Estate agent owned, all or mostly tenanted properties under one ownership. Alternative titles are Factor, Steward, or Bailiff, depending on the era, region, and extent of the property concerned. The term originally referred to a person responsible for managing a landed estate, while those engaged in the buying and selling of homes were ""House Agents"", and those selling land were "Land Agents". However, in the 20th century, ""Estate Agent"" started to be used as a generic term. Estate agent is roughly synonymous with the United States term real estate broker. Estate agents need to be familiar with their local area, including factors
Estate agent agents and or property portals that are based in the United Kingdom have started to encourage UK and worldwide estate agents to collaborate by showing all their properties, thus allowing site visitors to see a vast array of UK and overseas properties all on one website. Research undertaken in 2007 said that the most effective way of selling property is via 'For Sale' signs, 28% of customers had seen the estate agent's "For Sale" signs before researching more in depth into the properties. Searching for houses via the internet came in a close second (21%), with newspapers third at (17%).