It’s been another hectic week for the industry, and here is what has caught our eye.
First: The right move on portal juggling?
The National Trading Standards Estate Agents Team began the week by finally speaking publicly about the illegality of portal juggling and confirming it was investigating a number of firms.
Rightmove has made it clear it will assist industry regulator the National Trading Standards Estate Agents Team as it investigates so-called portal juggling, and will also pass over any suspicious possible evidence.
A spokesperson told EYE: “Rightmove welcomes NTSEAT’s move to publish guidance about agents trying to deliberately remove and relist properties to make them appear new on the market.
“If Rightmove receives a query about a listing and the data quality team investigate it and find that it is a deliberate attempt to remove and relist a property to make it appear as new then this will be shared with NTSEAT
“Rightmove will also continue to support requests from NTSEAT and local Trading Standards authorities for any cases they investigate.”
Many readers seem to want Rightmove to be doing more.
AndrewOverman said: How jolly decent of them. However, of the £1000s that agents pay in subscription / additional fees and given their own Terms & Conditions / contracts with their agents, surely they should be doing more in the first place to prevent it and punish agents that are found to repeatedly engage in the activity?”
Woodentop was slightly more forward, adding: “Rightmove created the problem in the first place by adding the listing date!”
Second: By George there is something about that Stamp Duty!
New figures show the sheer size of transactions crash after Stamp Duty hike: that was our headline.
Housing transactions crashed in volume during April after the extra stamp duty charge on additional properties was introduced, data from the ONS/Land Registry house price index revealed this week.
Sales volumes in the UK dipped from 124,295 in March 2016 to 56,076 in April.
English regions saw falls of up to 70%, led by London where volumes tumbled from 14,783 in March to 4,368 in April.
PeeBee helpfully pointed out that this takes volume levels back towards numbers seen in 2012, so perhaps there is no need to panic.
Mark Walker said: “I think that what is now being used as the ‘Brexit’ excuse for the quietening of the market is really caused by the Stamp Duty increase deadline. We did 50% of the year’s business in the first 25% of the year and now we are seeing the other 50% of the year’s business stretched over the other 75% of this year.”
Third: Target practice
Do targets help motivate agents? That is the latest debate on The Arena forum. LocalAgent201625 said: “Targets are a necessity, as it gives the individual direction and focus, and when those targets a hit a sense of achievement is a very rewarding feeling. It’s just about what targets you set, the consequences of not hitting those targets and rewards for achieving/exceeding those targets is a key factor in motivating people.
“I usually worked off the basis of how much money per viewing, or per market appraisal a negotiator would make. Seems drastic but when converting into money you see a completely different more motivated side to people.”
Mr Shoffman
You highlighted the Arena thread last week, as one of the “Stories of the Week…”
It wasn’t one then; it isn’t one now. The post you refer to (which you have now copied’n’pasted twice) was made on 11 August.
There are some cracking stories on page #87 of the Archive – maybe next week’s “news”?
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