A poster yesterday on EYE said that his firm which had earlier been offered a free membership trial of OnTheMarket had the offer withdrawn because it operates out of non-commercial premises with no shop front.
James Cridland of Oxfordshire family firm Cridland and Co, which offers a full estate agency service, posted this on EYE:
“If OTM really wants to succeed it’s got to stop shooting itself in the foot.
“Three years ago they came to see us and pleaded we join; we said no because the ‘one other portal’ rule would have been commercial suicide in our area.
“Two weeks ago they approached us with the offer of a freebie, which we accepted with relish, only to find we are ‘not eligible as you don’t have a shop front and nor are your premises registered as commercial’.
“We are a rural, boutique agency, with four people working out of offices we had built for the purpose on our own land. Seven years in, we are a dominant force selling character homes and land. One look at our website and client feedback says that is so.
“But OTM cannot see past their own rules! With so many people now working from home or virtually, they really are a decade behind the times. Bonkers…”
Cridland confirmed to EYE that he and his wife Harriet operate their small business out of a non-commercial building with no shop front.
He said that neither of these was an issue three years ago when he was approached by OTM to join.
He said: “We thought then that the business fitted OTM’s criteria, but it now seems it doesn’t.”
He said he had initially been offered an 11-month free trial, which has now been withdrawn. Cridland said that many of his own clients also work out of non-commercial premises, as is now common, and that it is not an issue in the small village where his business is based – for example, there is no signage.
His experience was seemingly at odds with OnTheMarket saying at the start of the year that it was lifting the ban on online agents.
This would automatically mean allowing in agents with no shop front, and who could well be home-based.
We asked OnTheMarket about this seeming contradiction.
A spokesperson for OTM yesterday afternoon would not comment on the specific case but said: “The initial membership rules of Agents’ Mutual specified that members must be estate or lettings agents offering full service, office-based agency.
“Following Admission, the company also accepts listings from full-service agents which do not necessarily operate local high street offices.
“Our initial focus since Admission in building rapidly our agent customer base has been on traditional office-based agents who continue to represent the vast majority of the residential sales and lettings agency market.”
OnTheMarket confirms that agents under contract will still have to observe ‘One Other Portal’ rule
Brilliant. Keep it up OTM.
Keep the likes of Russell Quirk out.
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While the duopoly accept agents of all business models, so must anyone who hopes to challenge their dominance. The biggest and longest running debate we have is how do we charge agents that don’t have a branch.
Charging national internet listing firms by stick level discriminates unfairly against small agents who might have as little stock as a territory lister but because listing central has a deal of £***/xx listed the listers are enjoying ( not that they are paying to list) a significantly lower subscription rate which obviously must adjust month by month rather than being fixed annually.
My view is that everyone should pay the same, if an agent has a branch whether it can be ITZA rated, pays business rates or operates from home as is now common in the gig economy the charge should be per branch equivalent.
I have activity centres; if there are 3 agents in a town or village a lister covering that activity centre pays the same as the agents that cover that centre i.e. 1 subscription. A small independent covering 3 activity centres would pay 3 subscriptions and so should a lister covering the 3
As the central listing firms are apparently saving so much money not having an ITZA window, paying the subs for the areas they apparently cover shouldn’t be an issue. Seems fair to me.
There are obvious challenges to that; niche agents that just sell specialised properties but across multiple activity centres, (farms, landed, equestrian, water-side, holiday homes etc) I consider the specialist nature qualifies those agent as single branches and should pay a single subscription for the single directory that would properly describe their agency.
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In my opinion, f you want everyone to pay the same, surely the best pricing model is a fixed cost for each listing (possibly for a time limited period before a renewal fee is due)? Realistically this is likely to be a discounted rate the more properties listed but small agents will pay the same per listing whether they have 1 office or 3. There is no need to have any special cases for niche agents.
I may be misunderstanding what you are saying but you seem to be saying you have 3 offices covering 3 adjacent areas. If someone else has one office covering the same area they should pay the same fee as you do not the fee for one office. What if their office only covers the same area as 2 of your offices? What if it is 2 of your offices and another area the same size? What if the additional area is 50 times the size of your area. If you are paying for an area would you not put on a property which is 10m outside your area?
