[Closed] ha ha HA! "A quarter of estate agents 'in financial distress"

But think of the knock on effects, next thing, shiny suit sales are going to plummet.

Foxtons first on the chopping block please

You'll struggle to find many people who are upset by this.

Will they all march up to Jarrow demanding employment?

I think if more half of them disappeared overnight it would make no difference to anyone. Same as bookies.

I find it very difficult to sympathise. The only trouble being that we may find an increase in poorly talented sales people being employed in wider industry.

plans to ban letting fees to tenants - expected to come in early next year - could dent profits even more.

Oh diddums - I am sure millions of people struggling in rented accomodation are very concerned about losing the excellent services they receive from the estate agents and are unhappy they aren't able to pay the high fees any more.

Will they all march up to Jarrow demanding employment?

If the estate agents I have used try this they'll never be able to find Jarrow on a map.

Can’t be that bad, my estate agent has just told me I would be better off finding another agent to sell my flat...

ahh im smiling now.

If the estate agents I have used try this they’ll never be able to find Jarrow on a map.

Just tell them you're looking on the outskirts of Exeter, they'll find somewhere in Jarrow for you then

these are just the canaries in the mine. given the recent and pending high street closures things are only going one way unless something drastic happens soon.

I'm confused they do **** all for a not insignificant amount of money. How is it possible.

The marketplace was due for a cull. I just hope that the “good” estate agents survive and the “god damn awful” fail miserably.

Think of all those Porches and To-Erags that’ll have to go back to the lease companies... could be some bargains about.

things are only going one way unless something drastic happens soon.

Oh oh it’ll be drastic alright

Can't say that I'm all that update either. We're in the final stages of getting ready to move and ours started off pretty well and almost made me reassess my opinion of them. Once our house was sold, it all went downhill.

I've had the 'pleasure' of Countrywide in the past - a-holes.

Schadenfreude without the shame?  Just joy then.

I’m confused they do **** all for a not insignificant amount of money. How is it possible.

Becasue too many stupid people with a sense of entitlement to a substantial income heard the rumor this was an easy gig and signed up. Only snag is there are a finite number of vacuous air heads the rest of us are prepared to support in a sort of care in the community scheme and there are not enough places to go around. That and a lot of us realised that we can a take crap photos, buy a shiny suit, roast some coffe and talk bollox ourselves and cut out the middle man.

The soon to be favorite estate agent phrase -“do you want fries with that?”.

I'm surprised it's taken this long, it's been 'money for old rope' since the 80s, but now it's laughable - pay someone 3% of your house for what? Take some pics with wiiiiide angle lens, write some generic bullshit about it's ideal location to a market that 99% of customer will know exactly where it is and what it's close and throw it up on Rightmove and Zoopla and answer the enquiries, 75% will come via e-mail anyway. Yeah that's worth £5k.

I doubt this is the end of the story though, Purplebricks and the like are just a stepping stone, I doubt it'll be long before it all becomes more streamlined - a few operators all offering the same one-stop service. Property listings, messaging for enquiries, surveys, mortgages, legal, show buyers around yourself if you like, pay a bit for for someone with a folder to lie about how the sun comes through in the morning or whatever - done.

Take some pics with wiiiiide angle lens, write some generic bullshit about it’s ideal location to a market that 99% of customer will know exactly where it is and what it’s close and throw it up on Rightmove and Zoopla and answer the enquiries, 75% will come via e-mail anyway. Yeah that’s worth £5k

Totally agree it's a rip off.. But guenine question, is it possible to advertise a house directly with the likes of zoopla?

I’m confused they do **** all for a not insignificant amount of money. How is it possible.

Mum used to be an Estate Agent, it will simple really, if you wanted to sell a house you needed a medium to do so, some people tried to buck the system, put up their own signs, take adds in the classifieds, but to the average Brit they're weirdos and we don't like talking too much with people we don't know or heaven forbid talk about money with them.

