An article in The Times has urged people to “shun” high street estate agents – suggesting instead that they use online firms.
In his ‘Thunderers’ article, consumer affairs correspondent Andrew Ellson wrote on Friday: “In the past month, I’ve been asked by family members to help sell two properties and it’s shocking how much traditional estate agents still ask for in commission despite the advance of online competition.
“One London agent wanted £16,500 to sell a home it valued at £550,000. The agent said the property would sell easily, perhaps forgetting that this meant he would be doing very little to justify his gargantuan fee.
“The truth is the property won’t sell easily, particularly at that valuation, because the market is stagnating. An identical flat just yards away priced at £50,000 less hasn’t sold in months. The agent might have known this if he’d bothered to check Rightmove first.
“However, that basic level of professionalism was too much for a man who appears to spend more time buckling up his Burberry jacket than researching the market.
“It’s no surprise, really. Estate agents are not professionals — they don’t have to do a day of training or pass a single exam before setting up shop. They have fewer qualifications than bricklayers. Sadly that doesn’t stop them from charging fees that would make a senior barrister blush.”
Ellson said that the “problem” is not confined to London and the south-east. In Cornwall, he was trying to help sell a property at £400,000. One agent, who wanted a £7,600 commission, failed to show up in a fortnight to take pictures. Another agent wanted £10,000.
“When I pointed out I could employ a highly trained local solicitor for almost a month for the same money he said he had expensive “marketing overheads”. Yet these are the same overheads faced by online estate agents who charge a flat fee of £700.
“In vain did I point out that the last time I sold a property myself, I used an online estate agent who charged just £495 and that within weeks I got a buyer offering more than any traditional agents’ valuation.”
Ellson concluded: “Quite why old-fashioned agents think they can stick to their ludicrous charging structure in the face of online competition is a mystery.
“In the absence of legislation, it’s down to all of us to shun them until they follow the rest of the high street into the 21st century.”
Times’ readers’ reactions to the piece were mixed – and some were more pro-high street agent than perhaps Ellson might have anticipated.
One said they had some sympathy with this view “until I observed a colleague who was in a chain to complete on the sale and purchase of his homes. His estate agent worked tirelessly to get everyone aligned to sell at the right time, including chasing other people’s solicitors. Like many occupations we tend to just see the easy bits and don’t always consider the value good practitioners can add when things get tricky”.
Another pointed out: “The fact is you pay the high street agent nothing unless he or she actually achieves a sale and achieving a sale is not just a matter of sticking it on the internet and hoping for the best; most of the job is after the sale is agreed. You have to help get the sale through to completion.
“That’s why it is so laughable to suggest that internet agents are such a great alternative. You pay them upfront, they stick it on the internet then ride off into the sunset. I had dinner recently with a chap who worked for an internet agent – in his words money for old rope – the punters sign up and that’s pretty much the last contact he has with them.”
But one reader posted: “This is one profession I am quite happy to see destroyed by the internet.
“Estate agents are parasites on the housing market and are a major cause of rising house prices by encouraging people to make higher and higher bids in order to maximise their fees.”
There was also a comment from a ‘Mr Charles Curran’: “Andrew, go and have a chat with Anne Ashworth [who edits Bricks & Mortar, The Times’ award-winning weekly property supplement], then do some proper research, dig deep and remember why you became a journalist. You can do better than this.”
Charles Curran, who is is principal at central London agency Maskells, confirmed to EYE that he had posted the comment – after toning it down.
He told us: “I was staggered to see the article in The Times, of all newspapers. It was thin on facts and poorly researched. There seemed little understanding as to what agents actually do.
“Our job is to achieve a sale on behalf of the seller, but the marketing is only 25% of the job. It is not just about sticking the property up on Rightmove and Zoopla.
“The remaining 75% of our job is about managing the sale, the various parties involved, and getting the deal closed.
“Online agents charge whether the property sells or not, and charge for optional extras.”
