Most sellers happy with high street agent – and with the price they achieve

The large majority of people who have sold their home through a traditional estate agent were either satisfied or very satisfied with their experience.

Out of 700 people asked, 82% expressed their satisfaction while just 4% of the survey conducted by haart had used an online agent.

Many thought that a traditional high street estate agent can add 5% to the value of their home.

Based on haart’s own average price of £221,797, this adds up to a premium of just over £11,000.

A total of 88% said they believed that face-to-face meetings with their estate agent was important.

But many – 76% – believed that high street agents charge a lot more than they do.

The typical fee is just 0.5% to 2% of the property sale price, however 76% of people believed the fees were higher than this and 11% incorrectly believed estate agents took a cut of more than 10%.

Paul Smith, CEO of hart, said:  “Our research shows that consumers believe our local expertise will earn them more money when selling and they true velue being able to meet an expert in the local property market on a face-to-face basis – not just once, but at crucial points throughout the process.

“We welcome anything that injects a healthy dose of competition into the sector but for the vast majority, the reassurance of local expertise, regular contact and inside knowledge of potential local buyers ticks all the boxes.

“Estate agents charge a fee for a skilled service which often includes deployment of expert negotiation skills to keep property chains together – and that fee is much lower than most people believe.

“It’s also not a flat rate with a seller only paying if their home is in fact sold.

“This means high street aftents will work really hard and are motivated to achieve the best possible price for their clients.”

A spokesperson for haart clarified that the 700 people surveyed were from a nationwide database of consumers held for research purposes by Instinctif Partners. The firm, which does PR for haart, regularly conducts research and surveys for a number of clients.

However, a spokesman for online agent eMoov this morning poured cold water on the claims made by haart.

He said: “It’s funny to look at the word satisfaction in the Haart survey. The world’s most recognised metric for satisfaction is NPS (Net Promoter Score). We’ve recently ran a number of surveys to look at how eMoov compares to the industry as a whole.

Originally posted here.