easyProperty has gone live with a “pilot” site.
It makes much of the “easy” branding, with the main picture being of easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannau, who has licensed his “easy” brand to the company for 20 years.
Hence the reference to the business “getting ready for take-off”.
Founder Robert Ellice told Eye this week that actual launch is likely to be September 17.
The site prominently reveals that it is charging £9.99 per week, per property, to be advertised on Rightmove and Zoopla. A two-month package, which includes a To Let board, is £59.99.
If, as has been reported, the site has 10,000 pre-registered landlords, the weekly charge to be on the big two portals could bring in the best part of £100,000 a week.
The two-month deal could be worth nearly £300,000 a month to the company.
As an online agent, easyProperty will not be allowed to advertise on the Agents’ Mutual site, OnTheMarket, which launches in January.
Property particulars, including photos and a floor plan, are charged at £149, while a tenancy agreement and deposit protection are £24.99.
Inventory and check-in comes in at £117, while tenancy referencing is £49.99.
Hosted viewings are charged at £79.99 per hour for up to eight applicants – which presumably gives them just under eight minutes each.
It does not appear to have any properties yet on the site. We tried searching in “London” but nothing came up. Other searches also yielded nothing – yet.
The site also contains a ‘knowledge hub’ which currently includes advice for evicting tenants, understanding landlord insurance, and advice which includes Rightmove data.
One prominent agent yesterday told Eye that he was completely bemused by the easyProperty charges, especially given that neither Rightmove nor Zoopla charge per property.
He also said the “hosted viewings’ at £79.99 per hour begged the question as to what happened if they tipped over into another hour – given that prospective tenants are often late.
“If that happens, do they charge another £79.999 – like plumbers?”
The agent added: “I am also struggling with Stelio’s pictures. It is great PR – but is it misleading? He has nothing to do with it really – e-prop limited is owned by a group of people including ‘Running Bear Trust’ and have just got the licence to use the ‘easy’ brand.”
The agent, a nationally known name in the industry, said: “I am not convinced by their model.”
The interview Eye did with Robert Ellice this week is at the bottom of this page.
Pilot site…teaser campaign…
Why oh why have OTM/AM not done the same. Instead of momentum gaining at pace, its waning.
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Same reason I don't launch instructions to the market before everything is ready. It comes across a bit **** and half ******.
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Oh dear. Straight away the website doesn't work. It has novice errors with it's initial windows that don't even allow me to get into the site. A quick refresh lets me in which tells me that the site uses Cookies yet they have no cookie warning which is illegal in the UK. While A lot of attempts have been made to cover the website' content management system they (the developers) forgot to take out a key piece of information which allows identification. The website is made using "Wordpress". This software is intended for blogs and small websites NOT property portals or anything with extensive searching. The very fact they have used this speaks volumes as to their experience (or lack of in this case) and where they intend to go with the website. WordPress does not scale easily and the site will choke with around 50 concurrent visitors and with their model so cheap they're going to need 100 times that to make any money at all. Whomever was consulting on their website and system (which they themselves claim cost in excess of 600,000) has in reality stolen a lot of money from the company. WordPress' true colors show when one tries to search for property, it takes some 9 seconds to load the search page with zero results from a simple area based search like "London". If this business is "Online Only" then it will not be hard for another similar concept to wipe the floor with them. The technology simply does not cut the mustard and consumers will see this when they get bored waiting for page loads and search results.
I had high hopes for this website as it might have shaken the market up a little but with this **** that has been put online I guess I will have to wait for someone with half a brain to do something better in the future.
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WordPress will definitely scale up (there are various blogs out there with 10M+ unique visits per month with no issue), but whether or not the team there know how is the question. The site is very slow as it is on what must be minimal connections at present.
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LOl SteveP.
I am talking about native scaling without vertically scaling one server to multiple CPU's with Terrabits of RAM.
I don't call 10M visits per month large traffic and EVERY WP installation that I know of that has anywhere near that traffic has clusters of dedicated database servers, application servers and front edge caches to accomplish it. This is called hacking around flaws in the base system by monkey patching not scaling. Had they had a real I.T department they would know that and also know that you cannot build a serious property or search based business around WordPress. Evidently you're a wordpress fanboy so I will leave you to create some edge case where WordPress actually scales at a sensible linear rate inline with business growth.