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Thank you for reading that and taking the trouble to create (or rename) an account to reply (at midnight) It’s nice to have a discussion rather than a series of polarised opinion posts where I’m apparently either mad or wrong
Pay per property discriminates against agents who sell a lot of comparative low value homes. An agent in the North East might have 60 or 70 properties listed where an agent in SW1 might have 3 or 4, the average is currently 37. The logical outcome to that becomes a percentage based on listing price. That is doable but so wonderfully complicated for all involved.
To me paying per branch naturally adjusts to cope with 96% of all agents; if the business owners determine there’s enough business to warrant a branch with all the costs associated with it, the cost of coffee and a kitkat isn’t going to break the bank and isn’t something anyone needs to worry about or get too concerned if they have a listing slightly outside their normal patch.
The problem comes with 2% of agents who offer nationwide coverage without obvious branches; I prepare directory listings that show what agents sell and where, it is a fair and honest representation of the service a firm offers. Where #local experts are genuinely #local agents and have all the duties and obligations of an agent covered (Ewemove) it is possible to prepare a directory for their branch equivalent but for those who are offering a passive intermediary, whack it on the internet service, it isn’t possible to prepare and maintain a directory for everywhere the service might cover.
A directory listing that shows the agent hasn’t done any business in the area or the only experience the rep has was they worked in an agency close by is the sort of honesty that doesn’t win business- if someone wants to buy that sort of honesty I won’t stop them!
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Well done OTM – quite correct if a little close to the edge. OTM is for agents, not people working out of a barn or their back bedroom
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It is not about Russell Quirk. Serious agents should realise that it is about vendors, buyers, landlords and tenants and providing the best marketing service for them.
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Let me on.
Let em all on.
Assuming the company above is on RM, then to be perfectly honest, OTM are simply stopping their (OTM) end user (The public/house hunters) seeing a property on their (OTM) site AND forcing them to visit RM in the process to see this agents properties.
The buyer does not care who is marketing the property only where they can find it.
I personally think the bigger picture is to open the floodgates and let em all on.
All about the stock.
The Online Only -v- High Street is a whole different battle and one agents can defend for themselves at a local level in my opinion. The market will also very soon fight the battle for us, as paying up front on the hope of a sale will fade away.
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Agree 100%.
The battlefield with call centre agents is not on the portals, we’ve moved on from that debate.
It shouldn’t be up to agents to police this.
Let them all on.
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It’s not onliners that are the problem . It’s d.i.y and Payanyway who need to be kept off.
Also onmarket sort your window stickers out. Pur your name on them . Bmp spitfire stickers don’t mean anything.
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Completely agree… all the well known LOGOS are because a well known Brand Name was created first.
You can’t just stick a logo up and expect people to know what it means, especially when the logo is linked to other well known things.
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I understand the importance of getting the” Spitfire” logo in front of the public but let them in .Have to admit the first time I saw the logo displayed proudly in an agents window jI presumed the RAF Beneveloment Charity was the agent’s charity of choice
I guess a little bit like Ewemove benefiting indirectly from Emoov’s advertising !
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In order to be OTM, the agent should be able to provide a full service. Meaning the customer/buyer can:
– Have a free valuation
-No Sale No Fee Agents Only.
-walk into a high street or serviced office to talk to a property expert.
-have a number on the board to call the agent opposed to just a website address
-all viewings should be accompanied
-full sales progression once the sale is agreed.
It’s all about customer outcomes.
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You kiddin?
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No sale, no fee would remove a large number of my high street competitors who charge set up fees or charge for photography (go figure). Likewise very few of them offer accompanied viewings on all properties. At best they can be described as a guy turning up with a key, not necessarily on time and under pressure to get to the next one.
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Iam out then. Accompany all viewings ? for 1% is a thing of folk law surely.
Iam looking at getting rid of our office. 80% of customers will now suffer due to the 20% who go online and have dragged our fees and units down with it. Onmarket treading on thin ice with this.
Basically get all houses on there and teach the public that payanyway is wrong and that’s why they are excluded.
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OTM – The perfect place to see SOME of the properties in your area. If you want to see them all, look elsewhere.
Great way to attract buyers!
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A great place to see properties offered by estate agents rather than the back bedroom brigade. I’d take that every time!
