None of Britain's burgeoning number of online estate agents has succeeded in breaking into the Fast Track 100, a barometer of successful private companies.
The list is widely recognised as the league table of the country's fastest growing private firms on the basis of sales, and this year contains many online traders including Missguided (online fashion), LSE (online lighting retailer), Graze.com (online food sales), BullionByPost (online gold sales), BathEmpire.com (online bathroom equipment retailer), Beautybay (online cosmetics) and Naked Wines (online wine shop).
The 100 firms in the list, compiled by the Fast Track research company and covering every sector with the exception of tech companies, grew their sales over the past three years by an average of 71 per cent.
Many of the firms are long-established but many are start-ups and pride themselves at disrupting' established markets and business processes - an aspiration of many of the online estate agents that have set up in the UK in recent years.
The agents may go on to be included in the Fast Track assessment in future years, but in the 2014 list just announced only one firm, a construction contractor, has significant involvement in the property sector.
Comments
@wow
If you look at it from a different angle starting an internet estate agency in 2005 with no stock and peoples hardline perception that you need an high street shop to sell a house....the maths you have done isn't a true reflection so I will enlighten you.
Lets take the last 6 years with sales averaging over 9 a month every year (best 2 months were 19 sales each month). Average fee 1200 x 9 = 10,800 per month x 12 = 129,600 and thats working from home......
I would say thats pretty good...I asssume you're earning similar
But the best thing I work from home, its great in the summer..;)
Mr Spiller, 6 a month, wow that's domination in a village or your mind perhaps
@chris wood,
i agree with you, social media and phone are latest online marketing tools .
*Street
*Agent
typing too fast....
@ Spolier
Please call me Rich....just a stab in the dark....you're not a high estate agent are you...lol
The thing that annoys me is all these high street estates give it all the talk...but when simple questions are asked they cant answer them. The reason being because they don't like the answers!
I have mentioned my company once by the way...
Remove the truth and facts...why
Actually Choices are not good enough, ask my staff, I tell them all the time!
Why do EAT allow Mr Spiller to post when all he posts is SPAM advertising for his company
Please remove!!!!!!!
Social media and a phone
Mr Spiller - whether you get a handful of people on here to agree with you that hybrid is the best model is neither here nor there.... the proof will be in the figures, surely
If you believe that hybrid is that best model for you and is getting you good results, that's great...but trying to get everyone here to say it is the best model will not make it any better or worse.
@Harriet
You are talking about online only I am talking about Hybrid where the agent is local but doesn't have the unnecessary high street expensive shop....so Have you any negatives about the Hybrid or would you agree that is the answer
@ Chris Wood
Valid points...I'll give you two marketing tools to sell a house.....what would yours be.....
My choice rightmove and a board.......
How many High Street Estate Agents would market their own property with a high street agent if they had to pay 1.25 - 1.5%.....
It's true, you don't 'need' a high street office to sell a property, in the same way you don't need, for sale boards, Rightmove, Zoopla, Primelocation, social media, local press, glossy magazines etc etc. However, each of these different mediums brings something unique to the overall marketing mix.
The vast majority of properties transactions that take place in the UK are to buyers who already live within a 7 to 10 mile radius of the property. It follows that, whilst footfall to agents offices has fallen (and will continue to fall in my opinion), a good number of potential and actual buyers still look in agents windows when they are walking through town. This includes the opportunist buyers who keeps a weather eye on the local market (for sale boards and office windows etc) and will only pounce when their dream property comes up for sale.
Every time an agent removes one of these marketing tools, they are potentially cutting out potential buyers from the mix and, thus, potentially losing an opportunity for a higher price.
There is nothing wrong with online agents, hybrids, or traditional, as long as they all work within the rules and law and don't make claims they can't substantiate. It is not about being the cheapest, or the most expensive but, the best value for money, by which the majority of customers judge business'.
No surprise to me how could a company that has a share of a (roughly) 2% market share get anywhere near a top 100
@Chris Sargisson didn't think i'd see the day EAT was criticised for being anti-online agent
In the spirit of editorial fairness I've adapted this slightly:
[b]High street agents fail to break into Fast Track 100.[/b]
None of Britains burgeoning number of High Street estate agents has succeeded in breaking into the Fast Track 100, a barometer of successful private companies.
The list is widely recognised as the league table of the countrys fastest growing private firms... blah blah blah
@Guest (Richard Spiller)
Your question cannot be answered fully by Yes or No because it is too simplistic for the subject. However, obviously one does not actually 'need' to go trough an office. It can be 'sold' in a number of ways without an agent at all, on line or traditional, but it is the knowledgeable professional 'selling' and marketing together with the negotiating face to face easily contactable service etc. provided that is the difference
Right or wrong the customer can choose.
