Boomin reaches more than 6,300 agency branches

Property portal operator Boomin has agreed a number of new listing agreements with UK estate and letting agents with more than 6,300 agency branches now listing properties on its platform.

The firm said that an increase of more than 600 branches was achieved last month, and there appears to be further room for growth thanks in part to the platform’s introductory offer.

Boomin is completely free to use and free from obligation until end of March 2022 for all agents, regardless of whether agents signed as founder agents or joined since launch.
It was announced yesterday that Pattinson in the North East of England has become the latest agency to sign up to Boomin. The company, based in the North East of England, has 26 branches with some 200 staff.
Caroline Pattinson, managing director of Pattinson, said: “Like many agents up and down the country we have been lucky to have experienced some excellent results over the last 18 months with over 100 properties even sold in full lockdown last April. But September is fast approaching, and we need to start our planning now for the market after the ending of the stamp duty holiday.

“We have watched the progress of Boomin over the last few months and feel confident that the time is now right
for us to join. I’ve heard positive feedback from other agents who are already using the platform.

“They are different and the opportunities for new income streams is certainly of interest. We are looking forward to working with the team and making the most of the new features that only Boomin offers.”

Michael Bruce, CEO and founder of Boomin, commented: “I couldn’t be more delighted to welcome Pattinson Estate Agents to the Boomin platform. They are a highly successful, family run, independent agency that has been part of the industry for generations. The ambition and genuine enthusiasm Caroline and the team has for quality agency and for their customers is fantastic.

“Agents are finding that Boomin is not just a ‘classified advertiser’ and that our DNA is very different. They are finding that we are all about genuine, sustainable innovation that leads the way for everyone, that sets the direction and wakes up the competition. Our continued growth and release of further new and exciting features under development will prove highly effective for all great agents like Pattinson’s who are on Boomin, as we enter what may prove to be another changing market landscape for our industry.

“We are continuing to complete the onboarding of the hundreds of new agents that we have signed up and are excited to start to be of service to them.”

 

Boomin founder Michael Bruce responds to negative Trustpilot reviews

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35 Comments

  1. James Christchurch

    Boss of PIE to the Editor of PIE, “the comments have been a bit low this week Ed on PIE’

    Editor replying, ‘Dont worry boss, I will do a Boomin post – that rattles the cage of the masses’

    Tin hats on!

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  2. smile please

    More branches than leads they have managed to produce.

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    1. Rebel Agent

      Get the branches first and the leads will follow.

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      1. smile please

        Yeah ….. Worked really well for OTM …

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  3. jsmcr

    Genuine question, has anyone other than MB had a positive experience with this? I’m satisfied with OTM and Zoopla, having dropped RM at the end of 2019 and just can’t see how this would benefit my firm, or anyone but boomin to be fair.

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  4. TB

    It really is bizarre that agents should be stupid enough to sign up for this and makes me question the intelligence of many in our industry.  We are simply helping creat an additional Rightmove owned by people we know will have no hesitation in ******** agents if it suits their already deep pockets.  The end result will simply be an additional website that we all need to pay for with the dangerous potential to achieve what purple bricks hasn’t of threatening all our livelihoods by cutting agents out of the moving equation.

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    1. NJ

      I logged on and genuinely shocked with some of the agents who have signed up – Clueless

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    2. B6RKY

      Strangely that is exactly the same feeling I had about OTM. Original sign ups to OTM were badly ripped off whereas at least Boomin is free.

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      1. Gonzo38

        Doesn’t ‘free’ simply mean you’re giving the business something it currently needs?
        To attract you to do this for free the business is offering its own services for free.
        Once the immediate need has passed, so will any notion of free.

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      2. TB

        Free until it becomes essential and then see what happens.  Are you only 10 years old and so didn’t whiteness the evolution of the portals or simply to dim to learn from the past?

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        1. Gonzo38

          TB I think we actually agreed on this?

          It’s only free because the portal needs something. Once they don’t need it as much then yes, they will charge, royally. It’s a common enough business model.

