Lloyds state a 7% increase in estate agent fees, along with the continued rise in house prices, are the main driving factors behind the escalating cost of moving. Although recent amendments in Stamp Duty Tax may have gone a small way towards reducing the cost for some, it seems we are still forking out substantial amounts to our estate agents, whose fees account for an incredible 45% of the total cost of moving. If each house sold in 2014 had done so through an online agent with a small fixed fee such as eMoov.co.uk, it would have saved UK sellers £2.9 billion in estate agent fees.
Founder and CEO of eMoov.co.uk, Russell Quirk, commented:
“I don’t think there is a person in the land that will be surprised estate agents account for the majority of the cost involved in moving house. Even before the UK property market escalated at such an alarming rate, the high street sector were still raking in large amounts of sellers hard earned cash, for what is essentially very little work.
"With around £4,000 paid in fees on the average UK house, research we released in 2014 found that estate agents make around £870 an hour to sell a property, that’s more than a private doctor.
"It’s simply ludicrous that as house prices rise so do agents' fees, yet the rise is the result of a buoyant market, and the work agents do remains minimal! It must be time for change, percentage fees are draconian, unfair, and outdated.
"This greed and selfishness in the industry was a motivating factor behind the creation of eMoov, so sellers had an alternative route to sell without forfeiting large sums of cash from the resulting sale.
"Had all of the properties in 2014 been sold for £495+VAT, the eMoov standard price, UK sellers would have saved in the region of £2.9 billion.”
