At last OFT begin to LOVE us Estate Agents

Besley Hill Estate Agents have discovered that The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) overall satisfaction with estate agents has improved, a study has found. The OFT has given a largely CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH to ESTATE AGENTS after a YEAR LONG STUDY into standards in the industry. The OFT's report found that most buyers and sellers are SATISFIED with their estate agent's service.

Market research estimated that the UK estate agency market was worth £6.7bn in 2007 from approximately 1.6 million transactions, although the subsequent house price slump has reduced this figure. The OFT found there was still little competition between traditional agents and the fees they charge to sellers, but stressed its report was not about "bashing traditional estate agents". It said it had found no evidence that estate agents colluded locally to keep up their commission rates.

The OFT studied internet property sites, price competition between agents, and consumer protection. While it found greater levels of satisfaction with agents, it added that consumers could benefit from a shake-up in the market. "Encouraging new business models, online estate agents and private seller platforms could put useful competitive pressure on traditional models and lead to better value for buyers and sellers," said John Fingleton, chief executive of the OFT. "The government can help this process by updating legislation and making sure regulation only applies where it is essential to protect consumers." It found that only 30% of house sellers shop around among estate agents.

The OFT said that existing legislation relating to traditional estate agents was "comprehensive and wide-ranging, and that further regulation was unnecessary". It found that in recent years people had become happier with the service that estate agents provided. In 2009, 88% of buyers and sellers were satisfied with the service they received.

A similar study by the OFT into the housing market - but only in England and Wales - in 2004 found that there was widespread dissatisfaction. The consumers' association Which? has accepted that self-regulation in the industry could be appropriate and work for buyers and sellers. At the moment anyone can open up an estate agency without any qualifications or permission from any official body. However, they can be banned by the OFT if they subsequently break the laws about describing a property incorrectly, handling a client's money, not declaring an interest in a property, or engage in some other form of dishonesty.

In a report published in June 2008, the former head of the OFT, Sir Bryan Carsberg, called for more regulation of the industry, a move welcomed by Adam Offer - Besley Hill's MD.

The OFT found that despite the rise of internet retailing, property selling was still dominated by traditional estate agents - both online and in the High Street. It said that a key innovation would be to make it easier for businesses and individuals to sell their homes online. The current laws mean that businesses that might simply introduce private sellers and buyers to each other are classified as estate agents, which imposes unnecessary costs and regulations on them and deters them from setting up. It pointed to the example of the giant supermarket group Tesco, which had set up and then closed its online Tesco Marketplace service because of the cost of checking the accuracy of the property descriptions posted by individual home sellers.

The OFT pointed out that in the US, online estate agents currently had 15% of the market, compared with only 2% in the UK. A specific change that the OFT is calling for the government to alter is the definition of an estate agency in the 1979 Estate Agency Act, so businesses that do not pose a risk to consumers are free from the burden and cost of the regulations. Source of news: BBC

Despite the chill prices rise say RICS

The UK housing market was frozen by the snowy weather in January, although prices continued to rise, according to Royal Institute Of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).
Buying and selling activity fell during the month owing to the extreme weather conditions, the RICS said.
However the group expects a "Spring bounce" in the coming months.
Surveys have suggested that the housing market has begun to recover from a sharp slump over the last six months.

'Chaos'

The heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures led to many people working from home at the start of January and, unsurprisingly, led to a slowdown in people viewing homes.
The RICS survey found that more surveyors reported that buyer inquiries fell, rather than rose, in January. This was the first result of this kind for 14 months. Enquiries from new buyers and instructions from sellers also dropped compared with December. "The cold snap in January clearly has a huge impact upon both supply and demand in the housing market with activity coming to a halt amid the seasonal chaos," said Ian Perry, of RICS. "Activity and interest is likely to pick up in the coming months as the market experiences a Spring bounce."

Upward trend?

In January, 32% more surveyors reported a rise than a fall in house prices, up from 30% in December. This was driven in part by a shortage in supply of better quality homes on the market - an issue which has been raised in commentary on other housing market surveys.
This could have a long-term effect on the UK housing market, as greater confidence of price rises could push more sellers into the market, only to cause prices to fall again. "House prices are likely to rise in the short term but if more supply continues to come onto the market, it is possible that the market could run out of steam in the latter part of the year," Mr Perry said. The picture is varied in different areas of the UK, the Rics survey found. Prices were generally on the up in London, the South East of England and the South West of England. However, more surveyors reported price falls than price rises in Wales, Yorkshire and Humberside, and the North of England. The number of surveyors expecting house prices to rise increased in January from 12% to 24% while the number of surveyors expecting sales to pick up over the next three months rose from 7% to 24%.