While eMoov’s claim to achieve 99% of asking price made it the subject of a complaint to the advertising watchdog with the result reported on EYE yesterday, it is not the only online agent to be making such claims.
Yesterday afternoon, the following firms appeared to be making similar claims:
https://www.housenetwork.co.uk/premier-negotiator.aspx
In addition, this one said it was achieving 98% of sales price
It is understood that the Advertising Standards Authority may also take a wider look at the issue.
eMoov told the ASA that it would clarify its claim to say “last asking price”, but its original claim can today still be seen on its website.
Housesimple was also yesterday making a claim that involved RICS data – see the screengrab below.
But an RICS spokesperson told EYE: “They have misinterpreted our data and didn’t consult us on this.”
Saw an ad the other day from a “traditional independent high street agent” which said “We are consistently selling our client’s (sic) properties for more than the asking price.” Now, I know that a word like “consistently” is conveniently vague – like “regularly” it could be used to describe something that only actually happens once in every ten transactions. Still, by comparison, a claim of “only” 99% of the asking price looks like under-selling…
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The audacity of this deception beggars belief. If RICS would like access to 7 months of screen shot evidence of wrong doing (not just by online agents) there is over 1 gig of data in a drop box evidence file which documents in explicit detail how some agents are so predictable it has become a somewhat perverse game to identify a sale and even a sale price 2 or 3 days ahead of time.
Because some firms don’t belong to RICS or NAEA it might be worth the redress schemes paying attention to this too.
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The claimed average vendor saving is unrecognisable. The average house price in the UK is just under £200k. A saving of £5,247 based on House Simple’s £795 fee gives an average fee of £6,042. This equates to about 3% including VAT or 2,5% plus VAT.
House Simple state “This is our average vendor’s saving based on a survey of their High Street agent fees that were quoted to them before using HouseSimple.”
Note the word ‘average’ – average where? Prime London? Clearly this is unrepresentative and in my opinion totally misleading. How can the ASA allow this?
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Based on latest land registry data combined with Stephen Hayter My Home Move data on fees the average UK commission is £3312.56 including VAT
Not difficult maths but the saving is £2517.56 (less than half what is being claimed)
How can ASA allow this? because government have given the disruptors authority to do or say what they like as long as they can demonstrate a saving.
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Robert – do you have an email address that I can contact you on?
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I don’t know if Robert has missed this post. That being the case I suggest you ask Ros to forward your email add to him, or his to you.
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Here we see yet more evidence that new-wave ‘disruptor’ entrants into the estate agency market are systematically misleading the general public with their ‘statistics’.
They mislead by their claims of what they can ‘save’ a seller; they con customers that it is possible to have the same full service for a fraction of high street agents’ fees; and they make unsubstantiated claims about their sales performance. It is a disgrace and it’s extraordinary that ‘proper’ agents are not up in arms about it.
Every time one of these con artists wins an instruction on the back of these misleading statements it is potentially taking bread from the mouths of scrupulous agents.
Every piece of marketing material that goes out from an agent’s office should bear the words ‘WARNING: Cut-price and online agents can damage your wealth’
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It’s interesting that PB’s actual Google listing doesn’t offer the chance to leave a Google review.
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