There’s a bit of a battle going on within the estate agency industry between what have become known as traditional and online estate agents.

Those who deem themselves to be “online” agents dismiss we traditional types as unnecessary in the modern business arena, dinosaurs who want to talk to people face-to-face rather than type messages to each other.

I have long held the view that traditional estate agents quickly became online agents, too, and many years before the self-styled online agents turned up. We have enthusiastically embraced the technology that delivers to us multiple portals on which to display properties.

Those “online” estate agents believe traditional agents are stuck in a bygone age but of course the opposite is true. We are no luddites just because we carry on as we have always done – we have also enthusiastically embraced technologies as they have become relevant.

Those of us who have High Street branches where we can engage with the people who are essential to our business, are pioneers who long ago realised that keeping the office door open is far more effective than relying on people to make the right moves with their computer mouse.

True, you need an effective website these days to act as a mouse trap but you also need a way for people to have a proper conversation and feel comfortable in their relationship with you.

Those who like to call themselves online estate agents should really differentiate their service by calling themselves incomplete estate agents, the ones who offer half a service, frequently fail to give personal contact in a highly personal business unless it’s a paid-for extra, and don’t like to risk proving their ability by adopting a business model that sees the public paying nothing upfront in the way of agency fees but only a success fee on sale or letting completion.

So what is best for the customer? It’s an estate agent who sells houses, gives good value for money, conducts viewings, negotiates the deal, and steers it to a conclusion, something increasingly difficult when dealing with internet-only agents who get their fee whether or not the deal goes through and who frequently price all these activities, if they offer them at all, as extras.

In fact one of the big frustrations is that some online agents, once they have found you a buyer, lose interest. If I find a buyer for a home and my vendor still hasn’t got anywhere, I will scour the market to come up with the right property. Sometimes, we have to be home finders, too, to see the deal go through and this dedication to service is where we really earn our fee. Trying to get the online guys to do the same is virtually impossible.

Colin Shairp<