... and then fires indiscriminately into the property industry crowd, injuring both sell-it-yourself websites and estate agents. According to a missive from Brightsale boss Endy Etches, Tesco is doomed to failure.

Selling a home is a very big deal, and the feedback we have had over the past six months is that people do not feel confident in going it completely alone. They need the support not just of sophisticated online tools, but also of a properly trained single point person who can negotiate with buyers, deal with solicitors, chase up chains and attend to the many, many other aspects of completing a sale.

Estate agents... don't get too comfortable:

The old style traditional estate agent is similarly in danger of going the way of high street travel agents. The costs of running a branch network have to be passed on to customers, and the lack of investment in online tools by the vast majority of these agencies has left them unresponsive to customer demands in an online world. The future is not bricks and mortar (and logoed cars and flashy suits) any more than it is ‘sell it yourself'.

Unsurprisingly, according Etches, the future's bright, the future's, er, Brightsale... a low-cost, alternative estate agency model, operating online and out of a Manchester call-centre, charging 0.5% (including legal fees). The Rat and Mouse has written about Brightsale before... and we've remained impressed with their forward-looking approach to the industry... a bit of Redfin-style lateral thinking and investment in more than online acreage. Whether Etches will be proved right remains to be seen.

Property portals don't freak out/do freak out over Tesco [July 2, 2007]
Tesco's piece of estate agency pie [June 29, 2007]
Wow - online or off? [June 8, 2007]

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