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And as an added extra in today's lesson… 10M visits per month is a constant 30 users on the site at all times which is a shocking amount of traffic. If this **** cost £600k then they spent £599,950 on hardware (servers) to run this and £50 on this website.
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WordPress fanboy? Far from it. I would never use it for anything that a personal blog. For enterprise solutions I'd stick to enterprise software but even with them you're going to need multiple servers even if it's a quiet site and you just want redundancy. As for 10M visits not being a large amount I'd be pretty amazed if this site ever hits that level. Whole of ZPG does maybe 50 million visits a month. Rightmove a bit more, but a start up site, even with this branding won't get anywhere near that for a long time.
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The only thing an online agent has going for them is their website and this is so amateur its embarrassing. A classic case of ego overtaking the basic rule about first impressions. I suspect that Robert was so pleased with his little dig at high street offices, cars and aftershave, he just had to get this poorly prepared offering out there. Huge mistake.
All this really makes me want to do is ensure I fly BA!
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First impressions are not good. There might be good technology behind this but it's not obvious and the design is lacking. The two things need to work together. As well as that they seem to have gone live with 1 property (slightly different to the promise of 10,000). http://www.zoopla.co.uk/find-agents/branch/easyproperty-com-london-64832/
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Will. There is not even good technology behind it. This website can be made inside 3 days and to a much higher standard. I would be surprised if the build cost of that website cost more than £250
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Sorry, to add to that… The website is about as novice as it gets. This is roughly the first thing learned when being taught how to create a website in an off the shelf FREE open source CMS like wordpress. GIven enough time a monkey could create that. There is ZERO innovation, ZERO flair and nothing that would make anyone else jump ship from another platform to use the "easy" brand. This is poor form from Ellice – a guy who hyped up this business so much claiming it would do some serious damage….. Not with this **** it won't mate, that's a promise – all the advertising in the world won't hide the fact that your main medium as an "online agent type" is very very lacking. Your product should be cutting edge and all I see is a website that could've been made 8 or more years ago when building business sites using "wordpress" was trendy
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Hmmm… here's a dilemma for you, PortalPerson – I agree with you on everything you have so far said on this thread… even the techie bits where I have to bow to your evident expertise on the subject. Now – how you turn that into an anti-PeeBee response is going to be very interesting… ;o)
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PeeBee.
Contrary to what you probably believe I am not against Agents or portals or OTM or anything. I am pro consumer getting the best deal possible which includes selling and buying and using industry services which include agents, websites, portals ét al. What I see in the industry is a lot of out dated practices including websites and agents own practices that need to step into the 21st centurary
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PP – "I am pro consumer getting the best deal possible…" and, believe it or not, are the great majority of Estate Agents. We just have a different view on what is the "best deal possible" – and our "consumer" is only the SELLER, not both seller and buyer. Yes – I accept that there are many "out dated practices" in our industry… but again you inhabit a different world to us and our world is predominantly organic because that is where we want it to be. We pretty much all have online presence – but not many optimise it. Onlines SHOULD beat us all hands down on that front – but as you so rightly highlight above, some fail miserably even in their own domain. As far as agents own practices being outdated I'm interested (as will no doubt be others…) to know where you see the industry failing in that respect, if you are prepared to share that with us. Believe me – if you or anyone out there can fix something that is broken – to make us all better at what we do, then your input is both welcome and gratefully received by those of us who genuinely want to offer a service to the public.
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Interesting response from Cris@easyproperty below. Interesting that PP hasn't replied.
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PP is busy and is about to read and reply.
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To me, it just looks like "yet another online model"; with all the usual rhetoric, coupled with big threats from Mr Robert Ellice: a man whose existing high street business, Clarke Hillyer, breaks the law by not displaying fees to tenants (instead it warns that they must "ask" for this information). So, it is not just his fellow agents he has contempt for, but the law as well.
