Agent comparison website bags £2.2m funding to build on TV backing

GetAgent, the comparison estate agency business, has secured £2.2m in investment from a consortium of investors including Channel 4.

The backers are led by Marchmont Ventures, backers of cars sales website Motorway, and follow in the footsteps of the Channel 4 Commercial Growth Fund - the investment arm of Channel 4 - which put a reported £1m into GetAgent last spring. 

GetAgent provides what it calls “unbiased and clear information on every one of the country’s agents” providing assessments of sales performance; time taken to sell; and price achieved relative to original asking price. 

A statement from GetAgent, which provided one of the first statistical critiques of the performance of Purplebricks back in 2017, says its new investment comes just as the online sector is hitting trouble with the closure of Hatched, Emoov and Tepilo, a profits warning from Purplebricks itself and reduced market share for most online players.

“Some 10 years since the appearance of the first cheap, online estate agents, the market share of traditional agents is a resolute 95 per cent despite hundreds of millions of pounds spent on TV and Google ads” says Colby Short, GetAgent’s co-founder and chief executive. 

“Whilst we remain ‘agent agnostic’, it is clear that the house selling public hugely favour the local, branch-based business that they know and trust and that is nearby enough to be accountable” he continues. 

“Our approach is to shine a light on all agents regardless and to ensure that we assist in helping the consumer make an informed decision when choosing someone to oversee the sale of their most valuable asset. Especially in less buoyant times for the housing market. Plainly, it’s not just about who’s ‘cheap.