OnTheMarket has been named the new long-term principal partner for the EA Masters and Best Estate Agent Guide and Awards, taking place in London later this year.
Property Academy, together with its now former principal partner Rightmove, has long assessed over thousands of estate agencies across the country and invited the best performing to attend the EA Masters.
But Estate Agency Events, the producers of the EA Masters and Best Estate Agent Guide and Awards, has not renewed the arrangement with Rightmove after negotiating what appears to be an improved deal with OnTheMarket as the new long-term principal partner.
The EA Masters, a major annual event in estate agency, will be held on Wednesday 21st September at Evolution London in Battersea Park.
The event showcases the best of the property industry and has four key components: a conference with well-known speakers, an exhibition showcasing the very latest product and service innovations from a range of industry suppliers, the awards ceremony, and extensive networking with agents and suppliers.
Last year the event sold out in record time and more than 1,200 attended in person with several hundred more taking part online.
Reflecting on the new partnership with OnTheMarket, Peter Knight, founder of EA Masters and Best Estate Agent Guide, said: “It became very clear from the outset of our discussion with OnTheMarket that we share the same values and goals that underpin the Best Estate Agent Guide and EA Masters.”
Knight believes that his firm and OnTheMarket both strive to improve business performance and raise service standards in the property industry; seek to help sellers and landlords find the best agents; and help agents promote their success.
He continued: “We improve business performance and raise service standards in two ways. Firstly, by delivering a world-class conference and exhibition that is packed with information, insight, ideas, and inspiration that helps leaders take their business to the next level. Secondly, we conduct an industry-wide assessment and establish a performance benchmark that agents can strive to achieve. The assessment criteria is based on industry best practice and consumer expectation – which we track via our annual Home Moving Trends Survey.
“We provide sellers and landlords with an independent and credible source of information to help them to find the best agents by publishing details of those agents that meet the benchmark on bestestateagentguide.co.uk.
“We help agents who wish to leverage their performance to win more business by providing them with useful tools to help them to communicate their superior marketing, customer service & results.”
Jason Tebb, chief executive officer of OnTheMarket, says the new long-term partnership will enable his firm to “build on the considerable reputation both EA Masters and Best Estate Agent Guide have earned”.
“As the agents’ portal, we’re delighted and proud to be the Principal Partner for the leading event and awards in the industry,” he said.
“In line with us becoming the new Principal Partner, we’re very keen to provide our member agents with special benefits, including preferential rates to attend this prestigious event, to support them in learning from some of the best business brains in the world as well as leaders and legends of the industry,” he added.
Estate Agency Events has confirmed that there will be a significant number of changes to the methodology used to determine the Best Estate Agent Guide Awards and ratings this year.
Knight added: “We’ve considerably expanded the number of data sources, 470 in total, to be able to assess every single brand, regardless of which portals they choose to market properties on. We will continue to measure what’s important to the consumer, as determined by our Home Moving Trends Survey of c.30,000 home movers each year, including each agent’s results, (based on their local patch), the quality of property marketing, and customer service.
“This is the only whole of market assessment, a key factor why agents recognise that winning a Best Estate Agent Guide Award is the “Oscar” of the industry.”
The shortlist for winners of a Best Estate Agent Guide Award, will be announced in June.
You can register to receive details of the assessment criteria and timescales, advance notice of the online event in June, plus notification of the release date for the early bird ticket discount to EA Masters in September.
What impact will OnTheMarket CEO Jason Tebb’s ‘vision’ have on the business?
Well I didn’t see that coming!
Well done to Peter and the team for, yet again, surprising us all.
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Good move, perhaps more of an “independent” fit than with wrong-move, however will it still be “whole of market” OTM subscribers only?
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I find it hard to believe Property Academy ‘ditched’ Rightmove and their riches.
The event is usually a good one but would rather OTM focused on supporting agents than lining the pockets of PK.
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Hhhmmm. The brand association with RM helped us gain trust from our clients about the award. Not sure OTM will have the same effect. Best case it works… worst case it doesn’t and we save a few thousand quid every year!
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Believe me this wasn’t Peter’s choice. His awards have just de-valued over night, the data they got from OTM will never compare to RM’s data, also a ton of agents have automatically been excluded from the awards due to them no being on the smallfry portal. It’s now even more irrelevant than it was before.
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Agents being assessed do not have to list with OTM so no agents are excluded from the awards
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Whilst these awards are based on membership of any portal and don’t take into account client or customer feedback they remain irrelevant.
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As a matter of fact they have always taken into account a very wide range of criteria which is what makes them SO challenging and valid. These assessments have actually included a ” mystery shop “. Here is how the assessments were made last year…
How well properties are marketed on Rightmove and perform on Rightmove. [As measured by Rightmove].
Actual delivery of the sale or let. Time taken for the listing to go to SSTC and does it actually complete. [As measured by Rightmove].
How good is the customer experience on contacting the agent via email and telephone? [As measured by Property Academy mystery shop]
Market share
I’m sure that this year’s awards and inclusion in the Best Estate Agent Guide will be equally rigorous, but we shall see!
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