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What made me smile is that as you type 'London' suggested locations include four airports. 😉
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Guess that makes us about even on the 'just sprayed coffee on the keyboard…' front, Mr W! ;o)
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MF – well spotted ! would just add that he shows contempt for his applicants/tenants as well….
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Quite right, marcH. To add even further: applicants/tenants that fail credit checking, or any other part of referencing will lose (according to the the website) 100% of whatever "reservation deposit" they've paid – not just a reasonable amount to reflect costs incurred.
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I also notice that "cris@easyProperty" isn't around today… Strange that?
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hi @portalperson just interested in feedback both informed and ill-formed.
Just a point of detail the site site is built in php with content from wordpress Our search functionality is built using a worldclass enterprise search engine used by the some of the world biggest portals. We are in our test phase and what you see is but a part of the services we will eventually offer.
Point of detail we have never claimed 10,000 pre-registered landlords rather landlords with portfolios totalling over 10,000 [ albeit we do have thousands pre-registered].
Our cookie policy is in our footer.
thanks for the interest chris @easyProperty
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That's a really cool, story Chris I am sure that peter pan in never never land might believe it too. Having a cookie policy in the footer is NOT enough under UK law – you MUST advise users that your site stores cookies and have them acknowledge and agree to it. If your search system is what you call "World class" can you tell me which world that is because it's not this blue planet we call "Earth" Your search is about 1 millimeter above the most basic form of searching that you can possibly get. It's open to all kinds of XSS, CSRF and other nasty little attacks and that's without even delving deeply into it. Try your little PR relations stunt on somebody who hasn't spent a career building (in your words) "world class" search algorithms consulted on some of the largest Portals in the world and written numerous white papers on searching algorithms. If you're going to try and blag it then at least have some element of truth or some clue of what you're talking about.
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oh and "easyProperty" if your website and system is so great then how come it takes two refreshes for me to even get rid of that **** notice at the start you know the one that should be a cookie warning?
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Oh gosh – I'm starting to like you more and more, PP…! ;o)
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I was thinking the same thing; he's definitely a master of the dark arts.
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The main Google SEO and algorithm specialist Matt Cutts has often commented that WordPress is now a great way to create a website as behind and integrated is a lot of seo benefits.
A website can always be improved, but behind a plan needs good branding and very deep pockets. So 3 things going for eP. The big flaw is that traditional agents are paying high sums for RM and Z to now let budget models in.
My guess is that recent budget models raising £mllions will do damage to a few middle of the road hardworking agents who won't be able to fund the high portal costs anymore and the big budget agents will push out the little budget agents who struggle to make ends meet.
Later more agents will leave today's big portals, giving less stock on RM and Z.
Budget agents come 5-6 years though will have come – lost their backers £m's and later have to get more expensive or pull out.
My vote goes to hard working traditional agents and B2B agent networking to access more listings and gain sales and lets B2B via networking, excluding budget agents and expensive portals that take the pee in the process.
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Trevor Mealham. WordPress while might be defaultly laid out to give good SEO to a page has no bearing on the functionality of the website. The builders of this site (easyProperty) either (A) know that WordPress is not suited for this kind of website and have ripped off the owner or (B) they think it is and as such and incompetent at their job. Either way this does not promote a good website like it's been claimed to be with some (in his words) £600,000+ spent on the I.T and back office.
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Being a Friday I thought I would just google easy brands, there are actually 20: easyMobile, easyCinema, easyPizza, easyMusic, easy4men, easyOffice. Anybody heard of any of these? no?; I think we've just seen the launch, sorry pre-launch, of another one to add to that list.
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I would have to agree there RealAgent … another flop and waste of investor money I am calling. I would like to be pleasantly surprised but I don't think it will happen.
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I've never heard of any of those. I guess Stelios must be making a nice chunk of money whatever the outcome if he allows so many failures to be notched up with his name attached.
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Somebody talk me through this will you – I can find only one listing for this company… and it's in MIDDLESBROUGH?? H£ll – easy don't even fly out of the local airport!
