eMoov attacks traditional agents high fees

eMoov has reignited its attack on traditional estate agents' fees, claiming they are as much as £922 an hour. This claim suggests that high street agents' cost per hour have increased 6% over the past year. Estate agents on average take approximately 1.6% including VAT on the sale of a property, putting commissions in the region of £4,608 on a sale of an average UK house. “The cost per hour with an online agent is around eight times cheaper despite the service provided being consistently better, so hopefully it won't be long before the commission fee structure becomes extinct altogether," said Russell Quirk, founder and chief executive of eMoov.

The never-knowingly-underquoted online agency eMoov has renewed its attack on traditional estate agents’ fees, claiming they are as much as £922 an hour.

eMoov has made similar attacks over the past two years and its latest claim suggests that a high street estate agent’s cost per an hour has increased six per cent over the past year.

“With it taking between five and 15 hours to sell a property, high street agents could be making as much as a staggering £922 per hour. This is still despite the estate agency sector still having little barrier to entry in terms of qualifications, as well as no consistent regulatory body” says the agency’s latest release on the subject.

The agency says that with the average fee widely regarded at about 1.6 per cent including VAT on the sale of a home, agents’ take home commission is in the region of £4,608 on the sale of an average UK house.

“This is the third year we have run this research now and it’s unbelievable that high street agents are still cashing in to such an amount, [to] the detriment of UK home sellers” says eMoov founder and chief executive Russell Quirk.

“The cost per hour with an online agent is around eight times cheaper despite the service provided being consistently better, so hopefully it won't be long before the commission fee structure becomes extinct altogether" he says.