Earlier this week EAT reported on the launch of a comparison website analysing traditional estate agents - now another has started, this time exclusively to compare online agencies.
SellingUp.com claims to be the first website that allows vendors to compare and browse online estate agents, listing their fees and services.
The website - which carries advertising from Sarah Beeny's Tepilo online site and mentions her in its launch press release - says its income will come from referral/affiliate fees, adverts and paid-for/sponsored features.
But it insists it maintains editorial independence and that what it calls referral relationships do not influence rankings in its comparison tables.
It has an interesting league table in its Guide To Online Agents', stating that the big five' are eMoov, House Network, Housesimple, Hatched and Purplebricks.
It describes these as mid-sized: Tepilo, Urban Sales and Lettings, My Online Estate Agent and MyHouseAdvert.
Amongst the plenty of others' in the smaller category are Estates Direct, Turtle Homes and Sell My Home.
Interestingly, easyProperty is not mentioned on any list.
Online estate agents are really starting to challenge the established high street rivals by vastly undercutting their large commission fees. What we have created is more than just a price comparison tool, it's a quick way for property sellers to get an at-a-glance understanding of which online agents can deliver the services they need claims Selling Up founder Oliver Lewis.
%20A%20property%20tale%20for%20our%20times.png)
Comments
'Too busy selling houses' but not too busy to post a load of tosh on an online news forum!
Rob- Not dismissing them, just stating that the more of them there are competing for a small slice of the pie (which will only ever get so big) the less-successful many of them will be. Look at Needaproperty.com, they couldn't compete with the big portals and are going out of business. The same will happen to the smaller online agents competing with Purplepricks and Emoov.
The thing with high street agents (which is the reason there are so many of them), is that each
and every one of them has different personalities working there. Every good agent will have members of staff who win instructions based on their personality and approachability. This is something online agents can't offer.
As for James at Emoov, you are not too busy 'selling houses', you are busy listing them on portals and getting paid whether they sell or not.
How many more of these comparison sites are there going to be
I think you slightly underestimate the impact of online agencies. They still have a very small market share, yes, but they are definitely onto something with the way the world works now. Those agencies who are not willing to embrace the digital age and the various social media tools will fall behind the competition.
I'm as sceptical as anyone when online agents come out promising to take over the world, making the traditional model obsolete. But I also think dismissing them outright, ala OTM, is a silly and naive move.
@Hates Smugness
Or a false accusation with no substance.
What area was that
Wow, nothing like a bit of mid-morning arrogance! Don't sell your company short or anything, James.
@James - No one likes a pompous twit. You may wish to get back to work so you can continue "growing" at such an expediential rate as you have no market share in my area.
Hi Jen,
Can't speak for the others but you are partially right, we are hiring at the moment.
This is due to the continued growth of the company and I'm afraid we simply don't have the time to generate fake reviews as we are too busy selling houses.
This said there are many, many happy eMoov customers always happy to provide us with a review, so we don't need to or want to waste our time faking them.
Please feel free to drop me a line at James.Lockett@emoov.co.uk and I can go into further detail.
I would like to clarify that easyProperty is not included because our comparison tool (and our site in general) is only for the sales side and easyProperty only covers lettings at present (although they have told me that they are expecting to be doing sales later this year at which point they will be eligible to be featured).
Also I wanted to add that the comparison tool mentioned is located at:
[url="http://www.sellingup.com/tools/compare-online-estate-agents/"]http://www.sellingup.com/tools/compare-online-estate-agents/[/url]
Oliver (founder of SellingUp.com)
This is good. I would imagine (I may be wrong here but I doubt it) none of the online agencies can possibly have a particularly large profit margin when you think of the costs and shareholders involved. The more competition there is between them, the more they will have to undercut their fees to remain at the top of the pile. There will always be a limited number of people willing to use a bogus service like this, so the more online agencies there are, the more thinly spread the profits will be.