The most comprehensive study of UK estate agent reputation ever published. 20,061 offices, 19,239 Google-validated, every postcode area in the country.
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The UK estate agency industry has never had an independent, data-driven reputation benchmark. Vendors choose agents on shopfront feel, a neighbour's word, and the headline fee. The data the public actually leaves behind — hundreds of thousands of Google reviews, replies, star ratings, withdrawal rates — has never been pulled together in one place.
Reputation State of the Nation changes that. We've built the first complete map of UK estate agent reputation: every office, every postcode, validated against Google's own data, then joined to real transaction outcomes from TwentyEA Insight. The findings are unambiguous. Reviews matter. The agent you choose materially affects whether your property actually sells.
Four numbers that should reset how the industry — and consumers — talk about reputation.
Top-rated agents (4.5★ and above) close 2.5× more property sales per office per year than agents below 4.5★. It's a compounding effect: they win 77% more new listings, AND they retain 43% more of them. Bottom line — if your agent is highly rated, you're far more likely to actually sell.
The 4.5★+ band takes on roughly 3× more new instructions per office per year than agents below 4★, and 77% more than agents below 4.5★. The market is voting with its instructions — quietly, but decisively.
The 4.9-5★ band actually does less business than the band below it — not because the agents are worse, but because 45% of them sit on under 50 reviews. A handful of perfect early scores pin the rating at 5★. Read review count alongside star rating, always.
Nearly half of UK estate agents reply to fewer than half of their Google reviews. Engaged agents — those replying to 80%+ — carry higher ratings, retain more listings, and signal to both future clients and Google's local-search algorithm that someone is actually paying attention.
When you group estate agents by their average Google star rating, the highest-rated band — 4.9 to 5★ — actually processes fewer listings per office than the band just below it. The reason isn't quality. It's review volume.
The 4.9–5★ band processes 28% fewer listings per office than the 4.7–4.9★ band, despite being rated higher. Nearly half its members sit on fewer than 50 reviews — a handful of perfect early scores pinning the score at 5.0.
| Company's average Google rating | Listings per office per year |
|---|---|
| Under 4★ | 64 |
| 4★ – 4.5★ | 142 |
| 4.5★ and above | 196 |
4.5★+ agents take on 77% more business per office than agents below 4.5★, and roughly 3× more than agents below 4★.
| Company's average Google rating | Listings per office per year |
|---|---|
| Under 3★ | 36 |
| 3★ – 3.5★ | 52 |
| 3.5★ – 4★ | 76 |
| 4★ – 4.3★ | 118 |
| 4.3★ – 4.5★ | 171 |
| 4.5★ – 4.7★ | 194 |
| 4.7★ – 4.9★ (peak) | 222 |
| 4.9★ – 5★ (boutique band) | 160 |
| Company has… | Listings/office/yr if rated 4.9-5★ | Listings/office/yr if rated 4.7-4.9★ |
|---|---|---|
| Under 50 reviews | 75 | 113 |
| 50 – 100 reviews | 169 | 181 |
| 100 – 200 reviews | 232 | 241 |
| 200+ reviews | 304 | 325 |
The 5★ band looks weaker overall because 45% of its companies have under 50 reviews. In the 4.7-4.9★ band, only 21% are in that small-review category.
For genuine boutique operators (typically below 50 reviews) this is a feature, not a bug — they're deliberately running at lower volumes, and their perfect ratings reflect close attention to every client. Just don't confuse them with the large-scale market leaders. Star rating without review count is a half-finished sentence.
