We achieved the asking price after several viewings in just two weeks of marketing.

The fee quoted to our client by the London Estate Agent that slithered around his property in the first instance was £65,000 plus vat. So that’s an eMoov saving of just shy of £78,000 plain and simple.

Client happy? Apoplectic.

London home sellers… eMoov is calling you!

This graphic demonstrates the comparison.

A premium listing is a larger ad, with a highlighted background and includes two internal photos in addition to the external ‘only’ photo of a standard ad.



You can upgrade your listing with eMoov.co.uk. for just £45.00 for the whole duration that your listing is live. That’s half the price that other online estate agents charge.

We wouldn’t question whether estate agents are dodgy or not. Everyone knows that they are. The traditional, High Street variety in any case.

The question is, perhaps, why are they seen as so utterly dishonest?

Estate agents have a reputation that, depending on which survey you ponder, sits somewhere below tabloid journalists and politicians. In pure hatred terms they compete with traffic wardens and bankers for the title of most detested profession.

The perception reality of a complete lack of communication, care, empathy and efficiency on the part of most estate agents can possibly be explained by the hands off approach that successive Governments take to regulating the business of selling houses. No licensing. No real oversight at all except for a well meaning but barely known Ombudsman scheme and a puny, supposed professional body known as the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) which sits in quiet deliberation over its peers in a dark, smoke filled room in Warwick. The NAEA could also stand for ‘Not Able to Enforce Appropriately’. And that’s because, bewilderingly, they don’t choose to have the power to compensate consumers for the wrong doing of their estate agent. In effect they are an old boys network of estate agents regulating estate agents in spats between themselves and whose sole qualification needed to ‘oversee’ the industry being length of time that each has been an estate agent. In other words, the more of a dinosaur they are the more qualified they are to ‘regulate’.

Other similar types of business, like financial services for instance, are supervised to an extent that would put the typically over zealous night club doorman to shame. But estate agency is free to do what it likes. And it does.

That’s the reality of the ‘light touch’ regulation that those handling your most prized asset are subjected to. Barely anything at all. Training and education within the industry are almost invisible and exist in the main solely to ‘train’ staff to sell high fees, conveyancing products and mortgage and insurance referrals. Not to inform or to ensure best practice.

However the real culprit of a culture that is so endemically self-serving is the way in which, typically, selling fees are levied. All or nothing. And big, big rewards for firm and individual alike on ’success only’.

In other words, if they want to get paid, especially if they have particularly lavish earning expectations as many do, then each property negotiator that you come across is bound to put earnings before ethics. Money before truth. ‘Is this house is a decent area?’, you ask. ‘Of course it is. It’s the best area in town’, says Julian, eyeing his next shiny suit in his mind’s eye. ‘Are the local schools any good?’, one might venture. ‘The nearest one is fantastic. In fact the Beckhams looked at sending their kids there’, lies Nigel as he ponders that Rolex, the cost of which is easily covered by just one ill gotten sale.

You get the picture.

Estate agents are ruthless and deceptive because their very financial survival depends on their patter in convincing you to buy anything they can sell you and at any cost. Moral cost included.

With escalating High Street selling fees, now higher than ever and all paid at the end of each transaction based on ‘no sale-no fee’, and sales volumes at a five year low, is it any wonder that the vultures in minis will swoop upon you, the unsuspecting home buyer, as soon as they sense the slightest inclination of your interest in buying their wares. Then like the ‘find the lady’ con men in tourist spots everywhere, they spin you a line, suck you in and take your money.

So the very essence of the remuneration structure that exists in main stream estate agency and that traditional agents will expound as ‘fair’ because of it’s ‘pay nothing unless we sell it’ philosophy, is exactly what makes the process of buying a home akin to wrestling in a nest of vipers.

Estate agents that charge low cost, initial fixed fees are more honest. Why wouldn’t they be without the vested interest of the carrot at the end?

London agents nearby quoted a selling fee of some £65,000 plus vat. That’s £78,000 in total.

Watch this space…. this could smash the eMoov fee saving record when sold (currently £21,000).

