The Mail seemed to think that the buyer got a bargain when he paid £17m for a home originally marketed at £24m by a firm called My Online Estate Agent, while the vendor apparently saved a substantial six-figure sum by using an online firm.
The online agent, which charges sellers £495, was said by the Mail to have saved the seller £300,000 in fees by not going through a high street agent.
The Mail also reckoned that the £17m was the highest price ever achieved by an online agent.
But now the story – which EYE reported on earlier this week, wondering if our readers saw a slightly different angle – has taken an unexpected twist.
The property in question was placed with a high street agent – who sold it.
Furthermore, that agent is no less than Knight Frank, and the price the property was being marketed at was not £24m but £17m.
As our Rightmove screengrab shows, Knight Frank was marketing the central London property last year.
My Online Estate Agent, which is Manchester-based, marketed it earlier this year at the higher price of £24m. (We should stress that despite the discrepancy in bedrooms, it is the same property.)
Yesterday a spokesperson for Knight Frank told EYE: “As it happens, the online agent did not at any point have the relevant verbal or written consent to market the property online.
“Knight Frank was instructed as sole agent and the sale was managed by an agent in our Knightsbridge office.”
My Online Estate Agent, which claims to have saved vendors £1,685,165 in fees, disputed that it had never been instructed.
Manager Sandra Brown told EYE yesterday: “We were instructed on the sale of 6 Grosvenor Gardens on the 13/1/2016 and this was removed from the website on 15/7/2016.”
We asked if My Online Estate Agent had sold the property, but have not yet had a response.
So, did the Mail get it all wrong – and if so, how?
Last night, My Online Estate Agent was listing 43 available properties on Rightmove, the most expensive at £2.8m
Comments (16)
I’m very annoyed, I sold it.
OK I didn’t
tee hee !
I rather suspect Mr Tonkin is too busy packing up his house having sold it through MOEA
Perhaps Sam Tonkin from the Daily Mail would care to comment.
As with all types of poorly investigated stories the damage has been done. How many readers read and now believe My Online Estate Agent to be amazing and how many will read the tiny mention in a few weeks time just before the ads that DM was wrong, oops, sorry.
Big agree
As the Daily Mail is a big investor in Zoopla, they should do a re run and make it clear to their readers that the online agent cost the seller £549 for not selling the home that a traditional agent achieved.
You’ve just got a ‘Like’ from me, Mr Mealham.
One for your diary – and don’t expect many repeats! ;o)
Any publicity is good publicity so they say….
But how much free advertising for “My Online Estate Agent” has already happened? Can’t say I ever read the apologies column in a newspaper! What was that old saying about “all press is good press” people see a brand name and won’t always remember whether it was a good story or a bad story, they will just remember they have heard of it…
Thank you again for your diligence, Ros.
Anyone ever having read DM online will know that they don’t do detail or due diligence.
My first reaction on reading the article was BS.
Thank you Ros for the confirmation.
Oh Dear, not a call centre agent exaggerating about how much they have saved clients…and the new papers believing and promoting it..surely this cannot be true.
Well done for following up on the story though.
Thank you, Ros, for running with this one!
It’s nice to see that a site which is primarily here to relate the news can actually show how news should actually be reported.
#truthbeout
Daily Mail – look carefully at how it’s done!
A very special case of #portaljuggling #pressjuggling
Hmmm… #pressjuggling – good point and extremely valid.
We’ll give that designation #9 on the list.
Well, well, someone’s been telling porkies. Whatever next ? Serves me right for believing what I read in the papers…