Comments (46)
What an ill thought out and ignorant article, from someone taking advantage of his position to vent his anger over his own unfortunate experiences. He didn’t have to accept the commission rates quoted, or retain their services if he considered them unsatisfactory. It wouldn’t have cost him anything unless a sale was completed. Some Agencies are qualified, we are RICS, but that is not necessary. Bright, intelligent, resourceful individuals with good people skills and tenacity will run rings around the apparently cheap on-line property ‘listers’. If there are holdups and there are many in any chain of transaction, if they are not legal or survey problems, they are on-liners, who will do nothing, or next to nothing to help. The truth is, there is no comparison with Real Estate Agents and as for fees, we are constantly undercut on our 1%. Either properly research your subject Mr Ellson, or keep your own counsel.
Look out for the full page advert next week taken out by PB, Yopa, Housesimple etc.
Or maybe he is looking to sell his shares in PB and would like to give them a little boost before he does.
Or maybe he was drunk when he wrote this, as it does seem a little ‘ranty’.
Love his comment about even ‘outside of London’ . We should applaud him as he got as far as a family members second home in Cornwall.
Next year he’s going to try and get as far as Yorkshire, where if he did a little research may find out most people are charging approx. 1%, on an average selling price of around £170,000. Hardly Burberry coat buying commissions.
What a wally.
It was lazy and sloppy journalism but was written by someone who clearly has had one or more bad experiences with estate agents. As Hodge says above: “Lets be honest there is a degree of accuracy in some of his statements. Agents do not have any qualifications and many have very little training. What training there is comes by way of copying a colleague and of course that comes with it,s own dangers.”
There are qualifications which are OfQual recognised at NVQ level and above and the government needs to introduce minimum standards of competence and knowledge before agents are allowed to advise on the valuation and sale of property. Calling people an ‘expert with a two-week in-house training course does not make them a genuine expert, any more than someone who’s been doing the job for donkeys’ years but hasn’t a clue about the regulations they are bound by.
Dons helmet… Incoming!
Every time this debate over who charges what, is so blinded and often ignorant. One agent may charge more than another … just as most industries do in the whole world. You pay for the service your supplier is charging and that is based on how the business is setup and operated. Where one can argue it is wrong is where one is charging for less service/quality of product than a competitor. This happens in every walk of life and yet it is the estate agent that always seems to get the flack.
If you really look at the high street agent, it has overheads that have to be covered, some have more than others, particularly the bigger companies. Employment is the main expense and where you provide a quality service you need employees. Everything in London is so expensive, but not everywhere in the UK and yet they love to quote London values as if we are all the same. Putting it on the internet and do nothing else, is not a true comparison to the high street agent. Neither is it comparable to the service that the high street provides. Constantly people forget not everyone uses the internet and many that do, want the person to speak to and be helpful at local level. It is a fact that no-one can argue, the high street provides more outlet and personal service than the internet can ever provide … that is why High Street is more expensive, while the on-liners charge for the extra’s and some refuse to do the extra that a High Street offers, which means the so called cheap isn’t really cheap after all.
Stop comparing the High Street as the same as on-liners on price. The on-liners officer a cheaper price, because they have CONSIDERABLY less over heads. If you want to pay a £1k for just a listing …. now who is being ripped off? You can do it yourself for less, stick in the local paper, social media and put up your own for sale board. All you are paying the internet only is to get onto a major web portal, but your high street agent does that, often on multiple web portals, for free!!!!
Okay, so how would an on-liner have saved this: –
Last Friday my seller told me to tell their buyer to F… off, and to stick their purchase up their a… as the buyers’ solicitor has taken the day off on the day they were all supposed to exchange.
Completely adamant, about it, he even removed his own sold slip and told me to immediately put the house back on the market.
Four days later after lots of diplomacy the young couple, who had been told to f… off the previous Friday moved in to their first home and my client pocketed his £200,000.
Everyone was pleased and relieved.
In the on-line only world where the sell it yourself mentality exists this transaction would have died and everyone would have lost out – the buyer would have lost their dream first home, the seller his buyer and then would have started down the road of paying out for a house he no longer needed.
To be fair to the Times the thunderer column is the personal opinion of the writer and not subject to the normal editorial restrictions. I read the article and thought it was rubbish, as would anyone with an iota of common sense.
You tend to find the people who write in the thunderer column have an agenda but as a basis of free speech long may it continue.
Designed to provoke discussion ….. see above
Fantastically poor journalism on behalf of Mr Ellson…Rubbishing a profession without any proper research only goes to show how shoddy he is at his profession. Ever heard of don’t throw stones…?