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@peebee nothing wrong with Middlesbrough !!!!! as I noted before we are in test phase so landlords presently can register but not list unless invited by us to do so. This process is designed to test our site and operations in a live but restricted environment prior to us opening our doors.You will see us gradually add properties in the coming days and weeks. You will also see our offering develop with some truly ground breaking partnerships.
chris@easyproperty
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@easyProperty. I'm sorry I just don't buy that. If you were testing the site then you should have kept it as a test site, I think the truth behind this is that you have a CEO who is the property worlds version of Alex Salmond and is desperate to taken seriously as an equal on the national stage and hang the consequences. Going live with this is more about the personality than the product and it will come back and haunt you because, soft launch or not, its now out there and will be graded as such. Although I don't agree with the Purplebricks business model either, apart from their early bravado, they have at least had the good grace and sense to shut up and try and create a business rather than just telling everyone what they are going to do to the traditional model of estate agency.
I look forward to seeing your ground breaking partnerships, but unless they include, new web designers and replacements for Laurel and Hardy at the top of your tree, you are woefully off course in my opinion.
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Quote of the week "I look forward to seeing your ground breaking partnerships, but unless they include, new web designers and replacements for Laurel and Hardy at the top of your tree, you are woefully off course in my opinion."
Made me drop my beer!
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Crikey! 600k for that?! You could have had this designed on 99designs for a grand… If this is what Mr Ellice is capable of then I don't think any "traditional" agents need to be worried about it "taking off" excuse the pun.
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Add up all the costs on their "our services" section and you end up with a nice little bill on the 'shopping cart' at the end of your easyproperty online shopping It's just like adding an extra suitcase on to your airline booking but will you be Stelios be taking on more baggage then he can handle?!
It's a flawed model.
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@paul H my guess is thats what BA said when easyJet launched, we provide a pick and mix model you pick the bits you want and not the stuff you don't unlike the vast majority of agents who charge a commission which means you get it wether you want or need it or not and the bill will be much larger. The thousands of Landlords we have already interested seem to disagree with you view but lets wait and see over the coming months. We don't claim to be perfect but we will learn as we go and enhance where we need to.
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I like the model and the idea, you have just ****** up the delivery of it and I hope this does not dissuade others from trying what you have done.
I hope you can recover from it but until you admit from your mistakes and learn from them that will never happen
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"unlike the vast majority of agents who charge a commission which means you get it wether you want or need it or not"….Incorrect Easyproperty, we only get commission if we sell or let a property, it's a big difference.
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@easyProperty.com – You get it whether you want, need it or not because that is what is required in order to provide a quality service – Allowing landlords to choose whether they want references or not!? What is going to happen when a landlord rents a property to a family who's had a string of debt problems and subsequently stops paying their rent? Trying to evict tenants who know the system can cost landlords thousands and thousands of pounds – Will the response from easyProperty be – "Oh well you should have taken the "frequent flyer package, then you would have had a reference…" I expect we'll be seeing another documentary on ITV similar to Airline called "Lettings" – unfortunately this time it won't be people losing an £80 flight, it will be people paying thousands in court fees…
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Have also just checked out their 'website' – it's a pile of brown stuff. Why bother with a 'pilot' when it's this awful ? Would you fly a plane with a trainee only on the flight deck? Didn't think so. And to phoenix (posting at 06.07), perhaps that's why AM/OTM are not doing the same – and who can blame them?
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In fairness easyproperty appear to be sla*ging off traditional agency less than their competition, but from what I can see they seem to be treating letting a property like it's a bit of fun, this is obviously the wrong approach. One example being…"If the tenancy agreement includes any terms which violate the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, then that particular term will be void. So there’s no point trying to slip ‘tenant must walk my dog twice weekly’ in to the small print!….It's too jovial and these points need to be made with more seriousness so that the landlord is fully aware of the consequences of not living up to his/her responsibilities with all aspects of the let.
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As I have said before – talk is very 'easy' but results count. Time will tell and I certainly wouldn't wish them ill nor do I wish to inflict a mortal blow on their model as they do mine. Good luck eP.
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thanks@ericwalker
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Do we need to call the Samaritans to talk Chris down because PortalPerson (PP) just put a real hurt on him. Seriously buddy if you’re trying to reduce the world this aint the way to go, jeez you haven’t even moved the needle. PP just schooled you and considering the relative paucity you’ve shown in any knowledgable response to him it’s probably best you have a seat.
