Flexible Fees with Ian Preston

In the year to May 2025, only around 54% of the properties that went to market in the UK ended up completing, according to TwentyCi industry data analysed by Property Industry Eye.¹ That means estate agents spent time, money, and effort on nearly half their listings and got paid nothing. The no-sale, no-fee model – where agents absorb all the cost and risk of a transaction and receive a fee only on completion – has trained both the industry and the public to treat that as normal. It isn’t normal. And there’s a measurable, immediately deployable alternative.

Flexible fees – a model where vendors choose how much they pay upfront, with the fee adjusted to reflect the risk they’re accepting – are already being used successfully by agencies ranging from single-branch independents to Connells, the largest estate agency group in the UK. The results are consistent: within the first month, agencies implementing flexible fees add more than 20% to their revenue per listing, with no additional staff, no increase in operational cost, and no reduction in vendor numbers.

Kotini is a UK property onboarding and compliance platform used by hundreds of estate agencies to manage seller onboarding, digital identity verification, anti-money laundering (AML) checks, upfront payment collection, and digital compliance workflows.

What flexible fees actually are

Flexible fees are not the replacement of no-sale, no-fee. They are the addition of alternatives alongside it. The model works by presenting vendors with three options at instruction:

No-sale, no-fee – the traditional model, where the vendor pays nothing upfront and the full fee on completion. This option is priced at a premium, typically 15-25% above the standard fee, because the agent is absorbing all the risk.

Part-paid – the vendor pays a portion of the fee upfront – often a few hundred pounds – and the remainder on completion. The upfront payment is included within the overall fee, and the total cost is reduced to reflect that the agent is now sharing the risk.

Full prepaid – the vendor pays the entire fee upfront. The fee is reduced further, to reflect that the agent carries no financial risk. A safety net – typically a two-year window in which the vendor can pause and relist if circumstances change – protects the vendor if something unexpected happens.

Ian Preston, who developed this model at Preston Baker and has since trained it into more than 30 agency brands covering around 500 individual agents, described the expected distribution after one to two months of implementation: roughly 40% of vendors choosing no-sale, no-fee, 40% choosing part-paid, and 20% choosing full prepaid. That means 60% of vendors are paying something before the sale completes – and that changes the financial profile of the business fundamentally.

Why vendors choose to pay upfront

The mechanism behind flexible fees is a well-documented psychological principle called loss aversion, identified by Daniel Kahneman – an economist who studied decision-making under uncertainty. Kahneman’s research established that losing a given amount of money hurts more than gaining the same amount feels good. The pain of loss is roughly twice the pleasure of gain.

In the context of a property sale, this means a vendor who has paid £300 upfront feels differently about withdrawing than a vendor who has paid nothing. The paid vendor doesn’t want to lose the money they’ve already committed. The unpaid vendor has no such friction.

Preston’s data from 2024 instructions, measured in May 2025, is stark:

• Withdrawal rate for vendors who paid everything upfront: 8%
• Withdrawal rate for vendors who paid nothing upfront: 38%

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At a national level, where only 54% of instructions complete, that gap is enormous. An agency with a 38% withdrawal rate on no-sale-no-fee listings and an 8% withdrawal rate on fully prepaid listings is not just capturing more fee per listing – it is converting significantly more of its pipeline into actual income.

There is a second mechanism at work. The vendors who are least committed to selling tend to gravitate toward no-sale, no-fee because it costs them nothing to try. Under flexible fees, those vendors still have that option – but they pay more for it. The model self-selects for committed vendors at the full-prepaid end, and prices the risk appropriately at the no-sale-no-fee end.

What it does to your revenue per listing

Preston used a specific metric to explain the commercial impact: revenue per listing, rather than average fee on completion. Revenue per listing is calculated by taking everything received upfront – AML charges, part-payment, full prepayments – adding the fees banked on completion, and dividing by the total number of listings.

This is the right metric because it captures the true return on the agency’s work. Bringing a property to market costs money regardless of whether it sells. Revenue per listing measures what you actually make for every property you take on.

Preston Baker’s journey from 2021 to 2024 illustrates the compound effect:²

• 2021: £1,632 revenue per listing
• 2024: £2,610 revenue per listing

That increase includes some capital growth in property values, but the majority of the uplift is attributable to the flexible fee model implemented progressively over four years. For a 10% margin agency – one generating £500,000 in revenue and making £50,000 in profit – adding 20% to revenue per listing takes the margin to approximately 28%. Profit roughly triples with no additional headcount and no additional cost.

A more recent example: Jamie Curtis, managing director of Cooke Curtis Co. in Cambridge – a market-leading agency by listing volume in that area – was predicted to increase revenue per listing by £600 in the first two months of implementing flexible fees. That prediction was accurate. At £3,300 per listing in his first two months, and at his listing volume, that increment was worth approximately £300,000 of additional profit in year one.

What stops agents from implementing it

The barriers are not technical. The tools exist, the evidence is clear, and the vendor experience is straightforward. The barrier is belief.

Ian Preston described the pattern that plays out in every implementation: agents divide into three groups. The first group sees the model immediately and wants to use it. The second group believes it will never work in their market. The third group could be persuaded. What all three groups have in common – including the enthusiastic first group – is that none of them have tried it yet. Their positions are not based on data. They’re based on assumptions.

