Online estate agency Hatched.co.uk claims that it and its online rivals are now marketing 5.5 per cent of all the homes on sale in the UK.
Hatched claims that online agents listed over 6,000 properties on Rightmove in 2013, accounting for 5.5 per cent of all those listed - assuming Rightmove is correct in saying it lists about 90 per cent of all homes on sale.
Hatched director Adam Day says the key growth for online estate agents will come in 2016 when he forecasts the proportion of homes on sale this way will reach 16 per cent. He claims this will represent a tipping point' after which momentum will build and online agencies will be accepted as a mainstream sales option.
By 2020, 60 and 70 per cent of all properties on the market will be listed by online estate agents, threatening to wipe out over 7,000 high street estate agent offices Day says.
Hatched, launched in 2006 with a team of three, was one of the UK's earliest online agencies. It now claims to have 20 staff in seven offices across England and Wales with many more to follow.
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Comments
"All this does is slow up the selling of domestic properties so much that Zoopla's statistics show it takes well over a year to sell a house in Halifax. The two most common scams in that town are simple lying (and by 'simple' I mean rather obvious) and "fake sales", i.e. a house advertized for sale in the usual way, that is [b]not for sale at all."
Mr Dodgeson. I fail to understand what you are getting at here. Apart from your predictive texting annoyingly replacing British 's' with Yankee 'z' - you make claims without substance or any justification.
If you REALLY wanted to buy a property in Halifax, no 'scam' would get in your way.
According to Rightmove, over 1000 people managed to buy a property in Halifax in the last 12 months - so what makes you so different
And why do you suggest that it would be any different with an Online agent
By 2020, 60 and 70 per cent of all properties on the market will be listed by online estate agents, threatening to wipe out over 7,000 high street estate agent offices Day says.
This does not surprize me at all -- in fact I've been predicting this very change myself, after bad experiences on the Halifax, West Yorkshire, house market. It seems to me that there are far too many scams running by a big minority of estate agents, esp. the national ones.
All this does is slow up the selling of domestic properties so much that Zoopla's statistics show it takes well over a year to sell a house in Halifax. The two most common scams in that town are simple lying (and by 'simple' I mean rather obvious) and "fake sales", i.e. a house advertized for sale in the usual way, that is [b]not for sale at all.[u]
This is tragic for the local agents, some of whom work hard for their clients, but they will suffer loss of business along with the rest. Don't the scamming estate agents realize they are now under a spotlight, with everyone interested being able to find anything out with the interweb, and websites like this one
For me, the result has been to put me off altogether about buying a house in Halifax, the town where I was born. I will still buy a house, but it will be in Leeds, where they do actually use their brains.
Well said PeeBee, the amount of replies indicate the the online agency stories are boring and the new look EAT used this crap to try and get things going. BIG FAIL !
Mr Day states below: "The 6,000 figure is actually relating to the amount of houses currently listed on the market as it stands with online estate agents (on Rightmove), rather than the amount taken on in 2013. The amount taken on is far greater than this figure."
REALLY I'd like to look at what you said in your blog and ask you a question or two about it if I may...
You said:
"For us, new properties coming on to the market topped 1700..."
"We agreed... total sales agreed topping 1200"
"But let me just back up to the figure of 70% of our properties listed ended up as sold, subject to contract. That is an absolutely unprecedented conversion in our careers as estate agents, and probably in estate agency, full stop! When we worked on the high street, we used to agree sales on around 55% of properties."
SO... by your own words, "that's a staggering conversion of 70% of properties we listed..." (a falsehood, I suggest - you 'sold' a figure equating to 70% of the total number of your years' take-ons - you didn't actually 'sell' seventy percent of those that you actually listed in the year, did you)
SO... your assumed 'increase' in stock in the year was 500 units. Assuming that all the others did the same (although I'm sure that you will claim YOUR success rate is higher than average so I'll increase the figure for the others by 10% in the spirit if fairness...), that would make an assumed addition to the market of 1930 including your own 500.
BUT... that 'assumed' figure takes into account NO WITHDRAWALS over the year. But I'm prepared to overlook that small matter in the spirit of goodwill - and 'cos you need every ounce of help going to make your figures look ANYTHING LIKE your claim!
SO... that magical (albeit artificially exaggerated...) 1930 unit 'increase' in stock from you online chappies and chappesses makes up, you claim, 2% of the available market as "currently listed", do you not claim
SO... you CLAIM that onlines listed "...over 6,000 properties on Rightmove in 2013". In your blog, you CLAIM "We estimate that online estate agents now make up around 5.5% of the entire properties listed on Rightmove".
With less that a 2000-unit "increase" in your registers, I would LOVE you to show us how that equates to a 2% increase in total market share, considering "Rightmove has over 800,000 properties for sale throughout the UK..." (source: Rightmove, three minutes ago).
Come on - BACK UP YOUR CLAIMS, Mr Day - the figures above simply don't compute.
Do us all a favour and firm up your "estimate". From what I see, some Agents leaving their clients to work out the VAT on their Fee is small coal compared to how much imagination you have exercised under the banner of an "estimate"...
