A second agent has spoken out to say that he is refusing to pay for an easyProperty licence.
Mark Hayward, director of award-winning Somerset firm and Guild member Debbie Fortune Estate Agents, said that he had bought two territories for a total of £1,000 per month last September, and has not had a single useable lead.
He said: “We have had five leads, three of which were from outside our area, where they don’t have anyone, and we have turned them down because we don’t operate there.
“For example, we are ten miles south of Bristol, so a lead in Bristol city centre is not something we could service.
“The two other leads could not be qualified or followed up, so we have not been able to undertake any valuations.”
Hayward said that in June last year, his firm and other Guild members were invited to attend meetings around the country where CEO Jon Cooke presented the easyProperty proposition.
Hayward said it was an enticing sales pitch, with easyProperty acting as a new lead-generating website.
Guild members would sign up for territories, broadly in line with their existing Guild territories.
easyProperty would advertise the brand, driving sellers who had decided they wanted a DIY agent, to the site.
The lead would then be sent to the signed-up Guild member for that area.
Hayward said that in a reply to a FAQ dated June 2017, easyProperty said its core promotional strategy would include bespoke national and regional digital campaigns plus TV brand advertising.
However, in December, Hayward said he received a letter from then chief operating officer Adam Day, saying: “We won’t be plundering [ploughing] millions into TV brand building as it doesn’t work.” The same letter said that what was required was local advertising from the licensees.
Hayward said that Debbie Fortune Estate Agents than carried out its own market research on prospects it had canvassed.
Feedback, he says, was along the lines of: “Who are easyProperty?
“Are they yet another internet-based agent jumping on the bandwagon?
“What makes their offering really different from any of the other internet based operators?
“Their offering just confuses the market rather than making the decision easier so I will probably stick with what I know.
“Purplebricks seem to be the leader in this market so if we were to make a decision then why would we not chose the market leader?”
Hayward said that earlier this year, the licensees were told to knock on doors and tout for business – when the original proposition had been that easyProperty would drive the leads. He said it was akin to McDonald’s insisting its local franchisees did all the advertising rather than stick to making burgers.
Hayward said: “I believe the Guild agents who signed up have been misled.
“It was quite clear the success of the original proposal was based on easyProperty establishing the brand which would drive sellers to it.”
Hayward, who has not paid for some months, believes easyProperty is in breach of what it said it would offer.
He says that he hopes the matter will be taken to court, where the matter will be in the public domain, and where he says he will be able to produce proof of what was originally promised.
The case raises the decidedly uneasy prospect of easyProperty going after members of its sister company, the Guild, if they are paying one but not the other.
Jon Cooke, CEO of easyProperty, told EYE yesterday: “easyProperty is a licensed online estate agency model allowing independent agents to offer a whole of market solution within their locality.
“This year as GPEA and more recently eProp Services plc, we celebrate 25 years of working with independent agency partners providing marketing and innovation to allow them to protect and gain market share.
“Our partnership approach has always been mutually beneficial and we have always prided ourselves on long term relationships, and we will continue to do so.
“With regard to individual easyProperty licensee issues, a contract term is a contract term and as in any other business relationship this should be honoured as by far the majority of licensees are doing so, as they work in partnership to gain market share.
“There are a small minority of easyProperty licensees that initially having agreed to the proposition may now, predominantly due to their own financial circumstances, wish to reconsider their options.
“As we pride ourselves on long term relationships we are working closely where necessary, with those who are honouring their contractual agreement.”
Yesterday, EYE reported that easyProperty licensee Ian Beamish, who runs The Big Property Shop in Warrington, is also refusing to pay. easyProperty is taking legal action against him.
Comments (23)
These comments do not reflect my own experience of The Guild amd Easyproperty. I attended a number of meetings and roadshows to hear the Easyproperty proposition and eventually my colleagues and I decided not to go ahead. At no time did I feel “…pressured to sign up…”. Hence, rightly or wrongly, we decided against going ahead with that particular idea.
The criticism of The Guild is also, in my view, totally misplaced. I have always found them to be a forward thinking organisation who again do not pressurise estate agency customers – merely advise. We have used a number of ideas from the Guild to the advantage of ourselves and our customers. Their relationship to Easyproperty is, in my personal opinion, irrelevant.
The Guild should hang their head in shame. Pushing a flawed business model onto their members. Pay £500 per month to dilute your own local brand then take a % of a cr@p fee.
All of this after they said they would stand up against online-only agents and help their members by educating the public and offering various advertising etc
So glad we left a couple of years ago
*Blatant copy of my post from yesterday – more relevant for this story! :0)
The Guild along with all these other ‘prop tech ‘ outfits are all a bunch of bottom feeding cretans. Take the Guild for example, they are meant to support the independent agents yet they cosy up to Easyproblem and use a bunch of scare stories to get agents to sign up, similar to Onthemarket. Every time my rep visits me she is trying to get me to spend more money. I even had one chancer on the phone recently trying to sell me a service that will respond to any rightmove/zoopla lead by sending this potential ‘applicant’ a few questions before we speak to them so we are ‘better prepard’, he wanted a £100 per month !!! sod off the lot of you. I think as agents we should be more savvy to these companies and not start flapping as soon as you are down on a few vals for the month. Stick to the basics that most of us learnt when we first set out and you will have far fewer direct debits leaving your account every month.