That figure is the sales v sold ratio that the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors releases as part of its regular survet of its estate agency members. It demonstrates the number of homes that an agent has sold in comparison to the amount of properties that he has for sale in total. It is a very good indication of ability.

In fact a recent survey that eMoov.co.uk carried out of a particular town showed a huge variance between several agents with some selling a quarter of their overall stock and some just 10%. That’s a gap that you need to know about when deciding who to instruct.

The latest RICS number for March sits at 23.3% across several thousand High Street estate agency members.

Ours? 27.2%.

Proof that you don’t get what you pay for.

eMoov.co.uk hit a massive milestone this week. One that continues to prove our concept and something that we are very proud to have achieved so early in our existence.

We’ve just passed the £1m point in estate agents fee savings. That’s £1,000,000 that would otherwise have stuffed the pockets of a good few traditional, expensive High Street agents.

Since eMoov launched in 2010 we have grown and grown. We doubled in size twice last year in business volume terms and have done so again this year already. We are now one of the two largest online estate agents in the country by a significant margin. The best value and with the longest opening hours. No ‘renewal fees’ like so many others charge a few months down the line either.

Our average fee saving per client to date is £4614.00. The equivalent of a very nice holiday, a decent used car or a not inconsequential sum towards the improvement of our customers’ next homes. It’s a lot of money.

And it is also such a significant amount as to truly demonstrate the success of our business concept. A stack of tenners £1,000,000 high is enough to convince most people that something is worth looking at we think.

No doubt our High Street peers will continue to cross the road when we walk towards them. We can live with that. Our conscience is clear.

Clearer than theirs probably.

This is in response to hard times on Estate Agent Street with the average property firm now selling just one property per week now, half that of 2007 levels.

And so, depleted of cash, High St estate agents have to look to other ways of trying to bolster their income. By way of a real world example as imparted to us today, here’s how it goes…

One lady that we spoke to today asked Reeds Rains in Wakefield to visit her to discuss the marketing of her detached house. The property has a value of around £320,000.

The agent from Reeds Rains, part of the large LSL Property Services Group, explained that whilst their fees would be £7000.00 or so on completion once vat was included, he also wanted a £275.00 ‘marketing fee’.  Payable upfront.

This masquerades as an admin fee that is, apparently, not due until withdrawal or sale but effectively locks in the seller to stay with the agent, notwithstanding any belt and braces sole agency agreements, because that seller is bound to be hesitant in dis-instructing them when there is the prospect of a ‘withdrawal fee’ as a result of doing so.

High Street estate agents are desperate for money and even more stubborn in protecting their archaic business model, as this scenario so proves.

Seller beware…

We’ve been quoted as property experts commenting on house prices by none less than the BBC today!

Here’s the link BBC

In fact we received around half a million property views on the UK’s leading property website last week alone and that was UP 10% on the week before!

And then there’s Zoopla, Prime Location, FindaProperty, Globrix. NeedaProperty, Nestoria, UK Property Shop, eBay, FimdaNewHome, Gumtree and 270 national and local newspaper websites. Plus Virgin Media, MSN, SKY…

Be in no doubt that whatever the market or time of year and no matter how ‘quiet’ High Street agents are saying they are, eMoov.co.uk guarantees you the very best advertising exposure for your property.

Estate agents have been subject to Government money laundering regulations since 2007. In 2009 a register was established that compelled estate agents to formally list themselves as bona fide and in so doing, confirming that they comply with the regulations.

There was much alarm at the time in that around half of all UK agents failed to register. Prosecutions followed.

This week, the OFT has made the register public in a move to shame agents into complying. To ensure that the estate agent you are about to entrust with your home is above board, you can search for them here http://www.oft.gov.uk/OFTwork/aml/amlsearch

Beware. It is remarkable that only 6,742 businesses are so far registered out of approximately 10,000 that operate across the country. Many so called online estate agents have not registered despite the sanctions that can be imposed and the three year period in which they have been given to do so.

eMoov.co.uk’s credentials can be checked here (not to be confused with others) http://www.oft.gov.uk/OFTwork/aml/amlsearch/?show=premises&action=search&i=0&busPageNo=1