Connells Group brand Rook Matthews Sayer has said it is “surprised” that its properties have been removed from OnTheMarket.
It said it had been willing to carry on supporting OTM and insisted that the ‘one other portal’ rule infringes competition law.
As reported on EYE, the north-east firm, acquired by Connells Group in March this year, had been listing on all three of the major portals, in apparent breach of OTM’s one other portal rule.
OTM has said it is reserving its position on Rook Matthews Sayer, pending the outcome of litigation with another Connells’ brand, Halman Gascoigne.
Now a spokesperson for Connells Group has said: “Rook Matthews Sayer (RMS) expresses surprise that On The Market (OTM) has decided to terminate its Gold Membership and remove all its properties from its site, despite the continued willingness to support OTM by listing its properties on the portal.
“RMS denies that it is in breach of its contract because the ‘One Other Portal’ rule infringes competition law.
“RMS is disappointed that rather than accept an agent who is willing and able to list and pay fees to OTM, they would rather we take our business to just Rightmove and Zoopla.”
As at the end of last week, 17-branch Rook Matthews Sayer had 1,709 properties in total.
In the postcodes where Rook Matthews Sayer operates, sources say that OTM had a higher number of listings than Zoopla – until the removal.
Since removal in those postcodes, sources say that the market share has switched around. As at Friday in those postcodes OTM had 1,967 listings and Zoopla had 2,998.
Comments (15)
A day doesn’t go by where there isn’t some sort of controversy involving OTM, but people still back it to the high hills?
Just my own personal opinion this site was created more so for Estate Agents than the clients as a knee jerk reaction to high fees set by RM and Zoopla.
It’s a poor marketing website and doesn’t have a wide enough market to advertise properties to attract enough buyers to achieve the seller the best price.
A few days ago you referred to OTM as ‘terrible’. I then asked you why you thought it was a terrible site.
Maybe you missed the question then.
Today it seems you’ve mellowed somewhat
So I’ll ask again – why, in your opinion, is OTM a “terrible” or “poor marketing” website, LA201625?
Pee, the layout of the website when you first visit mimics rightmove, it’s style and layout once you type in the areas you search for properties is just a mess. The information provided on the local areas which you have on rightmove/zoopla is basic also.
The poor marketing comes from the lack of marketing, rarely you hear or see anything about the website and the benefits from actually marketing on it – Please explain to me the benefits of marketing a property on OTM?
I also don’t understand agents dropping a website like zoopla, who’s demographic of age is between 24-36 which also gets over a million views a day for a site that barely gets 400,000 views a day and doesn’t present well.
as I said it’s all my opinion, we’re a service industry and advertising on a site that doesn’t give you the maximum exposure doesn’t make sense.
Of the million page views per day on Zoopla, how many sales is that?
Of the 24-36 demographic how many are likely to be buyers as that sits below the average age of a modern FTB who is apparently 38 these days?
Could it be that local traditional estate agents are going local traditional estate agency and there’s no real need for prospective buyers to visit a website to keep up to date with info on properties for sale?
When there are meaningful numbers on what sales are generated by what media there can be meaningful discussion about what a page view generates
We get plenty of sales and valuation requests via zoopla, but the point you’re missing is the exposure the website gives sellers – the more exposure = more viewings = more valuations for us but ultimately more offers for the client which then achieves the better price.
On the note of First time buyers, the age of First time buyers has risen dramatically due to property prices being so stupidly high and deposits needing to be higher to get better interest rates and affordable monthly payments. This isn’t likely to change unless we see a massive price correction. I read somewhere (can’t recall what site) but the average age of a first time buyer has risen to over 30 years old due to what I explained.
OTM is a very basic website, with lower views from buyers and sellers but yet agents seem to defend it until they’re blue in the face? To me, it just appears agents want to back this site because of the costs of RM+Zoopla and not for the fact it actually benefits the customer which is what we as agents are all about.
I’d love to see OTM do well, but can’t help but feel the approach of why this website was designed in the first place isn’t actually for the customer and more for agents to reduce their outgoings.
Where is the evidence that more exposure = more everything else. Purplebricks undoubtedly have more exposure than any agent I have ever known yet failed to make a profit and don’t seem to doing all the things you say follow on from more exposure.
