Online agencies in the doldrums as market share stalls

There’s more bad news for online estate agencies this morning as a survey reveals that they have only a seven per cent market share.

The consultancy TwentyCi, which has issued its regular Property and Homemove Report for the second quarter of this year, says that online agencies enjoyed a 1.7 per cent growth in their market share for properties priced under £200,000.

But they suffered a huge 12.9 per cent drop in their share of properties worth between £350k and £1m, and a 10.1 per cent fall in properties over £1m.

As with the last TwentyCi report, there’s a significant north-south divide with online agents experiencing falling market share in the south of England, London and east of England.

There was what the consultancy calls “only modest growth” in the north east, Humberside, the north west, Scotland and Wales.

“This continuing trend highlights the appeal of online estate agents to homeowners selling lower-priced properties most typically found in northern parts of the country” the study says. 

“Online agents are still struggling to compete against the traditional high street agents in these regions and their transactions continue to correspond to the lower end of the market” it continues.

And Colin Bradshaw, TwentyCi’s chief customer officer, comments: “Online agent popularity continues to typically resonate with the lower-value end of the housing market and from primarily northern regions of the UK where more properties of this nature are located.”

Looking at the complete market of transactions handled by traditional as well as online agency, TwentyCi’s Q2 analysis shows a six per cent rise in property exchange volumes year on year to 992,000 homes. 

It says that while some sellers are showing signs of frustration indicated by 895,000 properties withdrawn from the market over the last 12 months, this was often temporary to change agent, rather than putting a move on hold for good.

“The current political climate has brought about an overall slower moving market; one which requires careful monitoring over the next few months. The overall picture is encouraging however, with signs of growth maintained for the three months to the end of June” says Bradshaw.

Homes valued at £300,000 and below performed best in Q2 with exchange growth ranging from eight to 14 per cent, except for the small number of properties worth less than £50,000 which fell by 53 per cent.

There was also further growth in exchanges at the top of the market with properties worth between £1m and 2m growing by nine per cent, £2m and £5m by five per cent, and £5m and over by seven per cent - although this growth was much lower than in Q1 earlier this year.