The BBC’s recent Panorama investigation exposed what many in the financial industry have suspected for years: some of the UK’s most recognisable estate agents are not acting in the best interests of buyers or sellers, they’re acting in the best interests of their own sales pipelines.
Cash buyers were sidelined in favour of those willing to sign up for in-house mortgage and conveyancing services, not because they offered better deals, but because they offered better commissions.
Purplebricks, too, was caught incentivising staff to overvalue properties in order to win instructions, only to later push for price reductions, encouraging rushed decisions from buyers and trapping sellers in unrealistic expectations.
On the surface, these tactics may appear to be nothing more than less than pleasant sales strategies. But in reality, these acts are distorting the broader market, artificially pumping up asking prices and manufacturing urgency that intensifies demand.
In truth, estate agents are uniquely positioned as gatekeepers to the housing market.
When they start filtering viewings and offers based on cross-selling potential, rather than the strength of the offer, they’re no longer intermediaries – they’re market manipulators.
What’s perhaps most shocking to learn about is the scale.
Connells alone operates more than 1,200 branches.
If these practices are widespread across even a fraction of those, thousands of transactions every month could be affected.
This isn’t just unethical, it’s systemic behaviour that undermines the core principles of a free and fair market.
A gap in regulation that harms consumers
It’s no secret that as a mortgage broker, or any firm operating within the financial sector, you must follow strict regulations set out by trusted bodies like the Financial Conduct Authority.
These rules are in place to ensure that those operating within the sector provide clear and unbiased advice, carry out thorough affordability assessments, and remain fully accountable for any guidance given.
Crucially, this helps protect the greater interests of consumers.
Meanwhile, estate agents today currently operate under the 1979 Code of Practice for Estate Agents Act, which, as the BBC’s latest documentary reveals, is rarely being enforced and is treated more as a guideline than a restriction.
Put plainly, its regulation is both weak and inconsistent.
As a result, practices like conditional selling and pressuring buyers to use in-house services are sadly appearing to be more common and widespread than we’d like to admit, despite the obvious unethical concerns.
Following the BBC’s investigation, financial journalist Iona Bain explained her experience of how estate agents can currently work in the shadows to discriminate against buyers who don’t use their in-house services with “little fear of sanction.”
In this context, I believe Lisa Webb, consumer law expert from Which?, captured the crux of the issue when she reports: “This is absolutely something that should be against the law.”
In short: the systematic prioritisation of buyers who agree to use in-house mortgage and conveyancing services, even when higher offers come from cash buyers or those using independent brokers, is a clear conflict of interest that significantly disadvantages sellers and manipulates the market.
This current regulatory asymmetry is creating a race to the bottom, as mortgage brokers are required to follow strict FCA guidelines that ensure transparency, accountability, and fair treatment of clients, estate agents are faced with far weaker oversight.
Their incentives to maximise cross-selling opportunities often lead to unchecked conflicts of interest and poor outcomes for both buyers and sellers.
Ultimately, this leaves honest, regulated brokers left to compete in a market where opacity and pressure tactics are still commonplace.
A market too important to leave unregulated
The reality is that when estate agents play their own system and game for monetary gains without regulation, it doesn’t just damage trust in their own profession, it casts a shadow over the entire financial services industry.
And so, it seems almost too simple, but stronger regulation of estate agents is evidently needed to bridge the enormous gap that has been exposed by the BBC’s latest investigation, and to help restore market fairness, protect consumers, and build back the relationship of trust for financial services as a whole.
As a mortgage broker, I know and have first-hand experience that, for most people, buying a home is the single biggest financial decision they’ll ever make.
If the process feels rigged, or profit-driven at the expense of either the buyer or seller, it undermines public confidence in the entire housing and financial system.
As such, introducing proper regulation for estate agents would not only ensure a quality of protection for consumers, it would also help restore trust in the wider financial ecosystem.
Clear, enforceable rules banning discriminatory practices and requiring full disclosure of conflicts of interest should be introduced.
There needs to be a recognition of their profound impact on housing affordability and wider economic wellbeing.
For the housing market to improve and consumer trust and protection to be reinstated, the government must bring estate agents under a regulatory framework as robust as that which governs other financial services.
Gerard Boon is managing director at Boon Brokers