Purplebricks has rolled out to a second territory in Australia, while claiming that in the UK people are paying too much in commission to high street estate agents.
Property TV presenter Amanda Lamb, an ex estate agent who now presents A Place in The Sun, backed the claims, including UK’s ‘commisery’ campaign by Purplebricks. She accused traditional agents of ‘hiding’ their fees until the last moment.
Lamb, a former estate agent, said: “This campaign will open people’s eyes to commisery – the misery you feel when you’ve forked out thousands on commission and haven’t got anything more for your money.
“Research shows that 95% of people don’t realise exactly what they are paying in commission, until the bill hits and this needs to change.
“It is virtual money because it isn’t paid up front and in some ways the amount is hidden until the last moment. Factoring in VAT is something people forget to do as well, so what starts as a low percentage on paper adds up into a considerable sum in commission paid.”
Purplebricks claims that estate agents’ commission in the UK has rocketed 15% in two years, from an average of £3,449 to £5,750.
In London, the Standard has reported Purplebrick claims that sellers pay almost £9,000 in commission to agents.
The paper reports that the average fee paid by London vendors rose 7% last year to £8,860, with a total of £521m collected by agents.
Bruce told the Standard: “People too often engage an estate agent without realising or thinking about whether there is a better alternatve.
“The service they receive is the same whether the house is valued at £100,000 or £1m, and therefore the fee paid for securing the sale should be the same.”
Independently, yesterday’s launch in Sydney, Australia, drew strong media interest, with one publication saying this was the Australian real estate industry’s “Uber moment” – a reference to Purplebricks’ potential to disrupt the estate agency sector in the way that Uber has posed a business threat to traditional taxis.
The Australian Financial Review said that Purplebricks’ critics were mostly rival estate agents arguing that Purplebricks “low-cost model offers poor customer service, a charge the company firmly rejects”.
The publication quotes Purplebricks’ CEO Michael Bruce, saying that the firm is playing a major role in changing the way property is sold in the UK “and would do the same in Australia”.
Bruce said that its major UK rivals were struggling, with the share price of Countrywide, the UK’s biggest estate agents, tumbling last year and Foxtons issuing a profit warning.
In Australia, the country’s only listed real estate group, McGrath, has endured a torrid time since debuting on the Australian stock exchange just over a year ago, with its share price down nearly 60% from its $2.10 offer price. Sounds familiar?
The Australian press also report that Purplebricks already has a competitor in Buymyplace.com.au – suggesting that Australian estate agents will find their commissions coming under pressure.
Purplebricks launched in Melbourne and south-east Queensland in September with 50 Local Property Experts. In the Sydney and Central Coast region, it has 20 LPEs.
It is next due to roll out to Perth and Adelaide.
“Research shows that 95% of people don’t realise exactly that they are paying in commission, until the bill hits”
What ‘research’?
“The service they receive is the same whether the house is valued at £100,000 or £1m”
Rubbish. The house at £100,000 often requires far more ‘service’ than the £1m.
The purple tinged snake oil steadily drips into the ears of the gullible public.
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Well there’s an own goal. The service for a £1m house is money for nothing…
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Or, people who sell a £100,000 get treated the same as £1m customers… purplebricks is the #fakenews of estate agency.
pay anyway model is not good for the consumer..but….consumer watchdogs are asleep at wheel.
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PIE, ask Amanda Lamb for a copy of the “research”. It would be an interesting read.
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If 95% don’t know what they are paying in commission PB’s low fee marketing would have next to no impact.
An own goal for Amanda Lamb.
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Ros, when Ms Lamb has removed her head from her **** would it be possible to ask for copies / evidence of this research? I would suggest her comments are as valid as Purple Haze’s (that’s what they must be smoking to constantly spout such cr4p) Trust Pilot reviews and their their listing volumes. Please forward her the following direct question also: Ms Lamb, our readers would like to know whether you also consider Purple Bricks reluctance to share their success rate, volumes of physical completions, to also be misleading. I would suggest that 100% of their customers have no idea about their success rate when they are being mugged off for £100s of pound to effectively “list” their property only.