“Estate agents… are a major cause of rising house prices by encouraging people to make higher and higher bids in order to maximise their fees.”
One of two things come from this. Either ‘The Times’ has decided to join the gutter press all scraping at the bottom of the very deep and dingy barrel in order to cater for that particular market,
or
it looks like at least one Times reader would be more suited to reading ‘Dandy’ – and that the author of this “work” would be better employed writing for them..
One of two things come from this. Either ‘The Times’ has decided to join the gutter press all scraping at the bottom of the very deep and dingy barrel in order to cater for that particular market,
I think “The Times” is removing this industry out of the gutter. NO THANKS to you and people (Agents) like you created this situation. #DodgyHighStreetEstateAgent
If anyone ever needed proof that it is possible for living tissue to survive in a vacuum, then – thanks to advances in science that make it possible to register subatomic activity – the matter within the skull of this individual is the closest they’ll ever get.
Just making sure my last comment got seen due to only 6 dislikes. It said;
High Street agent tries charge £16,500 for a house that will easily sell LOL.
moving back to your comment dicky …oh? more money please, there we go…. ducky!
There are a multitude of fee options out there so please don’t generalise.
Personally, my fees range from percentage, sliding scale, fixed, time related… most importantly however they are based on the amount of work likely involved together with the level of service which I am providing (for instance – including all viewings or arranging tradesmen to deal with repairs pre-marketing, arranging removals, reading meters, attending to emergency repairs, collecting/forwarding mail, phoning clients abroad in the middle of the night because of the time difference etc etc etc).
Sliding scale was favoured at times in certain markets/areas by clients who liked the idea of an agent having an “incentive” …..which I didn’t agree with because I work just as hard for a fixed percentage or fixed fee.
I even arranged for a client who had moved to live with her sister (and was being bullied by her sister) to meet secretly with social services at a Doctor’s appointment and that client is now living happily unbullied in Sheltered Housing… and that wasn’t part of my Fee, took a huge amount of organising at work and in my personal time, however that’s what a real High Street Estate Agent can do when he/she is genuinely looking after their clients best interests. It’s old fashioned ducky I know, however that’s my Full Service!
Thanks GPL, I am aware that the model I proposed already existed but let’s face it, you can’t find it advertised anywhere and 99% of sellers wouldn’t have a clue about these options.
I’ve sold 6 properties and must have spoken to 12 different agents now and nobody mentioned them to me. In fact only one of the 12 told me the commission rate even and that’s because I asked.
So, in respect of the default model, a percentage of the asset. How does that make sense in this day and age? Why is the commission twice as much for a £500,000 property as a £250,000 one?
I’m talking about in the majority of cases, not your own fee options.
GPL
Your respondent states
“I’ve sold 6 properties and must have spoken to 12 different agents now…”
For info, he previously advised me that he had spoken to four Agents in relation to his current transaction alone.
How the remaining eight discussions are to be divided between the other five transactions, I wouldn’t know.
The sort of well researched article one would expect from a Rupert Murdoch hack and their rich history of printing utter tosh. Is Uncle Rupert opening an online agent?
How much work is it to progress a sale? There is no way a fee should be a proportion of the price of the asset sold.
Surely as the public become educated this way of charging will dissapear. If agents want to charge a percentage then it should relate to the price achieved above an agreed figure.
dissapear? ….are you using cut price words instead of paying for a full word?
How much work is needed to progress a sale?
Well done for finally showing how little you know about estate agency.
Finding a buyer is easy, getting a the right price is harder, keeping a chain together until exchange requires a lot of knowledge and time. Why else will you super amazing PB not come out and let people know their success rate and fall through rate?
Because i have heard its circa 25 – 35% – That may show how hard it is to progress a sale.
Guess what cyberduck, almost everything you have ever bought or will ever buy has an element in it of either profit or tax that is related to its cost/retail price. Just like a fee in proportion to the price of the asset sold. Amazing that.
I’ll give you the benefit of a very substantial doubt that you make your comments in good faith though time and again you demonstrate a profound lack of knowledge about just how proper estate agency works. You clearly don’t like estate agents’ business practices yet you spend a lot of time on a site that is undoubtedly pro the proper agents. Why do you do that? You are not going to change anything by being on here. Or do you just enjoy tilting at windmills?
