An online property site is disrupting the real estate industry by slashing fees, and empowering owners. Think of Yopa.co.uk (Your Online Property Agent) as the Air BnB for the property market. It’s leading a long overdue overhaul of an industry equated with used cars in the UK. Americans may love to joke about lawyers, but in Britain, it’s real estate agents who get a bad wrap. That’s because they’re not regulated in the same way they are in the US. In fact, they’re not regulated at all. Officially, anyone can be a real estate agent, without any qualifications. Many get their training on the job. Only the most reputable companies fund classes through a licensed industry organization. Whether an agent has any expertise or not, the agency they work for charges an average of 2 percent on any property sale.
Two percent may sound like a bargain, but in many cases, an agent does little more than an appraisal, take and post pictures and floor plans to online sites and then wait for the offers to come in.
The imbalance in service provided versus fees paid is what led Daniel Attia to set up Yopa. The 26-year old entrepreneur, together with his partners collectively have decades of experience in the property market. They don’t think realtors are earning their keep. Yopa is an online home buying and selling service with a simple, stratified fee structure, putting control in the hands of homeowners. The site went live in January and is creating a buzz in the UK’s billion dollar bricks and mortar business.
London’s property market is so hot, it’s pushing startups out of commercial properties, and over-bidding is routine for residential. Even agents have gotten carried away. Some charge a fee just to place an offer.
Attia and his business partners have seen how it works from the inside. They’re also young and agile enough to know there’s a better, more democratic way to do business. Crucially, they also know that if they don’t disrupt the traditional, heavily fee-based way homes are bought and sold – someone else will.
“This is the last real archaic industry that that really hasn’t been touched for many years. It was just waiting for someone to come and really change and disrupt it,” Attia says.
Yopa replaces the estate agent model. The most significant difference is that customers conduct viewings.
“We don’t think anyone’s more equipped to sell their home than owners themselves. They know the local schools and the attributes of a neighbourhood.”
Yopa runs background checks on every potential buyer, using photo IDs and utility bills, so vendors can turn away anyone who may pose a security risk.
Clients choose from three different tiers of service, based on how much or how little they want Yopa to be involved. The transparent model simplifies the process, creating a clear pricing structure. It also provides built-in support for the most unpleasant parts of the process: negotiation, mortgages, proof of financing, and legal admin. The most basic package covers online listings, buyer checks, a viewing calendar, and offer negotiation. The most a client will ever pay is $1360 (£870), which includes a soup to nuts service whose main differentiator is a property manager, premium listing, and professional description. There are no extras, and no hidden fees.
In the UK, a property owner enlisting Yopa to sell their home, based on an average home price of $430, 000 will save as much as $8,000.
Attia and his partners sound, in theory, at least, like champions for home buyers and sellers.
“It’s crazy the fees they’re charging, especially for something so centralized because of the three main search platforms in the UK, where 98 percent of buyers start their property searches.”
Because Yopa takes a flat fee, rather than a percentage, negotiation assistance tends to drive the transaction forward, rather than stalling it with unrealistic price expectations on either side. One owner sold his house through Yopa in just two months. It had been on the market for 10 months with a traditional agent and no offers.
For Attia, the vision isn’t only about taking the sting out of agents fees, it’s also about stepping up customer service, which has the capacity to convert customers on that basis alone. Click on the website and, instantly, a live, instant message box pops up, engaging potential customers to answer questions. Yopa is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, through an out of office call center which can arrange viewings and handle technical issues. Customers can edit their property anytime, changing information, or price. It works for now, but Attia is clear about Yopa’s long term dedication to transforming the customer experience.
“One of the biggest challenges has been, on a small budget, creating a high level of customer service. Eventually, we want a member of our team to be in the office 24/7.”
It’s also about employing technology to reduce the stress of home buying and selling. Customers can use a service called Pay4Later to defer Yopa’s fee until they receive the proceeds of a sale.
They’re also working on a mobile app sort of like Tinder, that x-rays homes for sale in a neigbhourhood. As you walk down a street, available homes appear in the feed.
Attia says he and his partners dream of a vertical business model, where they handle all of the hassle, from the selling to the paperwork, the packing and the actual moving. The Yopa team plans to scale for other international markets, and Attia says, imagine a fully consumer-to-consumer based business, which could also include rentals.
“That was our original idea, but when it comes to the sale of your home, we notice people do want someone with experience to assist with what’s going to be the biggest transaction of your life. I’m hoping that one day when people are ready, it will go fully consumer to consumer.”
Yopa isn’t the first of its kind in the UK. There are a few other online property sales sites offering varying levels of service. But, as most entrepreneurs and property speculators know, success is all about timing. With parts of the UK’s property market climbing to sky-high levels, and an increasing appetite for businesses that cut out, or at least minimize the middleman, Yopa may have timed the market just right to lead the online property pack.