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What a load of bolloc** on every front. Regulations require agents to confirm fees in cash and % AT THE OUTSET and I am pretty sure there is nobody who instructs their agent without knowing clearly what the fee they are to pay actually will be. That is evidenced by the fact that at point of instuctuon/ valuation FEE is always discusssed by customers because we have to educate them to the dangers of loosing tens of thousands of pounds by using on line up front fee agents who have no incentive to negotiate the best price and who offer no service at all
This type of hype unfairly distorts the reality (massively) of what good estate agents do and frankly is very bad news for the public.
And I think the P word (profit) was mentioned by PB. They wouldn’t know profit if it crept up and bit them on the As… (sorry donkey)
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I would not word this quite as strongly in a public forum, but Ms Lamb is showing her ignorance of the good old Estate Agents Act. Commission if a % of the sale price must be expressed INCLUSIVE of VAT and must also be expressed as a figure including VAT , assuming the property is old at the full asking price. Thus what may be 1% (Plus VAT whispered quietly) of a sale at £350k must be expressed as a commission of 1.2% of the sale price incl VAT which would amount to £4,200.00 incl VAT. We then go on to say is the sale price is higher or lower than the asking price, the fee will alter accordingly.
Given that this is done at the outset of any instruction, it is hardly sprung on a vendor. Could this ignorance be one of the reasons Ms Lamb is not longer an agent?
As an aside, The commission misery seems to be based on commission rates that are considerably higher than in the are I operate in and reflect rates that I remember in the 1990s!
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So what part of 1.25% plus vat of the sale figure, no sale – no fee do the Great British Public not understand? Research might also say the large majority of the GBP do not like paying fees up front with no guarantee of a return for their money!
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“”Factoring in VAT is something people forget to do as well””……don’t we all quote our fee inclusive of VAT these days??
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Yet more unsubstantiated statistics rolled out as fact.
i don’t think I’ve ever had a client who isn’t aware of the fee they will pay (IF we sell their property). It’s very clear to them throughout discussions, when signing the contract (which they keep a copy of) in the follow up letter etc etc
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Bingo! Someone has drawn a parallel between PB and Uber and frankly it’s a disgrace it took so long alothough nice to see ‘disruptor’ back too, thought that had all become a bit 2015 but here we are and it’s still being banded about.
Now, point is this lady has obviously got it all wrong on many points but let’s ignore the guff around the edges and look at this Uber business in the headline……… so, here’s how Purple Taxis would work.
1. Hire a lot of self employed drivers
2. Use the same portal as the rest of the taxi firms but be much much more reliant on it
3. Charge the punter up front before they get to where they are going but most of the time take the money and chuck them out at any point and keep the cash
4. Loose a big dollop of money on each fare and get other people to ‘invest’ cash to cover it
Jonnie
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You really ought to mention what the Uber drivers did last week during the tube strike; they whacked the price up by 450%
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Is it that we are frightened to appear affected by the likes of PB et al that we just sit and roll with the punches so to speak? If the NAEA, RICS or any particular group of agents stood up and said “No, these are the facts, this is the truth” it would look like, in defending ourselves from blatant mis-information in the name of marketing, that we were actually lending credence to what PB say?
It’s all very well us ranting on PIE about it and I’m guilty of ‘liking’ a lot of the comments, but Mr & Mrs Public don’t read it. We need a clever PR person to give us some spin to fire back that doesn’t create a “You would say that” response.
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I am fairly confident the end of year report to shareholders is going to say more about this particular project than even the best PR guru could say.
10% share of all transactions by 2016 (over 89,000 sales)?
based on 88% sales to listings over 101,000 instructions?
what about 480 listing reps?
Where are the HUGE profits you said would happen by last year?
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And if Zoopla and Rightmove whom we, the estate agency industry, made successful had lent their support, then the on line agents would never have qualified for inclusion on their portals. Whilst I am bitterly disappointed with the performance to date of Onthemarket, God I hope it survives.
Without them the industry will to be shafted further by ZPG and RM. Both have a level of arrogance about their unassailable positions that there isn’t a scale big enough to measure it. And t one day, (not that far away I suggest) they will allow private sellers to DIY on their portals and so they (Zoopla and RM) won’t need agents any more.
It’s on the horizon people. Wake up to this before it’s too late.
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I agree with you Typhoon but I may have something brewing to rock the boat.
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Can you accelerate that then?
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There is a full chapter on the high street versus online agents in Smeaton’s “The Real Estate Agent and the Great Conspiracy Theory” alongside many other issues commonly discussed on PIE – let’s hope Mr & Mrs Public read it!
