60% Of Homeowners Prefer To Pay An Estate Agent On Completion Of Sale

London, England— 1st, July 2019 — When it comes to selling their property, 60% of homeowners would prefer to pay upon completion with only 20.7% preferring the upfront model favoured by many online estate agents.

That’s according to the latest survey by property advice website Property Road who have published insights collected from their ‘Choose An Online Estate’ survey.

The tool gained 3,186 responses to 5 questions about what visitors were looking for in an online agent, before recommending the brand that best matches their answers.

Those Preferring To Pay ‘On Completion’ Are Happy To Pay More

Of those who stated they would prefer to pay on completion, almost a third (32.1%) were willing to pay up to £2000 for the service. Contrast this to those who prefer to pay upfront where just 15.5% were happy to pay more than £1000.

When it comes to hosting viewings, 72.6% of respondents were happy to conduct at least some viewing themselves with 42.7% prepared to host all viewings themselves.

Some 26% of respondents were ‘unsure’ whether they needed an EPC suggesting the industry still needs to do more to educate homeowners as to how Energy Performance Certificates work when selling a property.

People Still Value ‘Traditional’ Estate Agent Benefits

The final question of the survey asked respondents to choose what they value the most when choosing an estate agent. The clear favourites were ‘the ability to achieve the asking price’ (43%) and ‘the ability to sell a property quickly’ (35%), showing that the performance of an agent is still the most important factor to sellers.

Having ‘the best customer service’ or ‘the lowest fees’ only attracted 9% of responses each, while offering an ‘option to pay on completion’ only received 5% of votes.

Reflecting on the results, the founder of Property Road, Paul James said “These results are sure to raise a few eyebrows, especially since the leading online agent, Purplebricks, have built their entire business on the ‘pay upfront’ model. No doubt the findings will be music to the ears of many high street agents who have long bemoaned the approach of online agents offering lower upfront fees and a perceived ‘lesser’ service.

“What’s perhaps most surprising is that these results are based on respondents who were already considering online estate agents on our website. If even these sellers are preferring many of the things commonly associated with high street agents, it may help answer why the onliners haven’t gained the levels of market share that many predicted.”

Shared by: Paul James – [email protected]