Are estate agents happy with this situation

[Alonim]

I mean: are they making money out of this current crazy market? Is it frustrating for them too - I wonder ...

And the government. Is it happy for things to stay so frozen? If prices dropped, more people would move and government would get more stamp duty (when it starts again) surely.

I’m not sure the estate agents are making that much more money really. There’s not much coming onto the market and sales are no quicker to actually complete just quicker to sell. I imagine it’s very stressful to deal with dozens of calls the hour things go on the market.
It’s probably not all that bad though

Would more people move if prices dropped?
I suspect lots of potential sellers would think "ooh, maybe I'll wait a couple of years and see if we can make that money back".
Once people have come to believe their property is worth a certain amount, they feel the are "losing money" if they don't sell it for that price.

So most sales would be due to death, divorce or debt.

A rising property market usually drives more sales, not a declining one

So many sales are falling through, not enough removal teams to meet demand and solicitors have taken on too much work due to greed (personal experience of close family members who finally exchanged last week after 5 months of solicitor being rubbish with two houses in the chain both cash buyers!)

It's a very strange time. I'm just curious to find out whether this is benefiting our economy and the estate agents. Not sure why.

Just wishing I could see what was coming next.

The government is doing just fine out of stamp duty - more transactions in the last few months has made up for the lower charge.
If the sales are reaching completion then of course the agents are doing well. As are conveyancers and surveyors. Completions were up 66% n March 2021 compared to 2019 (according to Today's Conveyancer), so safe to say that the money is getting spread around.

Our EA took on a full time additional staff member to do the additional viewings (even with restrictions) last year. Apparently it's calmed down a lot now - much less coming on the market and there's a real split between stuff that sells quickly (10 viewings on the first day, offers made that day) and stuff that sits there.

I know people who have likely paid over the odds and those who have snapped up bargains. We were desperate to move to settled below asking, the house we have offered on refused to budge from asking as they had no onward chain and could wait it out. We're probably paying £10k more than it's worth but don't mind as it's a long term house for us.

Of course they are making money. That's literally why they exist.

Where I am it seems to be a bit winner takes all. There are probably a dozen agents to choose from, the two biggest ones are the ones whose boards I see going up all the time and selling fairly quickly. Which in turn makes them more attractive to deal with as agents.

I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the smaller ones go out of business.