a single office and agreeing 40 per month. is impressive!
shhh! I don’t want you lot down here 🙂
Sorry I meant up here! Its hard for me to think Ive got that much to do 🙂
9 vals in the diary today….
Might set up an internet only branch t’up north!
seems all the rage 😉
Based on his figures, he is the North!
Perhaps they should aim at providing a great service first. I’m sure that they’re not a charitable organisation and one of their aims also will be to make millions. They can’t do that without a surplus which in turn means that whatever they do will be based on not spending as much per property on all us non- millionaire high street agents.
What is this country coming to when a business opens with such negative aims for the consumer. We have always aimed at doing the absolute best for our clients first. If the only airline left to travel with was Easyjet the world would become a much worse place.
Sorry – ‘as much per property AS us’
Even Easy Jet needs enough fuel to make a flight, else what starts well could crash badly.
With £10m raised, there are very few Orange boards out there.
Any VC who thinks ‘the future of agency’ is about budget marketing is way off the mark.
Estate agency and especially lettings are seeing radical legislative changes happening. In fact many agents may find dropping portals and using budget operatives as routes into rightmove and zoopla a sensible way forward 🙂
The future will be guiding sellers and buyers, and landlords and tenants through the legislation hoops to save them from fines or losing rights. Those who operate in agency and fail (what’s more important than budget advertising) may (or rather WILL) need very deep pockets.
A call centre with non estate agency trained people could be a very costly vc business to run if budget models **** up giving best advice.
Fines are getting heavier and especially in lettings and management there is a big juggernaut about to come ploughing in called REGULATION and LEGISLATION.
I can’t see budget models handling best practice and best advice when they are trying to win the race of lowest fees.
Out of interest I enquired about advertising some of my listings cheaply on a ‘budget operative’ allowing me to ditch RM sign up to OTM and place only the more hard to let properties with the BO (appropriate!). I enquired without disclosing the details of who/how/where/why…. Seems rules are there to prevent this happening as expected.
I am currently trialling Z, and get rougly the same amount of leads as I do from RM, for around 1/3rd the cost. Me thinks RM will be getting some news from me in a couple of months.
Quite right Beano. Why should budget operatives be a back door for FSBO’s/ private sellers.
They certainly showed us how to take over the lettings market……
I think I was perhaps being a bit uncharitable with my comment earlier. Ok, so they didn’t take over the Lettings market and put high street agents out of business as promised, but they DID, I am sure, deliver on their promise of first year losses to their crowdcube investors. In fact, they may have even over delivered on them; so lets hear it for eP.
zzzzzzz…………….
Don’t got to sleep Surrey, have a little root about on Endole.co.uk and look up the actual directors of E-Prop Ltd, once you have done that have a look at their background and work histories, who and what they are connected to.
It becomes very obvious what is going on, but I have to say 7 years is a very long time to wait for this digital gravy train to gather speed and it looks like an awful lot of the First class passengers have already got board of waiting and are wanting their money back.
This, like so many of the similar attempts is a solid as the ownership of the data which fuels them.
Sorry bored! as in fed up not board as in resigned their directorships, I was thinking of another firm. Freudian slip! Silly me.
Stop being cryptic Robert!
Come out and tell us 🙂
Sorry Smile it isn’t for me to say, each individual firm needs to sit down with an appropriate research system or advisor and do their own homework and decide if they approve of what is going on, otherwise those with very well crowd funded legal teams start getting all thrusty schoolboy excited about painting common objections as a cartel.
Very few people know why I mysteriously resigned from a job I loved, a company I had built up and a market share that was unrivalled. I have kept my own counsel on that but is enough to say honesty and integrity as well as a loyalty to the Agents, agency and the industry has a lot to do with it, it is matter that is yet unresolved, but it will be!
If its fact whats the issue?
Also be nice to talk about something other than portal wars and and the loonies trying to reform lettings businesses into charities 😉
If this were my site not Ros, Nick and John’s I would. Ros is often provided with stories that she can decide to use or not.
When large firms have whole departments of barristers, solicitors and uppity para legals sat about dong not a lot, fact, honesty, right & proper are an inconvenience. The part of the role of legal teams is to control anything that falls outside the positive spin of the marketing department. Dress it up as you will it is old fashioned bullying. It is unpleasant and effective but a vital part of some businesses
If you cast your mind back to reports of the Dinosaur’s sphincter comment apparently made at the launch of Easy there was a right old Hoo ha.
I’m more than happy to provide a tutorial on why I am so determined and driven but out of respect or Ros and Nick, their front room isn’t the place for it.
Easyproperty have been re-loading a high number of ‘let agreed’ listings on RM and Z over the last week although the number of available ‘to lets’ has only varied by 2 or 3 in the same period.. Why? Answer.. Because they came all the way down to 220 total listings and are now showing circa 350 again.. when they ‘launched’ into sales, they ‘won’ 2 genuine instructions, a London flat and a welsh bungalow (both still available).. I have been asking myself for a while why they haven’t done a TV campaign.. now they have.. We shouldn’t underestimate the power of telly either.. no matter how bad the company or the advert, it puts the company into the minds of viewers which generates response and business. I’m thinking that until/unless they alter their business model to no sale – no fee, many people will be reluctant to pay upfront for a job that may – or may not get done.. For many people, £475 – £800 or £1500 is still a chunk of cash to gamble away but telly is powerful..be aware..