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Maybe it will take a little time for it to sink in with the public is that you can get what you pay for. What is interesting is that there are a number of properties listed on Bricks at under £100k where the fee scale is not much different
Instructions are no doubt hanging around the portals longer Its a bit like a used car lot if they arent turned over in 2 months clogging up the forecourt they start costing . 50 % of those listed in my town have been on for over a year
Instructions have picked up in recent days yesterday was a particularly busy day on the listing front and heading now to over 3k for the month which wont make up for a quiet December I think its very likely that Bricks will go back to the market to raise some more cash especially as the SP has moved north recnetly Certainly at a tipping point
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“Instructions have picked up in recent days yesterday was a particularly busy day on the listing front and heading now to over 3k for the month…”
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Here’s the figure:
1835 ‘listings’ in last 30 days (source: Zoopla)
Feel free to then reduce that figure by any percentage you feel appropriate for ‘inconsistencies’.
I doubt you’ll be far out, one way or another…
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Source Zoopla. They have taken 1236 instructions this month . Instruction levels picking up this week (17th- 156 and the 16th -145) were high days This month currently averaging out at 72 per day Slow start to New Year I would guess that for the rest of the month they will average out at around 120 per day as the new ad kicks in and potential vendors completing post holiday beauty parades This leads me me to belive it will come in at around the 3.000 mark allowing for some juggling Still off beam onthe 43k original forecast for the year unless the early Spring goes ballistic December of course being a very poor month
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Hillofwad71
“I would guess that for the rest of the month they will average out at around 120 per day… This leads me me to belive it will come in at around the 3.000 mark allowing for some juggling”
At 0630 they had ‘listed’ 22 properties since midnight,
Of those, SIX are #relistings which were listed weeks or months previously and on other portals have earlier listing dates (source: Rightmove Plus). That’s 27% of that one ‘snapshot’ in time.
Incidentally, of those six #relistings, FOUR of them were previously listed by the company prior to the date of the ‘current’ listing (and I mean the RIGHTMOVE listing, not Zoopla’s latest incarnation of it…) on at least one previous occasion.
One of them is enjoying it’s FOURTH outing since OCTOBER 2015 – and STILL unsold.
Some would think it wasn’t actually for sale…
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**UPDATE**
At 1530 the ’22’ had increased to 81 ‘listings’ – so you would reasonably expect that to be 59 “new” ones.
BUT THAT’S NOT THE CASE. It is actually 62*. Three of the earlier ones have disappeared.
And yes – you guessed it – they were three of the examples of #multijuggles I referred to this morning. They have also been ‘removed’ from Rightmove, and are now showing as ‘archived’ on Rightmove Plus.
Am I now going to check the 62* ‘Most Recent’? Not on your Nelly.
You get the picture, I’m sure.
Just makes you wonder why the portals – that are apparently getting Royally Rogered – don’t… and actually #DO_SOMETHNG about it.
* assuming that none more than those showing have been added and subsequently removed in the period between checks.
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Yes almost an impossible task to sort the weat from the chaff The words “just added” are just a smokescreen
Leila] Welcome to Purplebricks. My name is Leila, may I take your name please?
[Visitor] Tom General question just looking at 2 properties s on Zoopla which have appeared as”just added” Does that meanthey are entirely fresh and havent been listed before by you ?
[Leila] Hello Tom, if they have just been added, this means they have just been listed as new on the webite
[Leila] website*
[Visitor] so definitely havent ben listed before and not some minor changes in the details/price?
[Visitor] so the words just added mean exactly that?
[Leila] It can be either, they may have been on a marketing break previously and have returned to the market or have newly come onto the market.
[Visitor] so just added doesnt mean just added then?
[Leila] It can either mean the property has just been added onto the market or if the property has newly come back onto the market after having a marketing break.
[Leila] But this will be a new listing.
[Visitor] Thanks
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there is a group of people privvy to a set of reports that showing definitively; new to the market listings from those withdrawn and relisted, sale fallen through and relisted, archived and relisted, price juggled, status juggled and every other identifiable form of relisting including Doppelganger duplications.
The numbers are being independently verified against Rightmove plus and Google cache.
Call me a combine harvester but the Wheat and chaff is being sorted with devastating accuracy and a once impossible task is now routine.
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Well stick them on LSE and ADVFN share chat sites and do us all a favour
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Hillofwad71
You have screenshots of this, ‘conversation’ I take it?
