Response to Russell Quirk’s accusation of “doom mongery”

I’ve been asked by an estate agency news publication for my response to Russell’s criticism of my house price expectations. I’ve sent the following to them:

“Here’s my response to Russell’s video (which I didn’t watch, but heard about):

My sole objective throughout my entire career has been to make it easier to move home and to boost transaction volumes and thus liquidity. This remains the case.

I haven’t ever said house prices will crash. I am repeatedly misquoted. (I challenged Russell for evidence of me saying house prices would crash, and he dishonestly misquoted a joke video I did reading out a viewer’s comment) https://x.com/moving_charlie/status/1755262088627241414?s=20

I have said, all along, that I expect house prices to slide gradually but significantly over 3 years, with large regional variations on the scale and timing of those falls. I have never said wait to buy. I’ve always said anyone who needs a home and can afford it should “buy now, but don’t overpay.” That remains the case.

Right now, agents are suffering a sharp drop in transaction volumes. This is largely due, as reported by many house price indices, to unrealistic price expectations by sellers. Yet agents continue to overprice. This is like taking out a gun and shooting a hole in your foot in a falling market, if you are an agent.

Countless agents admit to me, off the record, that they have seen much larger price falls than is being reported in the media, but they can’t state this publicly as it is understandably off-putting for their clients.

Russell is only interested in being right or wrong. I am only interested in reality and transparency, because it makes things easier for movers and agents. I’m not afraid of being wrong, and I often am.

I began my career in the city as a derivatives broker and so I have a slightly better grasp of macroeconomics (and apparently maths) than Russell does. His opinions are just that, opinions, and baseless. He talks the market up because that’s what agents are trained to do, no matter what. Remember how much he talked eMoov up, even as it went under? He’s apparently unable to apply objective reality when it comes to the housing market, and this doesn’t help anyone.

Anything other than transparency hurts transaction volumes, but agents who are addicted to lying about house valuations to win instructions don’t seem to get this, and they’re suffering accordingly.

I agree with Russell on many other topics.

It’s of no professional consequence to me either way what happens to house prices (although personally I lose out if they fall).

Through the Moving Home with Charlie channel, which gets around 500,000 views a month across all platforms, I am helping thousands of movers (and their agents) every month to actually get moves done that they otherwise wouldn’t have. “Your channel gave me the confidence to go and buy a home which otherwise I wouldn’t have done.”

Just yesterday I had a message from a seller who said “Two agents valued my home at £350,000, so I put it on the market at that price, before I found your channel. Once I heard your advice on pricing, I instructed my agents to drop the price to £300,000, and a week later I’d had 8 viewings, 5 offers and sold it for £320,000, which wouldn’t have happened if I’d followed the agents advice, so thank you, it worked.”

I have had the privilege of working with hundreds of award winning agents from around the country for nearly 25 years, large and small.

In that time I have witnessed first hand how intelligent agents operate. How they get clients properties sold in 4 weeks at better prices than other agents, and at better fees. I can help open minded movers and agents to get a better result.

There is a growing group of new, open-minded and forward thinking agents who are looking at the industry’s complete lack of progress or innovation and realising that the ‘old guard’, of which Russell is a high profile member, have led the industry into it’s worst performing state for decades, by any metric, fees, time to sale, time to exchange, you name it.

And yet these “industry leaders” are still out there in complete denial of their failure to have made any tangible difference whatsoever.

Propertymark has presided over a long period of regression in agency standards. Over a decade of “being in talks” with industry groups and government groups, yet the only actual legislation change (in lettings) has gone against the industry’s interests. They are a failure as an industry body.

Primelocation set out to serve agents, failed, and was sold out.

OnTheMarket has done the same and is now the 3rd major portal to be owned and/or controlled by American investors, who do not care about UK home movers or social mobility.

Our industry is infested with a hard core minority of parasites who place personal profit above everything else, and force the industry into playing a toxic, self-defeating game.

Russell loves to show off about his expensive lifestyle, but what has he done to help estate agency? I know of nothing.

I am directly helping more transactions get done. I am educating movers as to the importance of their choice of agent, and actually making a difference.

I am constantly championing high service, high fee agency, because it’s what I know is best for movers. I’m calling out the widespread dirty tricks that bad agents use, as part of my campaign to end bad estate agency.

Russell is the king clown of cheap estate agency, demonstrated by his ludicrous attempt with eMoov. Russell thought you could sell houses for a few hundred quid. Russell burned through millions of investors money, AND consumer money, happily taking £800 off people whose homes he didn’t sell. He was a Bruce Brothers fan boy and wanted to be just like them.

It defeats me why any agents have any respect for Russell whatsoever, other than he says what they want to hear.

Luckily, the home-moving public see him for the self-promoting banana that he is, and ignore him.

I’ll happily continue with my ‘clown’ work, because it’s helping more movers and agents than Russell ever has. Unless he can show otherwise, I suggest he has a rethink on his career direction. Who does he actually serve?

On the topic of house prices, all I can do is state in good faith what I see happening, and what I expect to happen. I did call the top of the market, no commentators agreed at the time. I did warn that 2023 would be a difficult year, I was ignored. The economy is, regrettably, in a perilous state and it’s clear that many more people are struggling to make ends meet as job layoffs continue to be announced on a daily basis.

Anyone working in property who doesn’t understand the mathematically-certain effect that this will have on the housing market will get burned. It just takes a long time to work through the system.

Anything that improves affordability is good for society, and for estate agents’ pipelines.

I’m here to champion the importance of what good agents do, and how critical it is to find them if you’re a seller.

I’m not aware of anyone else who does more to promote good estate agency to the public.

Russell is an embarrassment to the industry. He doesn’t understand economics or technology. He’s a walking advert for the need for estate agency qualifications.

But I wish him all the best, and continue to share some of his views on other matters.

I invite any agents who believe in integrity, trust and transparency to join me with bestagent.co.uk and it’s forthcoming open-source House Price Index of recent exchange prices, which will help end overvaluing and boost transaction volumes again, which is beneficial for everyone.