Homebuyers are easily persuaded to accept a higher price for a property sold by an attractive estate agent, recent UNSW research shows.
The UNSW research was conducted to discover just how far our behavioural biases reach in terms of buying and found that for every step up the ladder of perceived beauty, the final selling price of a property reliably increased by 2.3 per cent, translating into thousands of pounds for sellers.
The study matched photographs of estate agents, who had been rated on attractiveness in independent tests with property sales that had generated the same average investment, and found that good-looking agents were achieving substantial price premiums.
“Our research shows that that the degree of attractiveness of an estate agent spills over into the property they are selling, making it more attractive in the minds of buyers” says researcher and senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Business School, Robert Tumarkin.
A similar research conducted in the Unites States in 2013 also found that more attractive agents land better deals.
There is no law against using physical appeal in getting a better price for a property. In the UK there is the Property Misdescriptions Act 1991, which prohibits misidentification of various aspects of a property’s specifications and particulars by estate agencies. However, agents themselves can hardly be prosecuted for their physical appearance.
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