No Archive... No EASY way to navigate...
Those few stories that HAVE been shifted over have 'lost' all comments posted...
So, EAT - tell us - have you erased the past
there was a shipside yack last week only managed 2
A thread about online agency, been on here for 24 hours, and ONLY 13 comments! you'd expect there to have been at least 50 by now. Even PeeBee has only managed 2!
Might tell the new regime something about their 'wizzy' new site!
The old site sat there quietly, this one just flashes away like a perv in the park and as a result get closed, my time on site used to be 10-12 hours per day, now it is down to 2 painful minutes at a time.
I agree Ray, I'm not entirely sure what Nat is trying to acheave with it. Always a shame when a site sells itself the the advertising devil.
@ Guest (PeeBee)
I am with you in your opinion of the site now.
It has ceased to be a reasonable 'blog style' daily exchange of opinions.
It now seems to be more of a picture mag. advertising medium with few serious topics. Time to move on
Wouldn't it be interesting if we all clubbed together and reported on some rightmove stats of our own. Each of us in our own locality's providing the general public (because lets face it, that's who this PR stunt is aimed at) with hatched performance figures compared to our own.
Just imagine, average click through rates, average time on the market. You know the stuff that matters. I wonder if Mr Day would like to talk stats then
Doh! Slightly embarrassing to make such a massive error on your figures. Still 0.5% of the market does seem very small, Emove's estimation sounds closer. I work for one of the big portals and we are aware the biggest names in Online estate agency like Housesimple.co.uk, Housenetwork and Emoov are taking on around 2,000 - 2,500 each annually so I would suppose the other 30 or 40 must make up another 2,500. So 10,000 total would probably be more acccurate.
That in simple maths is about 1% in reality. So it seems quite a long way away from the landslide these over dramatic articles keep predicting.
Having said that, there does seem to be more and more money coming in to the online sector and who knows, perhaps there will be a full blown market war once Agents Mutual launch. Which will no doubt just cause more publicity for the online boys. All very interesting what will happen in the next 12 months. But I feel Agents Mutual is going to backfire.
'Simply don't bother'... I wish a gave so little of a shizzle as to drop it and say nothing. Just leave it to Mr Day to post whatever he makes up on the back of a fag packet and claims it to be Gospel.
Unfortunately, you are right I believe. Looking at "TrendingNow":
* Nat Daniels is "Friends" with Adam Day.
* Nat Daniels "Likes" his own Profile.
This site is now a joke. (feel free to 'Like' that comment as well, Mr Daniels...)
All the $h!tty bits of Facebook & LinkedIn rolled into one untidy mess.
"thevoiceoftheindustry" Sorry - this is one Estate Agent who it is absolutely NOT 'the voice for'.
There IS one thing missing - a 'Hate' button... for the HPCers to use, of course.
I'm certain that will come soon, though.
('Like'... 'Share'... 'Winky'... ReTw@t...)
the EAT editor has picked this story as his lead hoping it will troll a declining readership into posting. Leave them to it Peebee.
If Chubby Mullet can get his hissy fit with Chestertons published it really is an indication that no-one has got a clue. c.c (disinterested emoticon)
The 6,000 figure is actually relating to the amount of houses [i]currently listed[/i] on the market as it stands with online estate agents (on Rightmove), rather than the amount taken on in 2013. The amount taken on is far greater than this figure.
The number of homes listed with online agents this time last year, was around 3.5% of properties on Rightmove. It's now, we think, around 5.5% - a 60% growth in online estate agency.
If that trend continues (and I have no reason to believe it won't), then online estate agents will have market share of around 9% this time next year and 14% in 2016. The tipping point comes at 16%...
How can they define themselves as online if they have 7 offices Nationwide with more on the way
Oh, dear - Mr Day's sums and claims don't stack up YET again...
"...claims that online agents listed over 6,000 properties on Rightmove in 2013, accounting for 5.5 per cent of all those listed - assuming Rightmove is correct in saying it lists about 90 per cent of all homes on sale."
According to Rightmove, it saw 1,268,515 'new' listings between 13/1/13 and 11/1/14. At "90% of the market", that would indicate that 1,109,461 properties in total were listed.
IF the 'onlines' listed, between them, "over 6000", that would give them a share of the market of between 0.426 and 0.497 - NOT "5.5% as per his claim.
Unless, of course, the rules of mathematics change when it comes to online agencies - you know how they hate quoting percentages... ;o)
Time to give up these ridiculous press releases, Mr Day - THIS ONE could easily get you in bother with the ASA.
What a load of rubbish
Blimey. And eMoov.co.uk listed about half of the 6000 last year it seems!
Well done Adam, an insightful piece.
When we launched in 2010 there were 5 online estate agents with a miniscule market share. There are now over 40 with, by our reckoning, 2% of the market at the beginning of 2013. A sector that more than doubles in size in 12 months is a true sign of how the consumer wants this to go. Why pay a high fee when you don't need to....
#BORING ! Another sloppy BORING press release, yawn! I would try and search for the 'Hatched' advert on the right, it must be there somewhere with this relentless promotion, but ive lost my sunglasses.