The closure has been announced of 187 Jessops stores, threatening over 1,200 jobs across the country. This follows a tough year for high street retailers, with a number of notable casualties including Comet, JJB Sports, Clinton Cards, Aquascutum, Game Group and Peacocks. Most people seem to rue this evacuation of the high street, yet clearly they are choosing to spend their money elsewhere.

So what is going wrong, asks Peter Harden of FoxWood Maclean Edenbridge? Yes, the economy is less than favourable and retailers’ costs are rising faster than prices – but fundamentally the brands concerned must have lost their IPODS – or ‘individual points of difference’. If you can just buy the same product online, maybe even cheaper, with no loss of advice or expertise, then why take the trouble to navigate and negotiate busy roads, expensive parking, and the winter weather?

A sign that may seem all too familiar

So what might this mean for estate agents, who have been operating in a residential sales market that has almost halved in size since 2007?

Remarkably, the numbers have remained broadly constant (at approximately 13,000 offices), mainly as a result of the rapid growth in lettings. Unusually, the majority of these are still independent where the owner plays a daily part in the running of the business, often including market appraisals and client negotiations. The best agents are rightly proud of their links to the community in which they live, and fiercely seek to uphold their local reputation.

But the fundamental difference is surely that the estate agent still offers a unique service; just imagine for a second trying to accurately value your own home, screen potential applicants, manage all the legal complexities, and then build and maintain sometimes complex and vulnerable chains? – not to mention the highly complex nature of property marketing (50% of all searches are now made on mobile devices such as iphones, androids and ipads).

Peter Harden investigates the state of our High Streets

It also costs an estate agent an average of £1,500 to market a property, which is a personal risk he/she takes on every time they accept an instruction and represents a fantastic deal for the vendor. Most leading agents are also closely networked with similar professional offices across the country (such as members of The Guild of Professional Estate Agents), offering unparalleled access to ‘out of area’ applicants.

The UK population is forecast to continue to grow (65m by 2025), and more, smaller households will put even more stress on the UK property market, especially with as much as a 50% shortfall in new builds versus what is required.

The market will of course adapt and the number of agents probably reduce over time – as the public become more demanding regarding promises made and quality of the service provided – but ‘helping people move’ whilst charging some of the lowest rates in the world, continues to attract trained and committed professionals, for which we should be very grateful!