There are some people who would be VERY interested to see them!
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Not sure if it is the same Hillofwad who posts on the PB forum (investors thread thingy) but I think Hill might possibly one of those waiting for the HUGE profits Bruce promised to deliver to shareholders by 2016 (last year) when he was supposedlv to have 480 reps doing 10% of all transactions.
There is quite a disparity between listings on two portals. We concentrate on 1 at the moment so there is a control over the testing and which can be crossed checked with RM+ Up till the end of last week I calculated that only 17.3% of the 98 new listings per day for profit had been achieved since January 1st. It is only the first couple of weeks of the new year but targets like an avalanche thundering down a mountain wait for no-one.
4.1 an hour every hour, morning, noon and night! 41 properties every 10 hours of every day, 692 every single week, 3000 new listings every month just to make more money than they spend.
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RM
Then you have totally misread my posts I will be waiting a long time to see those profits There are many things I dislike about Bricks .Lack of transparency , manipulation of Trustpilot to name but 2 but the fact that the founding fathers have already greatly profited before a penny profit has been struck I am not yet confident to take a short as maybe there is some momentum
Pee Bee Yes
Anyone know an instruction which has been on longer
https://www.purplebricks.com/property-for-sale/4-bedroom-detached-house-aberystwyth-21385/#
Listed 19th March 2015 just hope he paid upfront and not tied into the conveyancing crew as well
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About 4 or 5 words somehow slipped out of my post which changed the context. I have read your posts with great interest and know how you feel about them.
Do you twitter? we can message there without dropping Ros and Nick into bother.
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“Research shows that 95% of people don’t realise exactly that they are paying in commission, until the bill hits and this needs to change.
“It is virtual money because it isn’t paid up front and in some ways the amount is hidden until the last moment. Factoring in VAT is something people forget to do as well, so what starts as a low percentage on paper adds up into a considerable sum in commission paid.”
Are we not obliged to quote our fees in percentage and ££’s inclusive of VAT in our terms, which the seller reads and signs?
Are we not obliged to also quote any ‘extras’?
What is quite clear is that Ms Lamb hasn’t really got a clue what she’s talking about!
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Robert May. Is the above figure quoted by Hillofwad71 correct as far as you’re concerned or is a lot of that 3k listings #portaljuggling?
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It looks like we are being censored for making comments that don’t fit the brief so all I will say is count the new unique listings added to the portals every day and see if you can get to 98 ((3000 X 12)/365)
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thanks, will do. Who is censoring you, surely the info is in the public domain, youre just pointing us in the right direction?
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I have a post in moderation for saying people don’t like lies or misrepresentation of the truth
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Apologies to Ros and Nick; my confidence in the facts and evidence I have collected allows me to wander closer to the litigation line than most people would be comfortable with.
Rather than cause them any aggro or embarrassment I will restrict my sarcasm and pointed, accurate observations to where I can take full responsibility for what I have to say.
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I’m no Carol Vorderman, but with Land Registry reporting average U.K. sold price as £216,674, Ms Lamb’s/PB’s assertion of a £5,750 average fee (assuming that includes vat) is a net figure of £4791.66 representing a supposed average fee of over 2.2% exc vat. I know anecdotally and via reliable national sources that this is patently not representative of the actual average estate agency fee.
Difficult to know whether the fee cited in Ms Lamb’s ramblings is the most spurious figure or whether the “95% of people don’t realise exactly that they are paying in commission, until the bill hits” trumps it.
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The transaction average of all the transaction is £279,905. Land registry only use roughly 36% of transaction data to come up with their average.
Mx Lamb ought to be more concerned about the 16,000 vendors who get nothing more than a set of details on the internet in return for their listing fee (or loan)
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according to my research Purple Bollacks hide their costs in the conveyance fees.]
Prove me wrong PB !!!!
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!00% of PB’s customers and many of their investors do not know it actually cost PB close to £2,700 to list everyone of their properties in 2015/2016?
More than my average fee for a no sale, no charge, full 5 star average rated service from satisfied customers posted on completion of my transaction.
I also imagine that almost all, if not all of their customers realise that PB get around £450 referral fee for deferring their upfront payment if the seller use their conveyancing alliance?
Is that not a 50% rise in their fee?
