Are ‘Online Estate Agents’ actual Estate Agents?

February 9, 2015

What does Wikipedia, a website that many of us would consider a good source of relevant information, say that an ‘Estate Agent‘ is classed as:

“An estate agent is a person or business that arranges the selling, renting or management of properties, and other buildings, in the United Kingdom and Ireland. An agent that specialises in renting is often called a letting or management agent. Estate agents are mainly engaged in the marketing of property available for sale and a solicitor or licensed conveyancer is used to prepare the legal documents. In Scotland, however, many solicitors also act as estate agents, a practice that is rare in England and Wales.”

So with this in mind, what are people’s thoughts as to ‘online estate agents’ – Should they be included in the above description from Wikipedia? Do they not facilitate the sale and renting of a property, listing them on their websites, on major property portals and achieving sales and rents for home owners who give them their property? Is this not what an estate agent does, or is the high street presence and accompanied viewings the important part that defines who is and who isn’t one?

I have read many comments on other property news websites (usually by anonymous or alias members) which see online agents as outside their community, usually it is ‘us against them’ or worse, they are seen as lowering the standard of the industry and the likes of Rightmove and Zoopla are criticised for allowing them to list…

Speaking from a totally neutral and ‘non estate agent’ point of view, I believe the take up of online estate agencies will increase (this does not mean overtake) against traditional style estate agency. Many online estate agencies are receiving external financial backing so this should point to increasing their market share… What are your thoughts?

 

Christopher Walkey

Founder of Estate Agent Networking. Internationally invited speaker on how to build online target audiences using Social Media. Writes about UK property prices, housing, politics and affordable homes.

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