>How much work is needed to progress a sale?
Smile please, it was a rhetorical question 😉
The answer is “Not much, it’s not rocket science, and you don’t need to be particularly highly skilled to do it”
>Guess what cyberduck, almost everything you have ever bought or will ever buy has an element in it of either profit or tax that is related to its cost/retail price. Just like a fee in proportion to the price of the asset sold. Amazing that.
AgencyInsider,
Yes, there are businesses that mark up the price of something they buy at wholesale rates but Estate Agents are agents. It’s not the same thing.
This is not typical of other businesses and there if you can provide me with an explanation as to why this is reasonable in this day and age then please do. I’m all ears.
Years ago I used to sell shares and a percentage commission was charged but there was always a cap. Nowadays though you will usually find brokers sell for fixed commission.
So I think you have pretty much shown a profound lack of knowledge by comparing Estate Agents to other businesses that buy and sell. If an Agent earns a commission you expect far more from them than listing it on Rightmove and progressing a sale is not rocket science.
‘If an Agent earns a commission you expect far more from them than listing it on Rightmove and progressing a sale is not rocket science.’
For once cyberduck, spot on. You should expect more from a proper full service agency than just listing it. And if you did but know it, with good agents, you receive far, far more. If you really knew how proper full service agency functions behind the scenes you would understand that on most occasions the fees are more than justified. And yes, I completely agree that some properties are easier to sell than others.
The pity is that the fact that you don’t know how well a proper full service agency can do for their clients. That is down to that sector of the industry failing to make it clear enough to the public.
p.s. I agree that sales progression is not rocket science – but I’d love to see how far you get with it as a do-it-yourself vendor using one the upfront payment agencies if the transaction becomes part of a complicated chain. It’s a bit like what they say about airline pilots. They earn their salaries when things go wrong.
You really need to cut Toiletduck some slack. After all, his property has been SSTC with PB since April – so he is well aware of how much time his agent has spent progressing the sale !
>The pity is that the fact that you don’t know how well a proper full service agency can do for their clients. That is down to that sector of the industry failing to make it clear enough to the public.
I personally think it’s because on the whole they don’t do as well as they could. A lot of people have had bad experiences. So we can talk about how well an agent “could do” but we really need to talk about how well they “do do” which in my experience is pretty poorly.
I also think agents exaggerate their influence. OK, a fairly old article, but at the time of writing 35% of sales fell through https://www.propertywire.com/news/europe/uk-home-sales-failures/
Look at the reasons “22% of home sales that fell through did so as a result of the buyer changing their mind, 16% as a result of the buyer being refused lending, 13% due to slow sale progress and a further 13 % due to a higher offer coming in.”
So how much can those numbers be improved by checking a chain? Also, if you are using an online agent you can still check the chain.
And how reliable is it anyway? My buyer recently lost his buyer because the information his agent had been told in regard to the cash buyer at the bottom of the chain was wrong. We were all ready to exchange and the guy at the bottom hadn’t even had his mortgage offer but the chain had supposedly been checked by my buyer’s agent.
So the question is, if you’re selling a £500K property, is all the chain checking really worth £5K, the amount you save using an online agent? What is the actual margin of improvement? Probably minute on average.
>but I’d love to see how far you get with it as a do-it-yourself vendor using one the upfront payment agencies
OK actually, using PurpleBricks. I got updates from my buyer, PurpleBricks updated me on the chain from time to time and I got my solicitor to see where the buyer was up to according to his solicitor.
Guys just ignore him.
I learnt a long time ago, you cannot argue with stupid people. You end up being taken down to their level.
Let him continue for to go 12 months without a buyer, already reduced by thousands. He obviously knows what he is doing. Probably stepped of a pound at the weekend to pick a penny up.
Is it just me but when you see his name next to a post, do you now see an image of Harry Enfield as his character, ‘You don’t want to do it like that’?
Love the completely unfounded fiction reported as fact in the above propertywire article. No agenda I suppose for Quick Move Now – buy your home for cash today. I can’t imagine what benefit they would have in telling desperate people that 35% of sales fall through based on their own aggregate reporting averages.
