Property website boss: Gazumping can end if we link buyers and sellers

Gemma Young and her brother Paul founded Settled in January last year
Nika_Bondareva

An online property platform says it can banish gazumping in London by encouraging personal interaction between buyers and sellers.

Settled allows both parties to arrange viewings and negotiate without a third party.

Co-founder Gemma Young hopes this will stop buyers’ offers being turned down for a higher sum at the 11th hour.

The ex-Google worker, 35, said: “In the traditional model, there’s no trust or loyalty between the buyer and seller. Our model means they can have open conversations about their budget.

“We see a time where gazumping won’t exist on our platform and since we launched in January 2016, we’ve reduced property fall-through rates to seven per cent, as opposed to the normal 33 per cent.”

Settled charges owners a £499 flat fee to sell their property and arranges photographs, descriptions and promotion on sites such as Rightmove and Zoopla. Ms Young, who set the business up with her brother Paul, 32, a qualified mortgage adviser, said it can save sellers £5,000 compared with an estate agent or other online services.

Although other platforms matching buyers and sellers exist, such as eMoov and Purple Bricks, Ms Young said Settled’s platform is the best value, more accurate and emphasises personal communication.

She said its valuations are calculated using three million data sources, including the Land Registry, and that most of its properties receive the asking price in about two weeks.

“We find people don’t put in cheeky low offers out of respect,” she said.

The highest uptake has been in Camden, Wandsworth and Brent. The biggest transaction was £2.48 million for a three-bedroom house in Belgravia. The cheapest was a £249,000 one-bedroom flat in Elephant and Castle. The current average list price is £532,000.

Ms Young said Settled’s data shows that more than half of buyers put an offer in directly with the vendor because they had met them previously.

Likening it to home rental site Airbnb, she said: “When I stay somewhere with Airbnb, the fact I connect with the person who owns that home enriches my experience. It’s about connecting people and removing the piggy in the middle.

“Homebuying and selling is really stressful and we want it to be really joyful. You can go through the complete process of buying or selling a home from your mobile phone.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in