Some estate agents believe that more than 50% of homes sell with a second agent, but this is simply not the case, according to property data and analytics company TwentyCi.
This stat regarding more than half of homes being sold with a second agent has been floating around the market for a number of years, points out Christopher Watkin, a regular contributor to EYE.
This statistic has often been quoted by industry leaders and PropTech suppliers, and typically goes unchallenged, but fresh findings suggest something very different.
“Historically for the last decade, it was believed that only 40 to 50% of properties sold with the first estate agent,” Watkin said. “This [new data] dispels the myth that a second agent is more successful.”
The data reveals that more than 18 out 20 UK homes sell with the first estate agency listed to market the property.
Of 1,776,709 UK homes sold sold subject to contract with an estate agency since 1st January 2023, under a sole agency agreement, 1,655,754 of those UK homes (93.2%) sold stc with the initil estate agent marketing the property.
Only 120,955 UK sold stc with the second UK estate agent marketing the home (6.8%).
Watkin cautions that the success achieved by those initially instructed to market a property “is not a charter for estate agents to overvalue to secure the listing”.
He continued: “It must noted that while 1.77m properties have sold STC since the 1st January 2023, over 2.9m UK homes have been listed since January 2023, meaning only around 60% of properties listed have had a sale agreed on them. Once you take into account sale fall throughs, that drops to only 53% of listings exchanging and completing (when the agent is paid).”
“The key challenge for estate agents is not just securing the listing first time but ensuring the property is priced correctly from the outset to guarantee a successful sale. This data should serve as a wake-up call for UK agents and homeowners alike – overvaluing might massage your ego in the short term with your listing’s market share, in the long-term, you are setting yourself up and the homeowners you serve to failure, wasted time, lost homes they want to buy, and ultimately, financial loss for everyone.”
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