There has been a year-on-year spike in search interest for the term ‘cheap estate agent’, according to GetAgent.
GetAgent analysed data from Google Trends for a number of home seller and estate agency related search terms to reveal how seller interest has changed in the current market.
Within the estate agency category, ‘cheap fee’ searches have grown by 53% between January 2023 and January 2024.
At the same time, ‘high street estate agent’ was the only search term analysed by GetAgent to have seen a reduction, down 45% annually.
In addition, the search terms ‘best estate agent’ (+27%) and ‘local estate agent’ (+12%) saw an increase.
Colby Short, co-founder and CEO of GetAgent.co.uk, said: “In a time when selling a property is particularly tough, it’s more important than ever for vendors to instruct the very best agent they can find, but more and more vendors are searching for a cheap agent.
“Whilst this approach is wrong it is understandable why many vendors are making this mistake. To the untrained eye estate agents are a commodity.
“They often look the same, say the same things and all bring a Rightmove report “proving” they are the best.”
Short added: “Yet agents are not a commodity. Some are much better than others and a good one can get you a price for your home that will far outweigh the additional fee they charge you whilst also providing great support through an extremely stressful process. I
“t is vital to our industry that we all continue to make this point and hopefully we will see “best estate agent” searches surge next year.”