Mr Ellson is clearly from the school of “sweeping statements” …..”shun High Street Estate Agents”.
So, on that uneducated perspective we should simply “shun all journalists/newspapers” because…. where do I start with my list.
Thing is, in the real world there are good journalists, good newspapers …depending upon your perspective.
Mr Ellson’s perspective in my view was a rather lazy one… he never did any real “consumer affairs” investigative work, he appears to be the equivalent of someone bumping into someone else in a pub who recommends putting £20 on “Lazy NewsBoy” to Win The Sunday Times Pewter Cup at Shuntown… and from that Mr Ellson formed a weak story.
High Street Estate Agents, the vast majority are skilled at what they do, charge a fair fee and seek to deliver the best result for their clients, most usually on a No Sale – No Fee basis. If we relied on the hit n’ run/Upfront/pay now gone now Property Listers for Full Service Estate Agency it would truly be an eye opener… and the very ones that said “Online is the future” would reflect on what the “High Street Estate Agent of the past” actually did.
Competition is good and let’s not forget that the Onliners need to keep undercutting each other with their upfront fees and even lower quality service because their market is limited. Honestly? ….would you trust the sale of your most important financial asset to a company that says “give us a £1000 now and we’ll sell your house!”….”and if we don’t you’ve already paid us!”. You may as well try handing out £10 to everyone that turns up at your door to view!
High Street Estate Agency should be competitive and there shouldn’t be (if there is?) an agent charging £16,500 for a circa £500,000 property unless they can justify that fee …and if Mr Ellson has any professional integrity at all then he should name the agent and give them an opportunity to respond.
Simply slinging prices & generalisations about doesn’t make a story. You’re lazy Mr Ellson and your employer should perhaps look at what you do for your money!
Foxtons charge 3% for sole agency, 3.6% multiple agency.
https://www.foxtons.co.uk/sell/fees_and_terms/
Lets be honest there is a degree of accuracy in some of his statements. Agents do not have any qualifications and many have very little training. What training there is comes by way of copying a colleague and of course that comes with it,s own dangers.
Currently every agent is desperate for instructions so having a punt with an online agent first is a no brainer as if it doesn’t work out you can get the high street to discount in a heartbeat. I recently commented on here about my mother in laws property that was valued by 3 agents , 2 of which were independents and one corporate. The valuations varied from £320k (ind) to £385K (ind) and it sold and completed for £380k. In all of the time on the market my sister in law who handled the sale never heard from the agent once after the details were sent back.
The estate agents act also talks of making sure that you ascertain the purchasing capacity of any prospective buyer and yet many still see mortgages and a black art and fail to competently ascertain the buyers finances.
Making a few phone calls to a solicitor does not warrant £10K plus.
Until agents sit and pass and are regularly assessed like financial services then trying to justify a salary of 80-150K for being a 1st line manager without any qualifications then standby for criticism.
Do we actually believe this story?
Is it not purely for headlines? (and the cynic in me says possibly funded by call centre agents?)
To find an agent who wants a 3% in this market must be rare?
Has he not deliberately gone out to find the highest fee possible? (or possibly made it up like the majority of the article seems to have been?).
If he been quoted what a reasonable agent in the rest of the country charges, (I think even with London dragging up the average it’s still only 1.3% isn’t it?) coupled with a degree of honesty about the costs actually involved, at least a small degree of knowledge (which he clearly lacks) about the industry regulations, and a modicum of insight into how bad the call centre agents actually are at assisting in the process beyond taking an offer (I think they have actually made things worse if that’s possible?), I would like to think that he and the times would not have been quite so complacent in helping to spread the untruths currently being circulated?
Can I in turn call for anyone who still does to stop buying the Times. You can get all the news you need for free off the internet.
You beat me to it!
Contradiction in terms.
Dim lad has been asked by family members to help sell 2 properties and his immediate solution is to phone an estate agent. With those initial instructions does he not realise he has the basis for his own “money for old rope” business?
Phone Uncle Herbert and tell him that for an upfront fee of £19.99 he will place the property on the Thunderer Estates website where via the Soupla website his property will be exposed to more potential buyers than a film producers nether regions. And, as we all know, after the flood of responses all he has to do is make sure the recorded “ what to do next” message is available after 4pm when all traditional agents are closed.
