An online agent planning to be to Ireland what Purplebricks is to the UK is bidding to raise £200,000 by crowdfunding.

Former London agent David Madden launched Dublin-based Moove last August, complete with a network of Local Property Experts.

The firm claims to be the first to market, with just three online agents currently operating in Ireland, and says that it is the only one with a hybrid model.

Moove has a fixed fee ‘no sale, no fee’ model with no upfront payments. It claims to save vendors on average between €5,200 and €7,200 in a market where it says high street agents typically charge 1.2%-2% with marketing fees often charged upfront.

Its pitch on Crowdcube is offering investors almost 17% equity in the company, which it says is worth £1m pre-investment. By the weekend, it had some 25 investors and had raised about a quarter of its target, with over three weeks of the campaign left to run.

Madden will use the cash injection for marketing and to develop a mobile app.

In time-honoured fashion, Madden says his aim is to disrupt the estate agency market in Ireland.

He said he created Moove after working in London’s property market, and noticing that companies such as Purplebricks and Emoov were starting to generate a lot of traction.

“We need to educate the public that they do not need to spend so much money on estate agency fees when selling a property,” Madden told The Irish Times.

He said that the market is “ripe for disruption” and that compared with traditional agents, his firm is “providing a higher service but for a fair price”.

He said: “There is no need to pay an estate agent €10,000+ to sell a Dublin home when we are already doing this for €1,800.”

The fee includes For Sale signs, advertising and sales progression, with vendors doing their own viewings.

For €2,500, all viewings are handled by Moove.

http://www.moove.ie/