The critical commitment Preston asks for is not a revenue target. It’s two behaviours: always present the choice to the vendor (never default to no-sale-no-fee without offering alternatives), and follow the training technique on every attempt until you find a better way. That’s it.

The single most reliable predictor of a failed implementation is a leader who is uncertain. If the leader hedges – “let’s try it and see” without genuine conviction – the first agent who encounters resistance has an exit ramp. They tell the leader it didn’t work in their area, and the leader, who wasn’t convinced to begin with, accepts that. The implementation stalls.

Preston’s advice: talk to agencies who have already implemented it successfully. Connells ran a pilot across 30 branches before rolling to 70. One single-branch agent, Andrew Sanderson, had 17 out of 19 vendors choose to pay something upfront in his very first month. Once you’ve heard those accounts from the people who lived them, the “it won’t work in my market” story becomes much harder to tell yourself.

How to introduce flexible fees in a valuation

The flexible fee conversation doesn’t require a lengthy explanation. The model is intuitive once it’s framed correctly: some clients want to take on the risk of the sale themselves and pay less; others want the agent to carry that risk and pay more. The choice belongs to the client.

Preston described the mechanic: a slider or digital tool that shows the vendor the fee at each level – no-sale, no-fee; part-paid; full prepaid – with the saving at each stage clearly visible. A vendor looking at a part-paid option that costs £300 upfront and saves £1,500 off the total bill is making a simple calculation. Most of them make it quickly.

The fee structure itself needs to reflect the risk. The no-sale, no-fee fee should be visibly higher – 15-20% above the standard fee. This is not punitive; it’s accurate. The agent is carrying real financial exposure, and the price should reflect that. When it does, the vendors who choose full-prepaid or part-paid are doing so because the saving is genuinely compelling, not because they’ve been steered.

Preston Baker’s current position after four years: only 17% of vendors choose no-sale, no-fee. 83% pay something or everything upfront. That didn’t happen overnight – it took consistent training, clear leadership commitment, and cultural change within the team. But the starting point is simpler than it looks.

Where to start

The following three steps will move a flexible fee implementation from intention to practice:

First, get your fee structure right. The no-sale-no-fee option needs to cost more – not arbitrarily, but because it reflects the actual risk the agent is absorbing. If your current fee is 1%, your no-sale-no-fee option under flexible fees should be 1.2% or higher. Your full-prepaid should be meaningfully lower – 0.8% or below. A 40% spread from bottom to top gives vendors a real decision to make.

Second, commit to always offering the choice. Not most of the time, not when you remember, not when the client seems like they might be interested. Every instruction, every time, no exceptions. Penetration rates are almost always lower than they should be for one reason: agents bottling the pitch when they think the client won’t go for it. They’re usually wrong.

Third, consider training before you launch. The mindset shift – from “this is a risk I’m taking” to “this is a choice I’m offering” – is the most important part of the process. Ian Preston’s observation from 30+ implementations: the technical part is straightforward. The belief part takes work.

Frequently asked questions

What are flexible fees for estate agents?

Flexible fees are a pricing model where vendors choose how much they pay upfront. The three options are typically: no-sale, no-fee (the agent takes all the risk, vendor pays a higher fee on completion only), part-paid (vendor pays a smaller amount upfront and the rest on completion, at a reduced total fee), and full prepaid (vendor pays the entire fee upfront at the lowest rate). The model gives vendors genuine choice and is typically paired with a protection period – often two years – in which prepaid vendors can pause and relist.

How much extra revenue do flexible fees generate for estate agents?

Estate agencies implementing flexible fees typically see revenue per listing increase by more than 20% within the first month. For a 10% margin agency, a 20% revenue increase approximately triples profit, because the additional revenue flows directly to the bottom line with no increase in costs or headcount. Preston Baker increased revenue per listing from £1,632 to £2,610 over four years of progressive implementation.

Do vendors actually choose to pay upfront?

Yes. Agencies that present flexible fees consistently report that 40-60% of vendors choose to pay something or everything upfront within the first two months. After four years of implementation at Preston Baker, 83% of vendors pay something or everything upfront, with only 17% choosing no-sale-no-fee. The mechanism is loss aversion: once a vendor has paid an upfront fee, they are significantly less likely to withdraw – the data shows an 8% withdrawal rate for full prepaid versus 38% for no-sale-no-fee.

What is the biggest challenge in implementing flexible fees?

The biggest challenge is not vendor resistance – it’s agent belief. Most estate agents assume vendors in their market won’t pay upfront before they’ve tested it. That assumption is almost universally wrong. The most common failure mode is half-hearted implementation: agents who offer the option occasionally but default to no-sale-no-fee when they think a client might push back. Consistent implementation, backed by clear leadership commitment, is what drives penetration rates from 30% to 80%+.

If you’d like to see how Kotini’s onboarding and payment tools support agencies collecting upfront fees as part of a smooth instruction process, the team would be happy to show you how it works.

References

1. TwentyCi / Property Industry Eye, UK property listing and completion data, year to May 2025
2. Ian Preston / Preston Baker, internal instruction and revenue data, 2025