New property portal launches to encourage agents to work together

A new property portal has launched which will enable agents to earn money by passing on leads they don’t need to other agents.

Calling itself a ‘shared economy-based portal’, AgentVenture.com says that it will have agents working together rather than competing.

In doing so, they can help raise each other’s revenue.

AgentVenture also promises to give agents an alternative power over their marketing costs.

The portal has a no-subscription model, with actual listings free.

Agents will be paying per lead – and setting their own price for their leads.

When fully live early next year, agents will be able to have their own AgentVenture page to upload both their own listings and, if they wish, other agents’ properties too.

AgentVenture is based in Satu Mare, Romania, where global listings firm Mondinion is also based.

AgentVenture says it has chosen the UK market to launch because “we think it is a phenomenal proving ground for the international real estate industry”.

Asked if there is concern that OnTheMarket agents will not be able to use it, a spokesperson said: “We are not worried about OnTheMarket.

“Sooner or later OTM will finally be forced to drop the one other portal rule, either by court or simply by realising that this business decision that put them on the map is no longer acceptable by agents.

“We believe that all agents will join us, regardless of what one or another player on the market might want.”

EYE asked how AgentVenture will be marketed to both the industry and the public.

The spokesperson said: “We have a young but experienced marketing team that’s fine-tuning our marketing strategy as we speak.

“Also, we’re putting our trust in the hands of the agents and rely a lot on word of mouth.

“AgentVenture is an unconventional, interesting business model for this industry and we’re sure it’s going to turn some heads.”

We asked how leads will be classified and were told: “Pay per lead is not a click. It is a clear inquiry with full contact information to a property advertised by an agent.

“We will have strict rules of what will be considered a lead but agents can also decide to reject a lead if it is spam, unrelated, wrong contact, etc.”

Here are our other questions and their answers:

Q: Why do you think you will succeed when so many others haven’t?

A: AgentVenture is based on sharing economy. Contrary to what others tried in the past, according to this ideology everything is measured and agents’ contributions will be rewarded, now they will really be incentivised to promote their own portal.

They will also keep full control of their portal and can choose everything they want or do not want to present on it.

Q: How will agents be rewarded for passing on unwanted leads, and do you really think this will happen?

A: Agents will get a percentage of the earned revenue if they pass on the potential clients they can’t serve to other agents that can serve them.

For example if you have a property in London and someone’s looking for a house in Manchester, you can pass the client to your buddy who has properties there and earn revenue as well. It’s similar to an affiliate-marketing system. This way, agents can make money even if they cannot offer any fitting properties or can’t serve that particular client.

Also, there is an option to make lead-passing automatic, so you don’t have to actively look for other agents to give your unwanted lead to: we’ll recommend you the one that has the biggest chance of closing the deal.

Q: Why do you think agents will promote other agents?

A: This is the main idea behind all the huge shared economy-based companies today.

Users realise that they can enlarge the market and generate larger revenues working together than competing against each other. Think of five corporations that sprung up over the last five years. At least three of them will be based on this ideology.

www.agentventure.com

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27 Comments

  1. Frown Please

    Agent venture..?

     

    Can anyone else see jim carrey running around as ace ventura ?

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  2. steve cass

    This is just the old ‘subbing’ idea but on the internet isn’t it?

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  3. Mark Walker

    Come on, I’m trying to wake up here.  This put me to sleep again.

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  4. femaleagent88

    Next!!

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    1. femaleagent88

      Are they also running a pay per dislike, definitly insiders to the business disliking everyone comments

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    2. PeeBee

      I ‘LIke’ your comment, fa88! ;o)

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  5. Trevor Mealham

    Good luck AV. There’s value to be had in agents helping one another.

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  6. PeeBee

    Looks like that extra two hours they have on us in Romania have been put to what they think is good use – all that banging on the ‘Dislike’ buttons like demented Duracell bunnies…

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    1. PeeBee

      Keep it up!