If exposure on Rightmove and Zoopla does all you suggest why are you worried that your competition is handicapping itself?
Christ, It’s like banging my head against a brick wall talking to some of you.
There’s a HUGE difference between an hybrid/online agent to a traditional high street agent (which I am), RM and Zoopla provide a bigger platform of marketing compared to OTM, you do understand that don’t you?
Thank you for your response.
Okay – let’s nibble at this one bite at a time.
Firstly – when you say “...the layout of the website when you first visit mimics rightmove…”, are you referring to the new (latest) RM layout – or the previous one?
Next – “…it’s style and layout once you type in the areas you search for properties is just a mess.”
Not totally sure where you’re coming from on that one. Not saying it’s perfect by any measure – but if you punch in a town or Outcode, you basically get what you’ve asked for, in the format you’ve specified (running order, etc)… don’t you? How is this ‘a mess’?
Next – you state “The information provided on the local areas which you have on rightmove/zoopla is basic also.”
Agreed – but would suggest that this is totally intentional. Why do you think that might be?
“The poor marketing comes from the lack of marketing, rarely you hear or see anything about the website and the benefits from actually marketing on it”
Oh – come on… OTM had its’ @r$£ advertised all over TV for weeks/months since before Day #1. Unless you were living on the ISS from end December 2014, you must have seen at least one. It has since had at least one more round of TV advertising – and local branches are doing more than their fair share of brand awareness promotion.
Advertising (or lack of…) is the least of its’ issues.
“Please explain to me the benefits of marketing a property on OTM?”
Simples – exactly the same “benefits” you get from any other portal.
“I also don’t understand agents dropping a website like zoopla, who’s demographic of age is between 24-36 which also gets over a million views a day for a site that barely gets 400,000 views a day and doesn’t present well.”
Why only Z? What about those Agents who took the bigger… braver – and more sensible (IF, as you say this is all about saving money on portal costs…) decision and dropped RM in order to comply with the Membership Rules of OTM?
Look forward to your responses.
1) Buyers will not have access to a wider range of properties when visiting OTM, compared to RM and zoopla. This is fact.
2) The lack of information may well contribute to the lack of hits per day the site achieves, people moving out of area want easy access to local information, it’s comical none of this is available on OTM.
3) Their advertising has been sporadic, everywhere I look or go i see and hear Purple Bricks ads, Only and again has there been any TV ads, I can’t even recall hearing any radio adverts? Their advertising campaign has been very poor.
As I said previously it’s about opinions – but I find it amusing those who have jumped from either RM or Zoopla still claim to be doing the best by the client which is total nonsense.
Connells and any potential ‘backers’ have now manage to turn this contractual argument into a very expensive competition ‘test case’.
A better move would surely have been for OTM to rule that any corporate acquisitions would be looked at on an individual basis so as to defuse this atom bomb.
As an OTM member myself, I am surprised that our leader has put his head on the block over this as he did not need to get drawn into this battle.
Completely unprofessional of OTM. Naive and stupid.
whollys’s
No less ‘completely unprofessional’ of Connells/RMS to break a Contract, Eamonn, surely?
I agree with you PeeBee. COMPLETELY UNPROFESSIONAL from Connells
I think its is shocking when an agent is bought that they ignore the pre-existing contracts.
You buy the business and everything that comes with it including the contracts, if you don’t like it cancel the contracts. I cant believe that you would pay £ X million for a company and not even consider how you would remove listings from OTM.
You cant just expect to ignore it and just carry on.
We all have a business to run and if your clients decided that they would breach your contract then you would react accordingly.
I hope that everyone that wants to leave OTM is hit with a hefty bill for the remainder of their contract terms. They saw the vision, they signed up for 5 years, they got bought (contracts and all) so Connells bought the business and will have to pay in some way.
I’m not a OTM supporter but I am a full backer of contracts being contracts.
Wasn’t the former owner on the board of OTM ? This is a real mess
‘Former’ being the operative word here, danny.
As to your second sentence – this had ‘real mess’ written all over it two years ago.
So not much has changed.