eMoov tests new no sale-no fee business model...

One of the country’s most prominent online estate agencies is trying to confound critics by offering a no sale-no fee model, which also allows deferred payment instead of up-front fees.

eMoov says it is piloting a deferred payment scheme with a ‘no sale-no fee’ element as part of what the agency’s chief executive Russell Quirk calls the firm’s “ever agile approach”.

He says: “The proposition is two fold and gives sellers a unique choice: No sale-No fee at £1,194 including vat on completion. Or £594 including VAT deferred for 12 months or at completion, interest free. Absolutely nothing to pay upfront with either.”

Quirk told Estate Agent Today that there would be “no draconian sole agency tie ins, no penalty fees [and] no insistence on additional products or services being purchased.”

He says that if these variations on the online agency model are adopted permanently they “should most certainly scare the estate agency establishment - even more than they already are.”

Critics of online agents have long cited a weakness in the online model being that vendors lose their upfront payment if their home is not sold - effectively costing them more, not less, than a traditional High Street agent.

However, eMoov seeks to address that, and follows hot on the heels of the deferred scheme from YOPA - Your Own Property Agent - which we reported on last week.

YOPA has three levels of service at £510, £630 and £870; to sign up for any of these, vendors have to enter into a deferred-payment scheme which involves passing over credit details and passing a creditworthiness. Sellers pay at different points during the marketing, depending on whether they want additional services, each of which has to be paid for.