Online agents simply can't ignore the fact that traditional high street agents provide priceless knowledge for buyers which they lack, and therefore the price may be slightly higher. If you want to achieve the highest price for your property and it be less stressful, then high-street agents provide the answer.
"Yes, there are some great agents like Choices that rate highly like we do. But you are the exception Simon, not the rule"
Oh, GET A ROOM, you two!
@rayevans
Good point.
Can you answer one question with either a yes or no.....do you need a high street office to sell a property
Can anybody say that 'Traditional High Street' agents are not 'On line' agents too In my view they provide the COMPLETE service. Some are poor and some are good but that does not change the factual basis. If a seller does not like the fee structure and service provided then don't use them. Simple.
RD
Of course there's an argument! Many traditional agents believe in offering a quality, personal service which ultimately means being available to the clients and having a high street office of some sort. It also means having to charge higher fees.
Online agents believe in charging up front fees, and then doing nothing to proactively push the properties they have been instructed to sell.
There's nothing wrong with either side arguing their case.
@Rob Davies
At last someone with some sense....Hybrid is the answer!...I have been trading from my study covering my local area for 10 years now. I have outsold all of the high Street agents for he last 9 years. I charge 0.75% + Vat saving local clients potentially thousands of 's
Over 800 properties sold in the last 10 years from my study...high street agents answer that one please
Red Homes Franchises are available if anyone is interested. Be you own boss!
Why does it always have to turn into another online v traditional argument As we can see from the comments so far, the two models never look likely to agree on which is better. I still think a hybrid agency combining the two - online with traditional - will be the way forward, but I can't see that happening whilst the two are at each other's throats.
@RussellQuirk If you are so good and traditional agents so bad why do you spend so much time on so many forums "putting down" your competitors. At the end of the day "the proof of the pudding" is your profit to your shareholders not your customers satisfaction.
RQ:
2 properties marketed with Emoov within 2 neighboring villages near my home town in the past year. Both remained on the market for over a year. One came off the market with no success. The other property changed to a local agent and sold within weeks.
Your company's failure to sell 2 properties within a couple of miles of each other will surely serve as a huge deterrent to anyone else considering using your services in that area no
With many of the agents in my town enjoying one of their best sales years on record, I don't really think you and your online only chums are much cause for concern. Oh, and turnover of 1.5 million How many of the people who actually paid into your pot have actually sold their property through you. The term 'up-front fees' comes to mind.
[i]'To sell a property for the highest price with the least hassle you need a great agent, the Middle Man is always worth their fee, remember that Russell, you can't odds it'[/i]
Simon, the public seemingly disagree. Or else why do high street agents have a far lower customer service rating than online agents It's simply a fact now that there is no correlation between agent performance on price achieved and/or service vs a higher commission. Savills, for instance, have one of the worst ratings on AllAgents of all, yet charge the most.
In the 21st Century the consumer expects great service but also does not expect to pay through the nose to get it (or indeed NOT to get it, as is generally the case in the estate agency industry). Yes, there are some great agents like Choices that rate highly like we do. But you are the exception Simon, not the rule.
Do you need a High Street shop to sell a property.....Yes or No
Is the price the main factor as to whether a property will sell or not
In Business do you need to provide a great service to stay in business and be successful
Answer.
Provide a great service, be realistic with the price and save clients thousands in fees because of not having the unnecessary shop/staffing costs.
Simples.
I understand the term 'online agent' is very broad and covers everyone from the advertising service masquerading as an estate agent to the full service agent without a shop. It is my belief that a great estate agent is always worth their fee because they add value and reduce stress compared to a bad estate agent. Great estate agents tend to charge reasonably high fees because they are worth it. In essence, the 1.5%-2.5% is not the most important issue. What online agents will find in the long run is there are no great savings to be had by dispensing with a high St shop. In the long run you need quality people and they are hard to come buy and impossible to keep if you don't reward and support them, cream floats to the top. I don't see many vendors these days but when I do I always tell them what I would do in their position, which is this. I seek out the best agent and I don't haggle about fees, quite the reverse, I offer them a bonus commission because I want my property up front and centre when they speak to buyers. It's true that some properties are bought passively, not sold but where this is the case a great agent probably hasn't been involved. To sell a property for the highest price with the least hassle you need a great agent, the Middle Man is always worth their fee, remember that Russell, you can't odds it:)
'Online agents in FastTrack 100 shame'...
So I guess the game's up. Online estate agents have been caught out by not being included as one of the UK's fastest growing 100 firms over and above any of the country's millions of other tech, travel, FMCG, gaming, publishing, financial, social media or clothing (etc) businesses.
Or maybe it's just because the Fast Track criteria is strictly only for businesses with revenues over 5m per annum and the biggest, embryonic online agents are not quite there. Yet.
emoov.co.uk was approached by the Sunday Times FastTrack this year, and with turnover of 1.5m in 2014, was shortlisted as 'One to Watch'.
But you're all doing that anyway :)