UK Estate Agent Index

How we score estate agents

This page exists for one reason: to make the score behind every ranking traceable. If you can't explain how a number was calculated, the number isn't worth much.

What we measure

Every agency in the Index has a composite score out of 100, built from three components:

• Rating (60%): the average star rating of all the agency's Google reviews. A 5.0 maps to 100, a 4.5 to 90, a 4.0 to 80, and so on.
• Volume (20%): how many reviews the agency has, log-scaled so an agency with 1,000 reviews scores roughly 100, and 10 reviews scores around 35. The point of the log scale is to reward depth without rewarding sheer size forever.
• Recency (20%): how active the agency's review profile is right now. Five recent reviews in the last six months scores high; a dormant profile scores low.

The formula

ratingScore  = averageRating * 20                   // 5.0 -> 100
volumeScore  = min(100, log10(reviewCount + 1) * 33.33)
recencyScore = bucketed from the 5 reviews Google surfaces per agency

compositeScore = (ratingScore * 0.6)
              + (volumeScore * 0.2)
              + (recencyScore * 0.2)

A worked example

Consider an agency with a 4.7 average rating, 240 reviews, and 5 of their most recent reviews within the last 6 months.

• ratingScore = 4.7 × 20 = 94.0
• volumeScore = log10(241) × 33.33 ≈ 79.4
• recencyScore = 85 (5/5 within 6 months)
• composite = 94.0 × 0.6 + 79.4 × 0.2 + 85 × 0.2 = 89.3

What we don't measure

The Index is a public-perception signal, not a performance audit. We deliberately don't include:

• Sales velocity, prices achieved, fall-through rates, or any private MLS-style metrics.
• Customer service quality beyond what shows up in reviews.
• Internal performance, internal targets, or anything from an agency's own dashboards.

We'd like to fold some of this in eventually. For now, public review data is the only thing we can collect transparently for every UK agency on the same basis.

Data source

• Google Places API (Text Search + Place Details).
• Refreshed on the 1st of every month at 04:00 UTC.
• Agencies below 10 total reviews are stored but excluded from rankings.

Limitations

• Recency is an approximation. Google's Places API returns up to 5 reviews per agency, sorted by Google's own “relevance” algorithm — a mix of recent and high-engagement reviews, not strictly the newest five. We bucket the recency score from whichever 5 Google surfaces: five inside the last 6 months scores 85, five inside 12 months scores 70, and so on down to 0. In practice the surfaced reviews skew recent, so the bucket is a reasonable signal of how active a profile is right now — but it's a defensible proxy, not a perfect measurement.
• Agencies without Google Business profiles don't appear. If an agency doesn't maintain a Google listing, the Index won't see them.
• Multi-branch agencies appear per branch. A national chain with five Brighton offices will show up as five separate entries, each with its own score.
• Coverage is intentionally narrow today. The Index launched with Brighton as the validation MVP. More towns are added monthly.

Found an error?

Email hello@subjecttocontract.com if you spot something wrong. We'd rather hear about it than have it sit on the site uncorrected.