So you needed an Estate Agent to put some pics up in their window, and that was pretty much their only real purpose, a central hub for people who want to sell, to show what they want to sell, to people who wanted to buy, the rest is garnish really. Their skill was to keep buyer and seller totally separate, people would get all frustrated (moving house is stupidly stressful of course) because the buy/seller was being a dick, but in reality, it was usually the agents in the middle looking to sneak a few grand extra for their commission or whatever, or generally being a bit shit. You could of course, see a house you fancied with a sign outside, maybe have a look in the agents window to see what they want for it, and then tap on their door of an evening and strike up a conversation, but for whatever reason sellers would recoil in horror at the idea, perhaps in case they came in and found the kids eating Potato faces in front of the TV or a bowl full of dishes unwashed - Agents would of course reinforce the idea that speaking to the other side was totally unthinkable, whilst in reality it would make things much easier.

I think Rightmove and Zoopla did Agents a favour short-term, there's no point have your own site with 30 houses on it when buyers might only find 2 that suit them, a large centralised site is what's needed, but they must have had seen the writing on the wall.

I'd bet in 5 years the sites will be charging a flat fee for advertising and buyers and sellers will work it out between them - if we can sell a TV on eBay without resorting to name calling and fighting why not your house.

Totally agree it’s a rip off.. But guenine question, is it possible to advertise a house directly with the likes of zoopla?

Nope, Rightmore (owned, in part by Countrywide) and Zoopla (owned by the Daily Mail in part I've just discovered) will only work with agents, maintaining the 'closed shop'. the likes of Purplebricks are trying to circumvent that, offer everything you need to not be a private seller.

There have been a few attempts to start a self-sell system, but they've failed up to now - you used to be able to buy a housing selling box for £500 which even came with a 'For Sale' sign, but they were too ahead of the time - now the market is used to Rightmore et al, it just needs an operator to offer self-sell, won't work for everyone, but times change. The generation who thought in 'high street' terms are almost gone or at least aren't moving any more, the interim generation who are used to looking online but still want a "real estate agent" will use Purplebricks and the generation still in their 20s who are far more used to a pure online world will think the hybrid system is a bit silly.

the generation still in their 20s who are far more used to a pure online world will

Never be be able to afford property 😂

In around 2006 I looked at a house and there was another couple there who were apparently keen at the same time.

A popular property it would seem. later on I spotted the same couple in the estate agents Mini trying to shrink from view. It was a concrete house and it turns out with some digging there was a question over whether the structure had the correct remedial works due to the construction.

I do hope they’re unemployed now.

Having just moved, our estate agent was a flat fee (£1800) not a percentage. And even that felt a bit steep given they basically just took some photos, put them on RightMove, and then showed two people around.

qmov do a flat fee of £600.

Having just moved, our estate agent was a flat fee (£1800) not a percentage. And even that felt a bit steep given they basically just took some photos, put them on RightMove, and then showed two people around.

inc conveyancing?

mine quoted me £2k+ VAT flat fee, which was then reduced to £1200+vat when i didn't want the conveyancing services. (regular bricks and mortar agent, no sale no fee etc)

We used House Network when we sold ours 18 months ago. Took the pics ourselves and wrote the description, Mrs RNP did the viewings, local solicitor handled all the paperwork side of things. Listed on Rightmove IIRC £500 +£50(?) for someone to nail a sign to the house.

Sold without any problems.

Then rented for 18months - what a bunch of twohats they were to deal with, I can picture the smug fat faced oxygen waster now with a P45 in her hand.

P-Jay’s post about keeping buyer  & seller apart reminded me of when I bought my house from an online agent - I exchanged loads of emails with the seller (was a good job too, as i’d said t would be a quick move and then had a big delay, so I was able to keep her sweet)

The agent isn’t very well known, so just checked and they still exist -£400 flat seller fee, Zoopla, Rightmove... look good -

https://www.propertyeagle.co.uk/

Shown round a house by an agent when we were buying - "this is the kitchen..." no sh%t, it's got a fu&$ing cooker, sink and a kitchen table in it, I can work out which room is which.