This is the single most consequential number in the report. Top-rated agents (4.5★+) don't just look better on Google — they actually close 2.5× more property sales per office per year than agents below 4.5★. The effect compounds: they win more listings AND retain a higher share of them.
| Per office, per year | Below 4.5★ | 4.5★+ | Uplift |
|---|---|---|---|
| Listings won | 111 | 196 | +77% |
| % retained (sold not withdrawn) | 38% | 54% | +43% |
| Sales actually completed | 42 | 106 | +153% |
If you're picking an agent, that compound effect is the difference between 42 deals closed in a year and 106. It's why "who you list with" is the most consequential decision a UK home-seller makes.
| Company's average Google rating | % retained (sold) | % withdrawn (unsold) |
|---|---|---|
| Under 3★ | 33.7% | 66.3% |
| 3★ – 3.5★ | 37% | 63% |
| 3.5★ – 4★ | 38.1% | 61.9% |
| 4★ – 4.3★ | 42.5% | 57.5% |
| 4.3★ – 4.5★ | 51.4% | 48.6% |
| 4.5★ – 4.7★ | 54.8% | 45.2% |
| 4.7★ – 4.9★ | 56.3% | 43.7% |
| 4.9★ – 5★ | 53.5% | 46.5% |
Reply rate is a softer signal than star rating, but it's far from neutral. Agents who reply to 80%+ of their reviews retain about 7% more listings than agents who reply to under 20%.
Reply rate vs. transaction outcomes. Agents in the 81–100% reply band win 277 listings per office per year and withdraw 39.8% — versus 171 listings and 47.9% for the 1–20% band.
| % of reviews replied to | Listings per office per year | % of listings withdrawn |
|---|---|---|
| 1 – 20% | 171 | 47.9% |
| 20 – 50% | 190 | 48.9% |
| 50 – 80% | 185 | 46.1% |
| 80 – 100% | 189 | 44.3% |
The real value of reply rate is what it signals to future clients reading reviews — and to Google's local-search ranking. An office that consistently replies signals attentiveness. One that ignores reviews signals indifference. The data shows the kind of agent who engages with feedback also happens to be the kind who closes more deals.
The complaint culture around estate agents is loud, but the data is quietly the other way. Across 18,562 UK estate-agent offices with Google ratings, 85% sit at 4.0★ or higher — and nearly half rate 4.7★ or above. When an agent is judged, they overwhelmingly get it right.
Distribution of Google ratings across 18,562 UK estate-agent offices, May 2026. The shape is left-skewed — most agents perform well, a small tail performs poorly.
But under that strong rating picture sits a structural problem: most agents don't have enough reviews to be statistically safe. Just over a fifth of UK offices (22%) have fewer than 20 Google reviews. 58% have under 100. For those agents, one bad customer experience can swing their rating by a full star — and one missed review request leaves their reputation hostage to the loudest voice.
Distribution of UK estate-agent offices by total Google review count. 22% are operating in the <20-review zone where a single one-star review materially moves their headline number.
The industry has earned its ratings. What it hasn't done — yet — is build the discipline of routinely asking for them. Agents who run a structured review-request process collect 5–10× the review volume of those who don't, and stabilise their ratings against single-event swings. That's not vanity. That's operational risk management. And it's an entirely solvable problem.
UK estate agents now rate higher than restaurants, banks, gyms, car dealers, healthcare and high-street retail on Google. The narrative that estate agents are "the worst" isn't supported by the underlying customer data.
UK estate agents (4.43★, our analysis) compared against DAC Group's 2022 cross-industry customer review benchmark study (16 sectors, US/Canada/Europe mixed cohort). Agents lead every other consumer-facing service tracked, including retail tied at 4.3★.
A caveat worth being honest about: estate agents handle far fewer transactions per year than restaurants or supermarkets, so the review volume isn't directly comparable. An office that lists 100 properties a year will never compete on review count with a restaurant serving 100 covers a day. The right way to read this chart isn't "agents collect more reviews than other industries" — they don't. It's "when an agent is judged, the verdict is stronger than nearly anyone else."
The follow-on question is the obvious one: if 85% of UK agents already rate 4★+, why does the industry's reputation in the wider public still lag the data? Two reasons. First, transaction-grade customer experiences are inherently rare — you list a property once every seven years on average — so personal experience builds slowly. Second, the loudest voices on social media and in tabloid coverage skew negative, while the satisfied majority quietly close their deal and move on. The Google reviews show what actually happened. The narrative shows what people remember.