The Times has no constituency to upset as all the advertising revenue that they used to extract from agents is now spent via the portals.
I think most of us would agree that the ease of entry into our business requires greater scrutiny and as to not needing a “Days” training I would have thought that if you were good enough, this would equally apply to journalism.
Of course my comments should not infer any criticism of “Journo/Agent/Consumer Affairer” Mr Ellson who has time on his hands for both jobs and may possibly add (Freudian Purple?) “bricklayer” to his skill set in the very near future.
Typical piece of lazy journalism. I don’t understand why this muppet even bothered to contact proper estate agents when he must have already known he wanted the cheapest service. Oh, wait, maybe he wanted their expertise at valuing so he could leech their knowledge for free. Nice.
I can shop at Harrods or at Poundland. That is my choice as a consumer. I don’t feel the need to slag off either.
As for Ellson he is clearly someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
“Arent professionals, dont have to pass a single exam”….a bit like Times journalists then. This article is clearly an exaggeration based on rumours and stories read on the internet. If he really had a previous good experience with an onliner charging £495, why would he not have just used them again? Also i highly doubt an estate agent would tell him directly about charging x,y or z due to expensive overheads….think we have heard that story somewhere else before.
Totally agree with the Article. Well done Online Agents and The Times.
Agent trying to charge £16,500 for a house they will easily sell LOL.
100% agree too! 🙂 It’s time for Online Estate Agents!
Bye bye dodgy estate agents!
I am surprised, PIE published this news as PIE doesn’t like OEA too 🙂
As they say; ‘never let the truth get in the way of a good story’! In this case the facts. It is ‘lazy’ journalism to write such misleading and incomplete nonsense. Everyone is entitled to an opinion however, where it has a wide audience and potential negative influence on many, it is incumbent upon a serious and professional journalist to be balanced and fair in expressing their findings and views. This article appears to be biased to an alarming degree and therefore shoddy in its production. Shame on you Times, journalist and editor.
Lazy journalism indeed. But hardly surprising from Ellson who has churned out just 3 articles since August for his employer. He lists one of his talents as “sleeping”. Perhaps he should wake up a bit.
We must remember of course that newspapers are not here to report news any more. They are here to sell Newspapers and advertising. How many online agents advertise in the Times? You don’t get many adverts in there for £495!!!
Perhaps we should all boycott the Times. News on the BBC is much more accurate and not money driven anyway. Are journalists licensed and how onerous is the legislation that keeps their stories accurate? Not very, evidently!!
Why not boycott PIE for publishing this news? 🙂 🙂
Probably, you will buycott PIE when you will see more Online agent news!
“In the absence of legislation”
Legislation, isn’t that top trumped by precedent?
Estate Agents have a duty of care and skill that is slightly more onerous than any of the legislation that Mr Ellson is obviously unaware of, such as redress.
Estate agents have a legal responsibility to get it right for their principals, internet listing firms don’t.
Without the postcode of the properties Mr Ellson has been asked to help sell it isn’t possible to be £perfect but on a £550,000 property it’s likely his listing friends will be on average £18,650 out on the price they achieve for the vendor.
Depending on the outcode and what is happening to the local market and where his family are hoping to move to that shortfall could be exacerbated by selling in a falling local condition and buying in a rising area.
Good luck to his relatives who somehow think a journalist is better able to help them sell a property than someone who will only eat if they get are successful in finding a buyer who completes or who fulfils their contractual obligations to the client.
Your usual blinkered and misinformed view of online agents Robert.
“When I pointed out I could employ a highly trained local solicitor for almost a month for the same money he said he had expensive “marketing overheads”. Yet these are the same overheads faced by online estate agents who charge a flat fee of £700.
I mean how are these people allowed to make such comments??? Does an online agent have office overheads now then? Definitely not is the answer.
Theres only one parasite here Mr Ellson, what a nasty and ridiculous article.
He was unlucky to have the only people in the UK incapable of phoning an estate agent as part of his family.
“Please Andrew you call them and ideally see if you can find the one that charges 2.5% VAT unlike the rest of the UK.
What a load of agenda driven tosh.