Market share of self-employed agents is growing fast

The market share of self-employed agents across the sales sector has grown 33% in the last year and 500% since 2019, new figures show.  

Data provided by TwentyEA, part of the TwentyCi group, found that by October 2023, self-employed agents had launched 1.8% of all new instructions in the last year. This is despite the older model online agents seeing their market share drop 36% in the last year and 52% since 2019.  

TwentyEA defines self-employed agents as those without a physical branch, usually working under an umbrella brand such as eXp, Keller Williams or iAD. They define their own operating patch and multiple agents may work under the same brand in the same area. A percentage of their earnings goes to Head Office, but they are fully responsible for how they run their businesses. 

These agents operate similarly to the likes of a Purplebricks agent and appear to be gaining back the ground that the older online brands have been losing.

While the overall market share of hybrid agents has been falling across all new instructions since 2019 and has decreased from 7.6% in 2019 to 5.5%, this overall drop hides the rapid growth of self-employed agents who are a subset of online agents.  

The chart below demonstrates the rise in their market share and may mean the reported ‘death’ of online agents has been greatly exaggerated.  

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