What’s the difference between a travel agent and an estate agent? Answer: Estate agents are still on every high street.

But presenter of Property Snakes & Ladders and serial property developer Sarah Beeny would love to change that too and can’t believe the internet hasn’t cut more of them out.

“Estate agents are archaic in outlook,” the mainstay of Channel 4's property programming rails. “It’s very frustrating that you have to use an enforced go-between. I don’t understand why. For £300,000 it’s not unusual to have 2-3% plus VAT. For what?”

The solution: www.tepilo.com - Tepilo being the castle of her father’s story-telling imagination when Beeny was a child. Beeny, who also fronts a dating site called www.mysinglefriend.com is determined to make a pest of herself to the estate agency fraternity. Not only has she created a site that enables punters to put their houses up for sale and market them, she’s made the service completely free.

But what about valuing a property? Surely estate agents have their own version of ‘The Knowledge’. Nope. “They make a ‘guess’. Look at Globrix, Zoopla and the Land Registry,” she advises.

The only difference is estate agents have much of the information stored in their heads, but look at what’s been sold and what’s on the market and it’s not hard to put a price on bricks and mortar.

Beeny is prepared to admit that some estate agents are “fantastic” but clearly enjoys being primed to upset the vast majority, saying one or two high up in the industry have said they hope Tepilo doesn’t work. “I personally can’t understand why estate agents haven’t done it themselves. I find it really pathetic. If you’re not good enough to deal with the competition, get better.”

"If you paid £500 to £600 it would probably be value for money with the photos, the websites etcetera. But when it’s thousands, you’re talking about the price of a kitchen or a holiday in the Seychelles. You’re paying for a glamourous shop and cars with the name on their livery.”

Tepilo.com aims to be an improvement on the clunky portals that house estate agents’ inventory, with Beeny citing Rightmove.com and Findaproperty.com as “fairly poor, clunky, difficult”. For someone who claims she “wouldn’t spend evenings browsing – ever”, she seems to have a fair idea of what she wants.

The site has been built with web development agency Codegent though, so all the fancy architecture’s down to them. There’s great use of Google’s Streetview and Maps technology, the ability to upload numerous high quality photos, a floor plan and an ‘in a nutshell’ view featuring local school catchment areas and travel connections. Compared to other property sites it’s slick. Vendors are also able to complete the sale negotiation via the site, helping to take emotion out of an often fraught process. Users are, however, understandably required to use solicitors for the usual legal requirements.

The joint venture means Beeny’s start-up costs have remained low, with Codegent working for equity, a rare move, but one it was prepared to take knowing Beeny’s celebrity and reputation in the property market could make the site a major player fast.

Codegent’s team has not been disappointed. The reputation of Sarah Beeny has been enough to open doors at Google and Moneysupermarket, Brent Hoberman’s interior design play MyDeco.com and others. Plus it claimed its first sale, a £250,000 property in July, a matter of weeks after going live and boasts that it has more than 2,000 properties already uploaded.

The question is, if it’s free, how will Beeny monetise it? “Revenue’s not the intention now. There’s nothing sneaky; it’s completely free. At some point we may have to monetise it and plan on doing it through sponsorship and maybe charging people £20 to upload. If it works maybe the consumer would be happy to pay for it.” Let's be honest, if it works there's no doubt £20 would represent value for money.