How long can EAs survive?

zappahey

Browsing Rightmove last night, as you do, I was quite surprised to note that, in the area we're looking at, only 1 house has gone SSTC in the last two weeks.

This is an area which "supports" 5 EAs, 4 chains and 1 local.

Between 1 sale and 1 rental agreed, there doesn't seem to be much to go round and you wonder how much longer they can all survive.

Pimperne1

zappahey wrote: »

Browsing Rightmove last night, as you do, I was quite surprised to note that, in the area we're looking at, only 1 house has gone SSTC in the last two weeks.

This is an area which "supports" 5 EAs, 4 chains and 1 local.

Between 1 sale and 1 rental agreed, there doesn't seem to be much to go round and you wonder how much longer they can all survive.

There have been far too many EAs in our high streets for quite a long time. Happy to have a bit of healthy competition but to have five or six in small towns is just over the top. A healthy weeding out of EAs will be no bad thing (and there are a lot more deserving people likely to be losing their jobs in the very near future).

Really2

By Renting houses not just selling them?

Pimperne1

Really2 wrote: »

By Renting houses not just selling them?

Not a bad point. They can rent out one property many times over the period during which they could resell the same property (and if they are managing the property too then that could be quite lucrative).

Generali

I guess the chains get propped up by the owners and the indies go to the wall.

tyllwyd

I get the impression from our EA that things are really patchy - they'll be rushed off their feet for a few weeks, then practically nothing, then busy again. So I guess that if over the year as a whole they make enough sales, it should be enough. Chains falling through must be a real problem though.

We had a lot of EA chains in our area that closed a few years ago, and several independents opened up to fill the gap - I guess as long as things don't get drastically worse or too many new EAs open up, most of them will probably continue ticking over.

chucky

Really2 wrote: »

By Renting houses not just selling them?

yes but zappahey seems to know the exact amount of business each estate agent does. no wait.

he obviously knows about how many properties they manage, he obviously knows about the past rentals that they are still receiving rental commission for and all the other business an estate agent does.

lostinrates

Really2 wrote: »

By Renting houses not just selling them?

My parents' place is on the market with one of the strong regional agents. They also have a lettings dept. There is one on the rental and sales market been available to sell then rent then both for years now. Rentals have always been really strong in the area, particularly for people moving to the area/wanting something near a public school for the weekends but still ''near enough'' to London/SE. The ''normal'' rentals are still ''ok'' but realtively static it would seem. Those going for the slightly more ''swish'' market are suffering (sales or rental). Speaking to agents I know well the financial brackets have changed over the crisis. It was the over 1.5 million houses still selling easily initially, with a real stick between that and the ones in the million bracket, that moved up to being the over 1.8 million last year. The ones over £250k and under a million are not only selling rarely, and not renting out easily, but are just dropping off the market to sit empty. My parents' place went on the market about a year ago...had a few viewings. But ...I don't think it will sell at the price they want: there tranche of the market where they are is static, and theirs is far from the nicest house in it. (Personally I would have marketed theirs as a bungalow gobble prospect) . The market in that area rocketed in the last decade, its one of those particular ''boom'' areas....eg friends bought for £250k and after a bit over a decade sole for 1.8 mil, having not even change the kitchen (not a special one) or the bathroom. They made new curtains and did some garden landscaping (that the new owners rightly ripped out!). They maintained it excellently tbf, but the market did something crazy in that area. Just a bit further west a house we looked at in late 90s for 250 k was being marketed again over the last five years, with different agents. we saw it go as high as 1.4 million with less land, and now back down to (I think) 850k. The 850k would be a fair reflexion of costs of substantial structural improvement done there.

PasturesNew

I wish there was a script somebody'd write, like the PB/PS ones, where you could select an agent, see how many they've got on their books and see how many have "sold". It'd be a pen/paper exercise to try to do that at the moment.

Loughton_Monkey

I've noticed that whereas, about 6 months ago, virtually all my local EA's were sitting there - empty shops - one (or maybe two) people there head on hand, other hand on mouse, presumably twittering their friends or whatever.

Now, I find 4 or more in most of them - and I've even seen a few of them on the phone....

I've put this down to the 'killing' they're all making on rents. Sandwich Boards outside "Are you getting the correct rent? Come in and check...."

Rents round this area £24K plus.... [at least that's right for 2001. Probably more, now]. That's £3,600 a year.

Gin & Tonics all round....

Pimperne1

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

I've noticed that whereas, about 6 months ago, virtually all my local EA's were sitting there - empty shops - one (or maybe two) people there head on hand, other hand on mouse, presumably twittering their friends or whatever.

Now, I find 4 or more in most of them - and I've even seen a few of them on the phone....

I've put this down to the 'killing' they're all making on rents. Sandwich Boards outside "Are you getting the correct rent? Come in and check...."

Rents round this area £24K plus.... [at least that's right for 2001. Probably more, now]. That's £3,600 a year.

Gin & Tonics all round....

Although if someone has had the nouseto buy a place that gets that kind of rent then they probably think they don't need some spotty EA to manage it for them.