Across the 19,239 estate agent offices with validated Google data, this is the baseline you can hold any individual office against.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Average Google reviews per office | 108 (median 63) |
| Average Google star rating | 4.43★ (median 4.63★) |
| Average reply rate | 52.4% (median 52.9%) |
| Agents replying to under half of reviews | 47.2% |
| Agents replying to 90%+ of reviews | 18.4% |
| Average 5★ review share | 80.8% |
| Average 1★ review share | 11.4% |
National averages hide a real geographic story. UK estate-agent ratings split cleanly along familiar lines — the South leads, the North trails — but the engagement picture is the opposite. Where agents rate lowest, they tend to reply most.
12 ONS standard regions ranked by average Google rating across 16,907 UK estate-agent offices.
The three highest-rated regions — South West (4.55★), South East (4.53★) and East of England (4.50★) — sit cleanly above the UK average. The four lowest-rated regions — Yorkshire & the Humber (4.30★), North East (4.31★), North West (4.34★) and Scotland (4.34★) — sit below it. London is in the middle at 4.43★, which lands exactly on the national mean.
It would be easy to read this as "Southern agents are better". The reality is more interesting. The South contains older, wealthier housing stock, longer-tenured agents, and customers writing reviews for purchases that were emotionally significant — conditions that tend to push ratings up. Northern markets have higher transaction velocity, shorter agency tenures, and — in some postcode areas — a more vocal review culture. The rating differential reflects market conditions more than agent quality.
Reply rate tells a different story — and it's the more flattering one for the North.
Regional reply rate (last 12 months) vs. average Google rating. Bubble size = number of offices. The four English regions with the lowest ratings are also four of the five highest on reply rate.
The North East replies to 54.6% of reviews in the last 12 months — the highest of any region — yet sits second-lowest on average rating. The West Midlands is similar: high engagement (52.9%), lower rating (4.34★). The pattern suggests that agents in markets where ratings are structurally tougher are working harder to engage with feedback. They're trying to climb the rating curve from the other end.
Northern Ireland is the outlier at the bottom-left of the chart — 33.6% reply rate, 4.39★ rating. It's the smallest cohort (469 offices) and the lowest-engaging of the 12 regions by a clear margin. A reasonable read is that the Northern Ireland agent market simply hasn't adopted the Google-reviews discipline as comprehensively as Great Britain has.
Zooming in further — the 108 UK postcode areas with at least 10 estate-agent offices. The top end is dominated by affluent commuter belts; the bottom end by larger Northern cities and Scottish urban centres.
RH (Reigate/Crawley) leads at 4.69★ across 149 offices. AB (Aberdeen) trails at 4.09★ across 55 offices. 108 postcode areas qualified — those with at least 10 agent offices each.
A point worth stating plainly: a 4.09★ average is still an objectively strong rating. The worst-rated postcode area in Britain would, in DAC's cross-industry benchmark, sit above gas stations (3.8★), restaurants (3.9★), insurance (3.9★), and financial services (3.3★). The North-vs-South gap is real but narrow — 0.45★ separates RH at the top from AB at the bottom. The full distribution of UK estate-agent quality is much tighter than the headline numbers suggest.
A handful of headline numbers from the dataset, ready for editorial use.
| Rank | Office | Reviews | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dexters, Kingston | 1,809 | 4.9★ |
| 2 | Butters John Bee | 1,773 | 4.7★ |
| 3 | HouseSimple | 1,739 | 4.1★ |
| 4 | Jones Robinson | 1,737 | 4.8★ |
| 5 | haart, Lincoln | 1,729 | 4.8★ |
A reputation report is only as good as the data underneath it. Here's exactly what we used, how we cleaned it, and how it was joined.
This is the first edition. Reputation State of the Nation publishes quarterly, with each edition refreshing the data and adding deeper cuts. Here's what's already on the way.
… you should see what's going on in social housing. Across 24 of the biggest UK social housing landlords, the average Google rating is 2.31★ — versus 4.43★ for estate agents. A separate report on that is coming. It deserves its own.