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There are some fantastic independent estate agents all over the country that don’t have a shop front. Run exactly the same as a high street agent, some are market leaders in their areas. Why can’t they advertise with OTM? These aren’t ‘back bedroom’ agents or ‘call centre’ agents, they are brilliant estate agents that are as good and sometimes better than their competitors with shop fronts.
I understand the PB, Yopa, Doorsteps, Emoov agents being banned but why the independents?
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That’s interesting – one of my competitors doesn’t have a shop front yet they are advertising with OTM.
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Its truly amazing how every sane individual accepts the Retail High Street businesses are in decline, not because they arent any good or that they are not wanted but pure and simply because with their high overheads they just can not compete with online retailers. Why should Estate Agents be any different? The only defence High Street agents have to justify their high fees are we are better, we deliver blah blah. Look at the client reviews on Trustpilot and All Agents for Purple Bricks, Emoov and the like. These are facts. You can bury your heads in the sand or you can start planning for what is inevitable. I have no issues with shop/office/home based agents – we all do the same thing. I totally agree anyone providing a shoddy service shouldnt be in business, and they will not survive by doing so. I
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…..because retailers sell lots of identical products that can be shipped out of a central warehouse. Agency is an intimate service industry that sells unique, high value, assets for individual clients. The definition of agency and the contract law precedents distinguish agency from other professional sales such as banking or service sales such as holidays.
Do not believe the artificial testimonials of the rating sites, they have no credibility.
Agents that cannot fulfil their duty of care and skill by offering a react to internet enquiries are vulnerable to challenge for losses incurred by their principals. Guessing at and relying on 3rd party algorithms for advice on value would not be adequate defence against a claim for negligence. No sane individual would believe it would.
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We were told before joining as a Gold Member that we were not able to join as we worked from a business centre. Luckily, we had just purchased commercial premises before OTM started, so were we able to move forward with joining.
I understand this rule was so that the online call centre agents were not able to join OTM.
I am not convinced that our reason for joining and remaining members is anything to do with which of our competitors are on OTM but was more to do with ever increasing costs and dominance of Z and RM.
I say, allow them onto OTM and drop this rule. I am sure from the comments above than most members will agree.
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If anyone would care to go back to the archive of this website from 4 years ago, you will see that nearly all OTM agent posters wanted call centre agents banned from listing.
Today there are roughly 3 or 4 posters wanting them banned.
We’ve moved on guys, call centre agents are not the threat, any good agent knows how to combat them and win market share.
Let everyone on and win business based on your quality of service not where you advertise.
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Same thing happened to us.
We threatened legal action and it was resolved. We can’t say any more than that unfortunately due to terms of the resolution but we weren’t happy.
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Shows what a mess OTM is.
Is it to challenge RM or is it to help high street agents?
It can’t be both.
Personally I think if OTM had the slightest chance to topple RM it needs to let everyone list or there will always be circa 5% of listings not showing that are on RM.
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So, since it’s my agency the article is about I probably ought to flesh out the detail.
Some of the comments above assume we’re just another “bedroom business” hence OTM refuses us entry. Not so. We built our own offices, with state of the art systems, top-line insulation, our own servers etc. We handle the sort of property and client that demands a very high level of communication and experience.
OTM is a brilliant idea. Who wouldn’t want RM to face real competition? But in trying to protect “regular” agency from the perceived scourge of PB etc they are perhaps missing the point that some agents do not need a high street or commercial premises to be a quality outfit. Our lower overheads allow us to provide a really boutique service, the like of which PB etc just cannot match. The sooner OTM realises that doesn’t dilute their core agency values but actually strengthens it, the quicker they will change the competition in the portal marketplace to all our benefits.
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One member one vote.
You know what to do Ian.
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Can someone honestly say OTM generates leads for them, other than spam or buyers who want me to open links to see their property.I must be doing something wrong, as I am afraid RM is the one we get 80% of our buyer/vendor leads from, they may not buy the one the enquired about, but they buy something when we work them. (the other 19% is mainly our own website/local marketing) – i’ll give ZPG and OTM 1% as I am in a good mood.
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Thanks for the thumbs down…odd? I am asking a question based on fact from my offices. dont really wont a vote on if it’s popular.
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It’s the mad pro OTM brigade where anybody dares question them you get a thumbs down.
It a relevant question you ask.
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Whoops SP thumbs down. More thumbs down than I have had buyer leads this month from OTM.
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