Comparison service releases online agencies' performance data

The comparison service Get Agent has released the full details of its analysis of the performance of four different online estate agencies.

Some of these details were released at the recent Futures; PropTech conference but now GetAgent has published its complete findings.

It looked at 500 new listings on Purplebricks and all listings by Tepilo, Housesimple and eMoov from January 2016, following them through for 14 months until February 2017. It sent a questionnaire to 45 customers of online agents “to help understand their motives and their level of satisfaction” and conducted phone interviews with some respondents. 

The GetAgent findings fall into several categories:

How did customers find online agents? Some 30 per cent of people interviewed heard about their online agent from watching TV; 43 per cent found them through an online search and 15 per cent heard about their agent through a friend.

Share: GetAgent says market share of online agents grew from 1.1 per cent to 3.7 per cent from January 2015 to January 2017.

Motivation: Over 80 per cent of those interviewed chose an online estate agent to save money while others liked the control it offered, and “a few respondents felt pushed towards an online agent due to the distrust they felt towards traditional high street agents.”

Completion Rates: “Our research found that around half of online agent listings hadn’t sold after the 14-month period. Purplebricks completed on just 57 per cent of the listings from January 2016, as of February 2017. Housesimple completed on 58 per cent, while eMoov and Tepilo were even lower with 51 per cent and 48 per cent completion rates.”

The research concludes: “We recommend our homeowners do their research and speak to a number of estate agents before making a decision (online and traditional). If you choose an online agent, you need to make sure you are prepared to take on the process yourself and remember that they are driven by the upfront fee.”

The full GetAgent survey can be seen here.