I recently sold a property and the seller agreed that if I had not sent and received 92 texts, 122 emails and many, many phone calls the sale would have fallen through. My fee was £2,500 so how can a seller save on average £5000?
What type of after sale service do PB offer? What is their fall through rate?How can you claim to be an estate agent when a principle reason to actually bother to sell a property is to try and get a conveyancing referral from…. the buyer?
If anyone is hiding anything it is PB, surely?
There are so many things that we can use to defend our position, why are our trade associations and regulators letting the likes of PB get away with this marketing bulls?
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As usual a one sided have ago by PB and cronies at the High Street (and they object when we fight back). IF THEY WERE THAT GOOD they wouldn’t need to resort to such tactics. Using one brush fits all agents. I can think of a few very poor TV presenters, does this mean she is also one of the crowd? Just once it would be nice to see an independent reporter expose the TRUTH about PB marketing campaigns. Like the fee they pay is non-refundable, no incentive to get the best price, ads are not what it says on the tin and all the other goings on …… the list is long! It is they that are attacking us to support their business in the media with a misrepresentation on costs and service.
Pro rata PB are more expensive than most agents, with little overheads for their commission and making no money! While my overheads are enormous in comparison for not much more at 1% No Sale = No fee commission and my service is outstanding, as are most good agents around the UK. Our customers wants to speak to a real person, they can walk in and they have the free choice to choose which agent they want. PB is all about degrading high street agents to win over customers and it isn’t working.
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If only we charged anywhere near that commission I could retire !! When will the ASA jump on the fact that out of London commissions are no where near that high. As for people not knowing what commission there are going to pay that’s hogwash too THEY sign a contract which details EXACTLY what they are going to pay on completion !!!
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I think PIE needs to change its name to the Why Everyone Should Hate Purple Bricks Forum
You could move the comments around pretty much every single article on PB and it would be still relevant
I appreciate they are disrupting the industry but sometimes you just need to roll up your sleeves and work harder (which I am all sure you are doing)
I am sure, when PB work how to disrupt lettings, I will be back following the party whip !!
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We go to painful lengths to ensure that our Vendors know exactly what they are paying and we HAVE to show them the figure that they will pay inclusive of VAT based n the asking price. This is clearly written into our Agency Agreement so that the Client knows at the outset the total figure payable should we achieve their asking price. Obviously this sometimes doesn’t happen, but in that case they will pay less. Also, it is up to the client whether they want to pay a fee. They have the choice, we are not forcing them. Our clients are happy to pay our fee as we have worked incredibly hard to earn it.
Fees are clearly outlined by our Appraiser when she visits a property and actually at point of contact when the appointment is made. Every single lead we have ask us what our fee is! Seriously this is the British public we are talking about here. They are very well informed especially in our area where there is fierce competition. This also means that our fees are extremely competitive. I think where most agents are working for 1.25% + VAT and delivering excellent customer service to boot, the public is actually receiving a good deal especially as the fee is paid on completion.
Let’s not forget that some properties still take many months to sell and we are the ones financing it until it is sold. Online only services are fatally flawed and I agree with previous commenters that they have no incentive to fight for the best price for their clients. We must always do that as the Client comes first. We also give the best and most honest local advice based on years of working in the area and knowing our onions. Essentially, we are providing a fantastic service and most people we deal with are not interested in having the stress of dealing with their own sale and carrying out their own viewings – when let’s face it, most people are not honest when confronted by the Vendor at a viewing. Also, importantly and time after time, we help those deals through to completion by hours spent on the phone keeping people on track and helping smooth over problems by finding solutions with the people that we have been there with from the very beginning. Money can’t buy that sort of help or expertise as it is priceless and learned over years and years. We support and encourage and deliver.
We have to be able to provide a service and can only do that if we receive a fee, which we earn Amanda, by promoting someone’s property with fantastic details, accompanied viewings, instant feedback, great communication, negotiating skills etc etc. Not everyone wants the pin the tail on the donkey service. Proven actually by the latest sad antics of the Countrywide Group with their introduction of “Online Only” when in fact all they are trying to do is sell their full fee service once they get in the door.
