A long time ago, the song went "The times, they are a'changin'" ... and they still are. Back in the 60's, TV was 2D (and usually in black and white), there was no FaceBook, 12 miles to the gallon was good mileage (at least in the States), and the only electric cars you could find anywhere were on Scalextric tracks.
Many things that were the preserve of the annuls of science fiction twenty years ago are now taken for granted day to day by us all. Just think, the UK now has more mobile phones than it has people, an invention that as recently as the 1980's was then a truly head turning sight. (According to Nationmaster.com the UK has 1.2 phones per person. However Macau is the cell phone capital of the world with more than 1700 mobile 'phones per 1000 head of population).
Fractions of phones notwithstanding, who'd have thought - even two years ago - that people would now be sitting in a shop with their feet in tanks of water while fish nibbled dead skin off their toes? And as for the next couple of years? Dog lick massages? Potato peelings replacing petrol? Selling houses without handing over heaps of cash to your local estate agent?
Hold that thought. Yes, that one - the one about not having to visit an office in town that could be mistaken for the lobby of a bijou boutique hotel or - if it doesn't have a Perrier fridge in the corner - the underground hideaway of your average Bond villain. The thought about avoiding those shiny but insincere smiles above shiny suits and below shiny casually-gelled hair - yes, that one. And if you could just think a little harder now, please ... this one's not going to be easy, but if you could just try and entertain the idea of saving thousands of pounds in agency fees ... no, sorry - that was too far-fetched, wasn't it?
LED screen implants for discreetly watching Sky Sports 24/7 are a bit of a way off yet, but just as we've come to accept feeding fish with surplus toe flesh as normal, there's the definite chance that we'll accept that there could just be another way of buying and selling our homes. It will take a while, but it might just happen in our lifetimes.
Online estate agents. Heard of them? Probably not. Currently just 2% or so of the homes listed on the likes of Rightmove each month are via agents that are purely internet based. Real people in real offices but without the expensive overheads. They operate via offices just like regular estate agents but from just one of them. The cost savings that result from such an economy of scale are massive. By way of example, Countrywide are the country's largest estate agent with 900 or so branches. That's 900 rents, 900 lots of business rates, light, heat, and so on. And that's why 'High Street' estate agents charge you so much.... because you have to cover their colossal costs. Countrywide's average selling fee is around 3600.
Since over 90% of people looking to buy property do it online these days, instead of trekking into town and visiting agency after agency after agency, those Bond-villain-style hotel-lobby offices (and the bills that go with them) are now a bit surplus to requirements.
In 1995 a certain airline launched a new concept with the promise of short haul flights for less than the cost of your cab fare to the airport. People were suspicious. Would the wings fall off? Would you turn up to find that your seat had been sold to someone else? Twice. Easy Jet wasn't just a low cost revolution in its industry. It was an online low cost revelation that saved the consumer a small fortune and opened up air travel to everyone.
Fast-forward fifteen years from then - all suspicion about EasyJet had evaporated - or at least it had for its 49 million passengers, each with their own seat on one of 175 aircraft ... and between them generating an annual turnover of 3 BILLION. Is it any surprise that other airlines have leapt onto the discount travel bandwagon? Here was a business model that worked.
Back down on earth, it might just take less than fifteen years to get used to the idea of using internet estate agencies like eMoov.co.uk to buy and sell their property. But then again ... it might not.
Many things that were the preserve of the annuls of science fiction twenty years ago are now taken for granted day to day by us all. Just think, the UK now has more mobile phones than it has people, an invention that as recently as the 1980's was then a truly head turning sight. (According to Nationmaster.com the UK has 1.2 phones per person. However Macau is the cell phone capital of the world with more than 1700 mobile 'phones per 1000 head of population).
Fractions of phones notwithstanding, who'd have thought - even two years ago - that people would now be sitting in a shop with their feet in tanks of water while fish nibbled dead skin off their toes? And as for the next couple of years? Dog lick massages? Potato peelings replacing petrol? Selling houses without handing over heaps of cash to your local estate agent?
Hold that thought. Yes, that one - the one about not having to visit an office in town that could be mistaken for the lobby of a bijou boutique hotel or - if it doesn't have a Perrier fridge in the corner - the underground hideaway of your average Bond villain. The thought about avoiding those shiny but insincere smiles above shiny suits and below shiny casually-gelled hair - yes, that one. And if you could just think a little harder now, please ... this one's not going to be easy, but if you could just try and entertain the idea of saving thousands of pounds in agency fees ... no, sorry - that was too far-fetched, wasn't it?
LED screen implants for discreetly watching Sky Sports 24/7 are a bit of a way off yet, but just as we've come to accept feeding fish with surplus toe flesh as normal, there's the definite chance that we'll accept that there could just be another way of buying and selling our homes. It will take a while, but it might just happen in our lifetimes.
Online estate agents. Heard of them? Probably not. Currently just 2% or so of the homes listed on the likes of Rightmove each month are via agents that are purely internet based. Real people in real offices but without the expensive overheads. They operate via offices just like regular estate agents but from just one of them. The cost savings that result from such an economy of scale are massive. By way of example, Countrywide are the country's largest estate agent with 900 or so branches. That's 900 rents, 900 lots of business rates, light, heat, and so on. And that's why 'High Street' estate agents charge you so much.... because you have to cover their colossal costs. Countrywide's average selling fee is around 3600.
Since over 90% of people looking to buy property do it online these days, instead of trekking into town and visiting agency after agency after agency, those Bond-villain-style hotel-lobby offices (and the bills that go with them) are now a bit surplus to requirements.
In 1995 a certain airline launched a new concept with the promise of short haul flights for less than the cost of your cab fare to the airport. People were suspicious. Would the wings fall off? Would you turn up to find that your seat had been sold to someone else? Twice. Easy Jet wasn't just a low cost revolution in its industry. It was an online low cost revelation that saved the consumer a small fortune and opened up air travel to everyone.
Fast-forward fifteen years from then - all suspicion about EasyJet had evaporated - or at least it had for its 49 million passengers, each with their own seat on one of 175 aircraft ... and between them generating an annual turnover of 3 BILLION. Is it any surprise that other airlines have leapt onto the discount travel bandwagon? Here was a business model that worked.
Back down on earth, it might just take less than fifteen years to get used to the idea of using internet estate agencies like eMoov.co.uk to buy and sell their property. But then again ... it might not.
About the Author:
eMoov makes it simple to sell your property online. You can sell your home quickly and with the benefit of cheap estate agents fees. All properties are displayed at UK's top 25 property websites including Rightmove and Prime Location, reverying 170 million buyer visitors every month. Plus as Internet estate agents, their low cost service reveryes millions of people 24/7.. Check here for free reprint license: Internet Estate Agents - Making Life Easy For Us!.
No comments:
Post a Comment