Estate Agents Work for the Seller, Not for You
This isn't a complaint about estate agents. They do the job they're paid to do. The problem is that buyers assume that job includes advising them.
The estate agent showing you round an investment property is instructed by the seller, paid by the seller, and legally acting for the seller. Their duty is to get the best price and terms for the person selling. Nothing about that is hidden or improper. It’s the contract. The problem is that most buyers behave as though the agent is a neutral guide to the transaction, and they aren’t.
I’m Connor, and Bullseye Properties Ltd is a buyer’s agent working only for the buyer across South Yorkshire and North Nottinghamshire. I take no commission from sellers or agents, which is the entire reason I can say what follows.
Who actually pays the estate agent?
The seller. An estate agent is instructed by the seller under an agency agreement, and is normally paid a percentage of the sale price on completion, typically somewhere between 1% and 3% plus VAT depending on the type of agreement.
That fee structure matters more than the fact of it. The agent’s fee goes up when the price goes up. On a £90,000 sale at 1.5%, the agent earns £1,350. Get the seller £5,000 more and they earn £1,425. The incentive is small in cash terms but it points in one direction, and it is not yours.
Estate agents in England do have obligations to buyers. They must not mislead you, under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations, and they must belong to a redress scheme so you have somewhere to complain. Being obliged not to mislead you is a floor. It is a long way from acting in your interest.
What changes when nobody in the room is on your side
Three things, and I see all three regularly.
Gross yield gets quoted as though it means something. “It’s on for £70,000 and it’ll rent for £600, that’s over 10%.” That figure ignores the mortgage, management, maintenance, insurance, voids and the fact that the £600 came from the asking rent of a similar listing rather than what anything on that street has actually let for. The difference between yield and return is where most of the money hides.
The comparison set is curated. You get shown what the agent has, not what’s best for you. That’s not deceit, it’s inventory. But it means the question “is this a good deal” quietly becomes “is this the best of the four things this office is currently selling”.
Pressure arrives at the decision point. Another viewing booked for Saturday. Someone else interested. A vendor who wants to move quickly. Sometimes that’s all true. It’s also the moment a buyer is least equipped to check the numbers, and it works.
The maths nobody runs in the room
Here’s a version of a conversation I’ve had more than once. A property at £50,000, letting at £425 a month. Headline gross yield 10.2%, which sounds excellent.
Then the costs:
| Line | Annual |
|---|---|
| Rent, £425 a month | £5,100 |
| Void allowance, one month in twelve | -£425 |
| Management at 10% plus VAT | -£612 |
| Maintenance at 10% of rent | -£510 |
| Landlord insurance | -£250 |
| Safety certificates and compliance | -£250 |
| Mortgage interest, £37,500 at 4.75% interest only | -£1,781 |
| Net profit | £1,272 |
Cash in, at 25% deposit plus stamp duty at additional property rates, legals and a survey, lands around £16,500. So £1,272 on £16,500 is a 7.7% return on cash, which is respectable, and nothing like 10.2%.
Now run it on the version where the property needs £8,000 of work you didn’t spot, or where it sits empty for three months because the street doesn’t let easily. The margin is gone. As I’ve said to people before, if you’re making a thousand pounds a year on a £50,000 investment, you’d have been better off in a cash ISA with none of the risk and none of the phone calls.
The agent isn’t lying when they say 10.2%. They’re quoting gross yield, which is a real number that answers a different question.
To be fair to estate agents
They’re doing the job they’re instructed to do, and most of them do it competently. A good agent knows their local market better than almost anyone, manages a chain properly, and keeps a sale together when it wobbles. I work with agents constantly and the relationships matter, because being known as a buyer who completes gets you shown things early.
The unfairness isn’t in the agent’s conduct. It’s in the asymmetry. The seller has a professional. The buyer, in most residential transactions, has nobody except a solicitor who arrives after the price is already agreed and whose job is the legal title, not the value.
That gap is the whole reason I built this business. Estate agents aren’t measured on what happens to a buyer after completion, so it isn’t what they optimise for.
What a buyer can actually do about it
You don’t need me to fix most of this. You need to change what you rely on.
- Never use the listing’s rent figure. Ask two letting agents who aren’t selling you the property what it would actually let for, and ask what’s let on that street in the last six months.
- Get the price ladder. How long has it been on, and has it been reduced? A property listed at £125,000, reduced to £109,500, tells you something the current asking price doesn’t. I bought 23 Beech Grove on exactly that ladder, at £90,000.
- Ask why they’re selling. Probate, relocation, a chain that’s collapsed once already. Motivation is worth more than negotiation technique.
- Do the net calculation before you view, not after. If it doesn’t work on paper it won’t work because the kitchen is nice.
- Stress test it. Run the numbers at the current mortgage rate plus 1.5 to 2%. If the deal only survives at today’s rate, the margin isn’t there.
- Be slow at the pressure point. Anything genuinely worth buying survives you taking two days to check it.
Questions I get asked about this
Are buyer’s agents just estate agents on the other side? Structurally, yes, and that’s the point. Same market knowledge, opposite instruction. The difference that matters is who pays, because that’s what the advice bends toward. What a buyer’s agent is covers the mechanics.
Isn’t the agent legally obliged to pass on information? They must pass all offers to their client, the seller, and they must not give you misleading information. Neither obligation requires them to tell you the rent estimate is optimistic or that the street two roads over is better value.
Can I just negotiate hard myself? Plenty of people do, and some do it well. The harder part isn’t the negotiation, it’s knowing what the property is genuinely worth on that specific street, which is what gives you the confidence to hold a number. How to negotiate goes through it.
Do agents dislike buyer’s agents? The good ones don’t. I bring buyers who have funds, who’ve done the numbers, and who don’t waste viewings. That’s easier work than a first time investor who pulls out at week six.
How do I know you’re not doing the same thing to me? Ask me how I’m paid, and check it. My fee is fixed, agreed in writing before I start any work, and staged so that most of it depends on you actually completing. I take nothing from the seller, the agent, a broker or a solicitor. What it costs sets it out.
What I’d do next
If you’re viewing something at the moment, run the net calculation above on it before your next conversation with the agent. It takes ten minutes and it changes the conversation.
If you’d rather have someone on your side of the table for the whole thing, tell me what you’re trying to buy. If I’m not the right fit, I’ll say so on the call rather than three weeks in.