Yes Robert.. way ahead of you on directorships.. Guy Zitter (press guru) for instance.. Ellice’s long term accountant etc..and so on..
In fact, there’s not an estate agent between them, even counting Ellice, who I doubt has uttered those immortal words ‘Good Afternoon, How can I help you’ more than a handful of times..
..But I digress.. the telly ad is the first sensible marketing move they’ve made and the counter attack has to be aimed at their lack of incentive to sell once having taken upfront fees..
Interesting agents relisting properties,
Anybody know if this is allowed? maybe a call to Zoopla to highlights this and stop them from doing it.
No its not and although RM are supposed to combat this automatically, we regularly have to alert them to a local agent who having lost his market share has a habit of ‘fudging’ the RM market data with this technique. He also doesn’t mark properties ‘Let Agreed’ rather choosing to put ‘Let Agreed’ in the listing and leaving them live long after tenants have moved in!
Hi Smile.. They’re re-listing letting properties that have been let ergo.. the green ‘let by’ tag on the listing. One of two things or both going on.. 1. They are trying to show they are actually doing some business by re-displaying the stock they’ve let and b. their total properties tally on RM cam right down to 220 last week so they had to do something to bump the numbers back up..
CPR (consumer protection regulation) is there to stop Joe Public from being misled. If anyone has evidence of ‘gone’ listings being relisted to make an agent appear busy to encourage the appearance of consumers using them, it comes under ‘baiting’
Using bait advertising techniques (banned practice 5)
http://pstatic.powys.gov.uk/fileadmin/Docs/Estate_Agency/NTSEAT_guidance_on_property_sales_-_Sept_2015_en.pdf
But I was under the impression that competing businesses are not consumers and therefore are unable to ‘shop’ the miscreants?
Who/what is Guy Zitter? what is his background? who has he worked with or for in the past?
Guy Zitter was a a director/MD of The Daily Mail Newspaper.. has never had any direct link to estate agency.. It looks like he resigned from the Mail to take up a non-exec-direc at easy.. He was a big hitter in the press world.. a junior trainee at estate agency.. and the other direcs are similarly unconnected with agency
The Daily Mail you say, didn’t they own Zoopla and Primelocation at one time?
Can you imagine what sorts of things an advanced internet search engine interrogation system can throw up given that PLC’s are obliged to be a bit transparent when it comes board and strategy meetings?
Yes, partially owned by Daily Mail and Countrywide – which is the Directors connection between Guy Zitter and Harry Hill.. If I had the time I could write you a detailed history..! In fact, the person who least ‘fits’ the quality of the other directors’s histories and achievements is Ellice himself – who appears to have ‘lucked’ his way into the thick of it (unless you know more than I do)..because as far as it goes, Ellice ran a moderately successful agency mostly specialising in commercial lettings.. not a multi-million pound operation or even a large chain.
Wasn’t Harry Hill right in there on this one until some rotten PIE poster pointed out how on Property Drum he himself [Harry Hill] had outlined the viability model for agency that didn’t tie in with this much cheapness offering?
I reckon you are two names off a full house, 3 and a bank if you include the full extended family, but what do I know.
I have a lot of detail on the directors and the financial boutique Crystal Capital/Kingsley Wilson who managed the crowdcube fundraising – but what I find interesting is how such a small group of people have their fingers in so many pies i.e. Harry Hill himself.. he was already re-tweeting Hunters tweets even before resigning from Easyproperty’s board.. suggesting a mutual interest? Certainly I think he got cold feet when EP was so over-valued and saw Hunters as a more realistic bet.. makes me wonder whether their are threads of ‘interest’ and interlinks across the spectrum of onliners..?
Are you on Twitter Martin?
try g mail.. burgess journalism at
The plot thickens! shame a story cannot be run as looks like interesting reading in its full.
Maybe a Martin / Robert collaboration piece?
‘smile please’ – Robert has built something that ANYONE can use to either play at being (…or become a better…) investigative journalist.
Instead of waiting to hear the single penny drop – rummage4 the bullion!
YOUR name can just as easily be added to the name of contributors to the cleansing of the industry… ;o)
Shh Peebee don’t mention voldemort, the Outsider will get all tizzy and we’ll see ‘postey cokey’; We put one post on, they they take two posts off, on, off on off and shake it all about, they do the postey cokey and they turn around thats’ what its all about! Oi!
E Prop ltd was the original company (from which they raised crowdfunding) ..then all the directors resigned and simultaneously signed directorships for e prop services plc (with exception of Welch).. so they do have a compliment of directors..
EASY COME – EASY GO 🙂