Let’s not forget a few things here, the Guild went all out gathering their members together on an extravagent roadshow and used the fear factor of you’ve got to sign up otherwise we will sell it to your competitors (not quite in those words but that was the gist). Seems like the Guild are money grabbing from the very agents they are supposed to represent.
1. Guild is only one agent can get involved per area
2. Then the very same owners went out and pushed Fine & Country licensees which if you as a Guild member didn’t want, then they’d sell it to another agent in the same town
3. Now they want a third bite of the cherry in the same town by yet another monthly fee however at this point they’ve been completely rumbled by the agents who they flogged the licenses to because apart from a couple of TV adverts and fan fare they’ve done sweet FA.
Agents wake up, invest your money in things that will protect your core business within the very brand that you’ve worked hard to create and don’t fall fowl to this nonsense. Having looked at this agents website and the one referenced yesterday, if they’d invested £12k in their digital marketing and website, it would have generated far better results and protected their fee positions.
“the Guild went all out gathering their members together on an extravagent roadshow and used the fear factor of you’ve got to sign up otherwise we will sell it to your competitors”
With you all the way until the “fear factor” bit, Penfold.
Frankly I’d behappily offering to pay the subs for any one of my competitors to be lumbered with such an encumbrance as an EasyPlop licence….
Interesting insight Penfold.
A while back Fine & Country approached us to take up a license, oddly we have an agent in the local area with a Guild and Easy license so i guess you are right they are squeezing the stone for blood.
The most surprising thing i learnt during our chat was a Rightmove license under F&C was under £100pm This is the same as the Hunters franchise proposition. Why can i not get a £100pm license with RM?
Good luck to him, I cannot imagine Easy Property will want to *test* the issue in court
Hope the guy doesn’t rely on your imagination in the “test” case…
It seems like lots of agents are being misled with these lead generation companies and paying lots of money at the same time! We work with lots of independent estate agents who are seeing huge online success generating their own leads, at a fraction of the cost!
The last time you posted this self-serving cr@p you were asked to produce one example. Just one.
We’re still waiting.
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Apologies, Nick, for suggesting a ‘supplier’ break your Ts’n’Cs.
Just wanted to call them out to see if there was anything actually growing under the copious billshut they spread on your site.
But at least I’ve alerted you to their game.
No apology needed PeeBee but thank you anyway.
Another plonker thinking that cheap is the way forward, again, fools and their money
How come Eye are not publishing stories on all the agents not paying their subscription fees to OTM ?
I know of a number locked into contracts who refuse to pay the monthly subscription.
An “inconvenient truth” ?
In fairness, smile please, I would suggest that particular subject dropped out of the file headed ‘news’ quite some time ago.
The ones that boil my wastewater are the ones that have been allowed to ‘rejoin’ – supposedly without penalty AND given free listing periods – having previously walked away from Contracts THEY WILLINGLY AGREED TO.
The Estate Agency industry (and many that exist within it), as we well know, smile please, is a dog that bites. And bites.
And then 5h!ts on your shoes.
I can still name three agents still within a contract with OTM, and they have not paid fees in 2 years. Why os OTM not getting the bad press EasyProperty are?
I assume you are with OTM? Any quality leads this week so far?
Same number that I’ve received from Rightmove.
I’m bitterly disappointed to say.
It’s clear agents have been misled and pressured to sign up to false promises.
PPITE
“misled”? No doubt. Led by the ring in their nose right up the path to the knackers’ yard being told it’s a holiday camp.
“pressured”? I can’t agree there. Either they allowed themselved to be led or they didn’t. Aren’t we meant to be savvy businesspeople, ffs?
They took a punt. It bombed. Lesson to be learnt – or wait for the next snake-oil salesman’s knock at your door – there are plenty out there looking for easy marks.
Now transfer the hype from easyProperty to Rightmove…how many useable valuation leads do you get and are they in your area or are they in a postcode that a corporate would cover. Remember the model is based on legacy when the portal was new news and wanted stock so the best deals were offered to the corporates and still are.
Look at the numbers of enquiries that return calls and look at how your brand identity really stands out from the crowd…when everyone else is there as well, and also using bolt ons. It is a standard set of sales scripts and the sooner agents wake up to it and realise it is your stock that creates the desire the better. Well done Mark Hayward for exploding the myth. Start negotiating everyone…core package is enough if you have good stock and accurate prices…or are you prepared to keep paying others to get a 75% return on your hard work!
The difference sadly is if you are not on EasyProperty you will not lose a listing.
If you are not on Rightmove your competitors will use it against you and you have a greater chance of losing the instruction.
Rightmoves leads (as every other portals) are woeful (especially at the moment, anyone else found this?) The only reason we list on it is because of oher agents.
“It’s clear agents have been misled and pressured to sign up to false promises.” Is this an OTM article?