We asked;

Why did you choose your estate agent?

Found them online - 43.01%

Local - 27.96%

Recommendation from friends or family - 16.13% 

Low fee - 6.45%

Other - 6.45%

What this means;

We were surprised that less than half of the people surveyed chose their estate agent due to a recommendation or simply due to it being their local high street branch if we’d asked this question going back 10 years ago you would expect the answer to be almost 100%. This just reiterates the importance of an online presence for high street agents. The fact that only 6.45% chose their agent due to their low fees shows that high street agents don’t have to worry too much about online-only agents taking vast amounts of market share due to their low fees alone. The “other” category consisted of answers such as using a student agent.

We asked;

Do you consider estate agents trustworthy in general?

Yes - 31.31%

No - 68.69%

What this means;

With previous studies in the industry categorising estate agents as so highly untrustworthy, 31.31% was higher than we expected. We did however find something really interesting in the qualitative data we collected. Only 4 of those who answered that they considered estate agents untrustworthy spoke about personal experience, the rest spoke predominantly about reputation and horror stories. Every single person who answered that they did find estate agents trustworthy did in fact mention personal experiences such as helpfulness and going the extra mile. Could this suggest that it is in fact the media who is dramatising the misconducts within the industry and causing all hardworking, honest estate agents to be tarred with the same brush?

Full survey report available here - Survey Results - Estate Agents