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  7. Mark Walker

    *cough* DATA PROTECTION *cough*

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    1. Trevor Mealham

      Data protection could be overcome gaining the ‘leads’ permission Mark with an ‘opt in’

      Good observation though

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      1. Woodentop

        Permission from who exactly?

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  8. Tamasba85

    Good Morning!
    My name is Thomas, I work at AgentVenture and I can assure you, we’re not disliking your comments.
    Every feedback is useful to us, especially at this time.
    Thank you, and have a nice day!

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    1. PeeBee

      Thomas

      In your opinion, if it isn’t you lot ‘Disliking’ anything other than a loving welcome to what I would describe as your frankly hideously unwelcome offering – then who would it be?

       

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      1. mrharvey

        Manners, PeeBee. No need to be rude.

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        1. PeeBee

          You do whatever you do, your way, mrharvey…

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      2. Woodentop

        Possibly from some other organisation in the UK that has been trying this for years and not got very far and doesn’t like the idea of competition.

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    2. Property Paddy

      I’ve got some feedback for you………………………..

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      1. PeeBee

        Well… come on – out with it…

        … you tease, you!

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  9. Tamasba85

    I can see that some of you are concerned about data protection.

    We pledge that data protection will always be a #1 priority for us. The data of the potential customer will only be accessible by a single agent, the one who is selling the property in question.

    Here’s a real world example:
    You are an agent and you’re trying to sell properties in Westminster and Camden, London. With AgentVenture you will get your own portfolio page to showcase your properties for free, and at the same time you can also opt in to have your real estate portal inside your portfolio or on a separate page altogether. Now let’s assume that some visitors on your listings are interested in property in Enfield. As you do not list properties from Enfield, the visitor will most likely leave, but with your portal you can work together with other agents who perhaps are selling something in Enfield, this way you connect the potential buyer with someone who can serve him/her and you get your share from the lead price offered by the other agent.
    This will be automated. As the portal owner you will be notified that someone’s acquired a lead through your portal. You will get your share of the revenue but will never be able to access the customer’s personal data, only if you are the one actually selling a property to him/her.
    This portfolio and portal will be absolutely free, and you can always set the rules of what agents listings will appear on your portal (either by agents name, or locations where they have listings), so you can be assured that your portal will never generate concurrency for your own private listings. You will also get relevant statistics about your visitors, they behaviour on the website and use this data to be a lot more productive in your work!

    If you have any other concerns regarding data protection, or questions on how AgentVenture will work, feel free to ask them here in the comments section, or drop us an e-mail to hello@agentventure.com . We will try to answer them as quickly as possible, but with the “launch rush”, it could take us up to a few hours to reply to your question.

    Best regards,
    Thomas.

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    1. PeeBee

      “We pledge that data protection will always be a #1 priority for us.”

      Oh, well – that’ll be all right then.

      Forgive my scepticism, but I take it that you can confirm, then, that your business is registered with ICO and fully meets their requirements under The Data Protection Act 1998?

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      1. PeeBee

        Anyone care to guess what goes on inside the mind of someone who ‘Dislikes’ querying the legal status behind a “pledge”…?

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        1. Woodentop

          It looks like some object for the sake of it.

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  10. LDNpro

    One or two websites have tried this before but it is not dissimilar to LonRes – if Agent Venture work outside of prime London I can see agents making contacts and collaborating.

    Good luck to AV.

     

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  11. PeeBee

    Am I the only one wondering what’s with all this “your portal” this, and “your portal” that, malarkey?

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    1. Woodentop

      I’m holding your hand on this one. It seems that the business is based on buyer not finding property with agent A and Agent V recognises this and sends the buyer to Agent B who pays for the lead from Agent A and access via Agent V (sticky fingers).

       

      Why would a buyer be bothered with agents A, B or V in the first place? All they will do as now, use a web portal that has every agent covering the areas they are interested in eg RM.

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      1. Mark Walker

        The dislikers must have gone to bed.  The clock is 2 hours ahead in Romania 😉

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