The Demise of the Estate Agent

“I doubt we will see the demise of the estate agent.  But what the consumer will see and will indeed be responsible for encouraging, is a metamorphosis of that industry.

Like travel and insurance before it, the power and convenience of the net will allow houses to be marketed cheaply and without grandiose, expensive high street offices which restrict the very geography of their own territories and thus keep fees so high because of such big overheards versus their relatively small areas of operation.

The new breed of online estate agents will do the same job but for much less.  Simply because they operate from more frugal premises and cover wider areas.

The OFT has supported the growth of such businesses in order to promote competition and commission reductions.  This vindication, together with the public’s resentment of paying an average R3000 a pop to sell a home (and in the wake of property NOT rising in value by 20% a year anymore to mask such fees ) will ensure the demise of the days of 20 or so estate agencies vying for attention in each UK high street.”

Russell Quirk has recently established eMoov.co.uk, an online estate agency after selling up a five branch high street estate agency in Essex.  Gamekeeper turned Poacher?