Wouldn’t it be nice if Purple Bricks and the like stop their foolish antics and promote their businesses to attract clients with honesty and integrity instead of trying to undermine decent hard working people with their ridiculous lies. We have to abide by a code of practice – why don’t they? We can dream…
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Well said Kernow
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I find it very ironic that people are supporting an extremely greedy set of investors who are ramping the share price up off a company which doesn’t make money and may never make money by criticising estate agents for being greedy and charging too much…
I wish independent estate agents had a spokesperson who was loud and proud to bang our drum, I may message Phil Spencer he may be our saviour 🙂
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Just had the pleasure of a Twitter exchange with the delusional Amanda Lamb @missamandalamb who asked where in the article she accused agents of hiding there fees-that tells me all I need to know about this person. As they say, if you lay down with dogs…..
Would be great if we all sent her a link via Twitter and told her what we thought of her comments.
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Looks like she has run off to her place in the sun and removed her tweets
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Maybe Miss Lamb should be fronting ewemove ads? Unlike Mr Quirke to miss a golden opportunity like that.
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I’m afraid your mixing your onliner metaphors – Mr Quirk is emove, not ewemove – you know, the one where you entrust the transaction of your most valuable asset to a firm run by somebody calling himself the “Head Shepherd”…
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Chortle – Shaun – sheep – chortle
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I stand corrected. However, using Mr Bruce as an example, surely just by saying something, it must be true?
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I’m tired of all this total nonsense in the name of agent bashing.
“Hiding” your fees is illegal, as is not declaring VAT is due on them, and in fact best practice is to quote both figures. 99% of people will sign Terms of Business before or during this process, if the client doesn’t read them, who is the idiot?
Is this presenter, a property expert we are told, that naive to believe that agents a) hide their fees and/or b) they would be allowed to get away with it even if they did?
Shows how much these experts really know. Like Mr Spencer, who I believe had a property related firm go out of business some years ago, yet is on the tele, in the papers and all over anything Zoopla preaching as some sort of expert. About time that these people got knocked down a peg or two.
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Interesting post from former employee on Estate Agent Today
“Local Property Experts are about as much of a joke as you can have. Having previously worked for these idiots I can assure you they are glorified UBER drivers. They take property on the market and get paid no matter what, customers complaints are off the scale, refunds given all the time, paranoid about trustpilot, must get review on sale agreed, aftersales is almost beyond a joke and no structure to get the best price. No rapport built with buyers as don’t have database. All you need to do is educate your vendors and you wont lose business or I am certainly not being affected at all. No threat in the future, you cant operate like this and succeed. Trust me they wont have anywhere near the impact some people imagine educate educate educate that’s all you need to do !!!”
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If “Commisery” describes the misery you feel when paying excessive fees, what is the word for paying upfront with no guarantee of a sale? “Noguaranfee“
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Surely with all the combined experience of bull$***ing of all us independents we can out bull$*** these amateurs.
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Better idea, Blue…
…how’s about we simply outTRUTH them?
So much easier – you have to think hard to come up with ******** that sticks.
REALITY is the way forward. Trust me – walk toward the light!
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Wonder what she got paid for her “support”?
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The difficulty independent estate agents have:
1. There are far too many…
2. Most are pretty much the same and therefore they struggle to define services enough to convince sellers to use them.
3. Many focus on offering low fees and try to compete with the likes of PB – bad move!.
The trouble is, many people feel that PB is a punt worth taking without realising the full consequences.
If independents want to survive, they need to sharpened up their marketing and define themselves in their market, improve their negotiating skills, and most importantly find a way to demonstrate to how to make £10k rather than save £3k – and then charge a decent fee to do so.
Easier said than done, but trust me, it works!
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Mr Bruce has said to make a profit (not the HUGE profits he promised to deliver when he has 10% of all transaction in2016) he needs to list 36,000 properties every year. In other words a new fee paying listing has to be put on the internet every 14 minutes and 38 secs.Every single half hour 2 properties should appear.
As you all know I keep a very close eye on things and where a firm is suspected of gaming their listings I have the ability to watch every single thing they do, every half hour, using very similar technology to Google caching. I can use the same tech to count listings for any firm I like, I can group firms together to get a group total so it isn’t hard for me to count up the number of new listings (those that put money in the pot).
As I am not the one who has got to report performance for the year end in just a few short months I don’t need to worry about having to achieve targets, I certainly don’t have the problem of sewing up the finest cloak the world has ever seen, so I don’t really care what they are and aren’t claiming right now. I am going to sit back and watch the big reveal and enjoy a performance to rival Baghdad Bob denying Allied forces had arrived and were trundling up the High Street over his right shoulder
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