Page 3, vodka or cartoons and I’ll talk your a+se off but PP owns this conversation so better you thank him for the heads up and quit trying to get out of your own way because ‘lets wait and see’ is lame. A world of easy everything is just unicorn, trust me it doesn’t exist so stop trying to spray eau de whatever in our face because we’re not buying it.
I don’t know, maybe someone slipped you a roofy or you’ve just seen the Rightmove bill but dude, come on. I’m reminded that affiliation is a subscription to sweet sorrow but this just made my day!
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Portal person owns Chris? Nah! There is no finer example of the Kings new clothes than has been demonstrated here and this Portal portal person is a VERY confident Tailor!
The cookie laws have never been taken seriously by people who understood what they were all about and how they would be policed. In fact can anyone ever remember the Cookie clock appearing on Google? Anyone who says yes is making it up; Google ignored the legislation. So daft was this legislation that the ICO (the Cookie police) site hasn't required the explicit consent of the written legislation since 2013. To raise this as a point of discussion is simply a '***** waving' attempt to show off and demonstrate a superior knowledge. Obviously Happy Hour is impressed!
The world press thing- irrelevant, until about 2007 1.5 million rents were being processed by a system that had an Access database. Even today, despite that system being now at least 13 years out of date and theoretically un-workable because of the scalability limitations of Access, about 1/3rd of all property managers are more than happy with its performance. The point being, forget the tech and understand that it is a factor so insignificant in the success or failure of Easy property that it isn't worth even discussing. Some of you might get asked which portal you advertise on but no-one has ever lost an instruction because they told a landlord or vendor their back office system was written is Visual Basic with an Access data base.
This project is going to be hard work, not because of the name or the Tech but the fringe niche it has chosen to enter and the sheer number of ill-informed wealthy Emperors who are investing in the right industry but the wrong bit of it. Just look at all the celebs who over the years have offered to take the market by storm. No greater exhibition of success is Sarah Beeny having to bribe recommendations and referrals out of her clients. Very demeaning and embarrassing, but a perfect example of what Easy Property are up against.
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I might speak fluent dude but what's impressive is you getting willy into the conversation, I hear you though. Listen, even a liquor fuelled binge can't hide a poor user experience when these guys are 'online' and it's their primary source of contact, PP made that point in his first few sentences.
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That's the best advert I've seen for NOT having a "Pilot Site". First impressions obvioulsy don't mean a thing at easyproperty.com. I hope the people in charge at AM learn from their mistak; perhaps we should test the site thoroughly just among AM agents and staff before we let it loose on the public. I'd rather the launch was delayed by a few days / weeks than for it to go off half-cocked.
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Taff – I agree, however the AM people shouldn't have to "learn" from the likes of this! The people employed should be up to the job. BUT… delaying the launch in order not to have egg on face would be a huge admission of failure in my opinion. It is NOW they should be testing it out for fitness for purpose – tomorrow is SEPTEMBER… only 17 weeks to OTM Day#1. I am sure that will be the case – they can't possibly still not have a fully built, fully functional site.
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Well well another online agents chief exec verbally writing cheques that he cannot cash!! Site not really working for me – its a bit rubbish. Finally "vats of aftershave" not heard that insult before – what an a hole. Beware your online machinations may come to bite your a** when it all goes wrong – I give it a year max.
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Well, Bristol Agent – don't forget we're dealing with a chap here whose reported claim to fame is taking pleasure in ripping apart his Christmas pressies and …sometimes… being able to put them back together in working order. Claiming they worked "better" as a result is, as we all know, impossible UNLESS you add something – whereas with his offering to our industry he is simply stripping away bits… which can be added back at extra cost. In context to his childhood fascination – he is peeling the rubber off the wheels of a 'Scalectrix' (wonder if the name is a typo or simply a way to avoid royalties…) car. Sparks might fly – but won't win any races and will fly off the track at the first bend. Sounds about right… ;o)
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I normally take criticism of anyone's new website with a large pinch of salt but this one really is shockingly bad. If easyproperty think this is what you should get for £600K then its a poor start
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