All the estate agent bullshit makes me mad - "laid to lawn" "benefits from mains sewage"

To be fair in the recent property boom you could send a monkey round and most folk would still make an offer.

This estate agency work sounds so easy and so well paid, I'm surprised there's so many folk doing other work.

Blimey, you don't even have to be honest or have any brains, it appears. 🙂

Property Eagle was the company I tried to just post the URL link to up there. Dunno why it needs to be a massive banner/homepage/picture/background thing. Silly ol' forum (well, new forum)

Who is the 17 year old that set up a 'purple bricks' type site but for £50 and is now very rich?

What a tragedy, their money gouging for doing very little is finally catching up with them, shame it took so long to happen (given many of them also dabble in excessive fees for landlords and renters)!

Can't be bothered to go into details but an estate agent underestimated the value of my house because of his own prejudice about the area, not understanding that it had changed and was rather more bijou than in the 60s. I sold it to a young professional woman for £15,000 more than he suggested, despite him also encouraging somebody else to gazump my buyer. In all he was thorougly incompetent and cavalier about the whole deal.

It’s a service that ostensibly fails to deliver the value one could reasonably expect for the high fees - so no love lost on my part.

on the broader point the downturn in transaction volumes would seem to prove that the changes to stamp duty have distorted the market.

In my own case, I recently turned down a job because I worked out that by the time we’d sold up, bought something comparable and then paid stamp duty, I’d need to work for a good few years just to restore our savings.

Renting the house out for a few years whilst working somewhere else also doesn’t pay for itself anymore due to the changes in tax on but to lets.

So we’ve stayed put - I was up for relocating and taking on a more challenging role but the property market was too big an obstacle.

I’m sure there are many others in a similar position and collectively this isn’t very good for social mobility or the companies in the regions that want to hire experienced staff and expand but can’t persuade them to relocate because of property transaction costs.

We've recently sold through an agent who is supposed to be an (extended) family friend. The whole of the other half family have used him for years, so much so they don't go elsewhere to get valuations.

He valued our house and tried to push a buyer who is 'looking for a portfolio of our type of property to let'. Really pushed hard to let him view it before it went on the market, 'he doesn't negotiate, just pays asking if he likes it'. It got so bad - Whatsapps late at night, pressure on other member's of the family etc. I got suspicious and got several other agents round to value behind my partner's back. each and everyone of them valued it at higher than what he did.

We stuck with him because of the family connection but we increased what we wanted. He wasn't a happy bunny at all. Turns out we got £20k more than what he valued it at - there's a lot more gone on since.

He's an ass and I can't wait for his reputation to catch up with him both personally and professionally.

We had some horrendous experiences with agents - from undervaluing a flat (and then trying to pressure us into exclusivity deal) in order that a developer friend could pick it up cheap, offers on a house not being given to sellers (including misrepresenting our situation) and the usual dodgy comms between mortage broker and agent."I know your stated budget is only x but take a look at this at x + 25%" - the broker tells the agent what people's max mortgage is, rather than what we wanted to budget for. At least one of this shower has been caught up with by the regulators.

But then there's the occasional bright light amongst the fog of bottom-feeders and shysters We sold and bought our current place through a smal agent - they only take on a limited number of properites, know the local market inside-out and properly vet and conduct all viewings themselves. Relatively expensive but it was worth every penny - sold within a week and exchanged within six weeks.

There have been repeated attempts to break the current model but the vested interests and status quo, as flawed as it can be, seem to be stubbornly clinging on for dear life. Presumably there's a reason people seem to be reluctant to buy a directly marketed house - is it access (ie. the lack of an easily found market-place?) or trust? (which would be ironic). It really does seem to be an area ripe for true distruption...