Online agent or high street agent
The online against high street argument is usually had in the wrong terms. It gets framed as cheap against expensive, or modern against traditional, and neither of those is the thing that decides how your sale goes.
Every agent worth using is online now. Every agent worth using lists on the major portals, takes decent photographs and answers email. The differences that actually matter are elsewhere.
When the money changes hands
This is the real fork in the road.
Some agents are paid when the property completes. Some are paid up front, or on a deferred basis that is due whether or not you ever sell. Both models are legitimate and both are used by good businesses, but they create different incentives and you should know which one you are signing up to.
If the fee is due regardless, the agent has been paid for listing your home. If the fee only arrives on completion, they have been paid for selling it. Ask plainly: if this never sells, what do I owe you? The answer tells you what you are actually buying.
Who does the viewings
Some models expect you to show people round your own home. Plenty of sellers are perfectly happy to, and some prefer it. But it is worth knowing in advance, because it is a real job, it happens at inconvenient times, and it is difficult to negotiate with somebody you have just made a cup of tea for.
If viewings are included, ask who does them and whether it is the same person each time. If they are not included, ask what it costs to add them.
The eight weeks after an offer
Agreeing a sale is the halfway point, not the end. What follows is solicitors, searches, surveys, mortgage offers and a chain of other people’s arrangements, and a meaningful share of agreed sales fall apart somewhere in there.
That stretch is where the difference between agents shows most clearly, and it is almost impossible to assess from a website. Ask both kinds of agent the same question: who chases the chain, how often, and how will I hear about it? A named person who rings you is a different product from a portal you log into, and the honest answer is that some people want one and some want the other.
What local knowledge is and is not
Local knowledge is oversold and it is not nothing. It will not conjure a buyer out of thin air. It does help with the small stuff: pricing a street that behaves differently from the one behind it, knowing which schools matter to which buyers, and recognising a name in a chain.
The test is whether an agent can tell you something specific about your street that you did not already know. Some can. Some cannot, and are perfectly good at everything else.
If you are letting rather than selling
The same fork appears, and the stakes are longer running. A tenancy is a relationship that lasts, and the question of who a tenant rings at nine at night about a leak is not a small one. Online letting models can work well for a confident landlord who wants to manage the property themselves. They work less well for somebody who assumed they had bought a management service and had not.
What we would say
Stop comparing offices. Compare when the fee falls due, who does the viewings, and who chases the sale after the offer. Those three answers will separate any two agents faster than anything on their website.