          What I can’t agree with is the notion of ‘essential’; I simply don’t believe that any single portal is essential. It’s by making something ‘essential’ to our business that we invite suppliers to charge whatever they like for their services, because they’re essential…

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          1. TB

            Fair enough but sadly in my towns we would be out of business in 6 months if we dropped Rightmove

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            1. singing agent

              When OTM first started up all the agents in West Wales dropped RM and kept on Zoopla.  The result, well over £12,000 pa profit and no drop in business.

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  5. PepeM

    What seems pretty clear already is that there really is no point in Boomin, there is simply no need for another portal, leads are virtually non existent. Apart from that the site is confusing and attempting to be far too clever for its own good. Just dont see why anyone having taken a look would bother going back. Yes it’s still early days but awareness is pretty much nil. It will take many many millions to achieve any meaningful impact.
    Maybe this is what happens when you put too many bright people in one room who overthink what the house buying public actually want. Maybe proven wrong but predict give it a couple of years of the pace they must be burning cash and it will quietly disappear, leaving the Bruce brothers to lick their wounds and spend whatever cash they’ve got left.

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    1. Hillofwad71

      They do have an interesting  range of rattan garden  furniture on offer .
        Don’t worry if you can’t find the  house of your dreams one of our suppliers  can offer you a barbecue set instead .
       
        What’s next Green Shield  stamps?

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  6. RussellQ

    Mystifying that agents commenting here don’t see that Boomin’s success is good for them. It has little to do with ‘needing another portal’ and everything to do with their long, long griping about Rightmove and it’s imbalanced pricing power.

    The more agents that sign up to Boomin the less power Rightmove has to fleece you on subscription rises each year. And the more the battle for genuine innovation hots up.

    You’ll see RM and Z having to actually listen to you too. If *you* help provide competitive tension, that is.

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    1. MarkRowe

      RusselQ,

      Although I don’t disagree with the fact that Rightmove need competition, it doesn’t mean to say that we have to jump on every new thing that comes along. Especially when there’s history behind the people who are running it.

      Before you say it, I completely agree that it was in the past…. however, if I’ve learnt two things in business; not to fall for the FOMO trick and only use suppliers that I think I can trust. The Bruce’s are experts in PR, they ramp it up even when there’s nothing there to ramp.

      I prefer the real stuff, stuff that assists and genuinely adds value.

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      1. Hillofwad71

        Sure  nothing wrong with a bit of competiton  to  loosen the stranglehold but as Mark Rowe says  there is no such thing as a free lunch.
         
           The danger here is a rinse and repeat of Bricks .Talk a big game which MB can  do as well as you ,credit  him  for that.  Commission  a candy floss report  by Hardmans  with hefty forecasts  to accompany an IPO.
          Cash in chips ,thank you very much before reality kicks in  and guess who pays the price
            Or  The Stagecoach effect.  Move in buy local bus company  Reduce bus  fares to below cost Kill off competition  obtain monopoly position increase fares 

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    2. TB

      What a naive post.  This will not dent Rightmove it will simply replicate Rightmove

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    3. Taliesin84

      Nearly choked on my cereal when I read this. RQ promoting the BB’s is a recommendation that should come with a ‘wealth warning’ to every independent estate agent! Absolutely no need for a 4th portal. That’s what OTM was set up to do and to end the ‘Rightmove fleecing’. Agents made RM and agents can break them but divided agents will fall. Divide agents has been the RM mantra for 10+ years. Time for it to stop.

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    4. smile please

      Russ, Your track record of backing lame donkies, you are hardley one to take advice from. 

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    5. Keyser Söze

      Russell, by any chance are Boomin a client of yours now? You seem to be keen to defend and promote them at the moment.

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    6. Gangsta Agent

      why would anyone in their right mind take notice of what RussellQ has to say, he must be looking to get on the friends/family Boomin gravy train.

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  7. KC54

    I have received one lead since launch and that was a waste of time.  Boom!  The secret property feature assumed that it took 14 days to get a property live on the market – really?  The rep was quite shocked when I told him clients expect it immediately!   Also as a potential enquirer, you have to give all your personal details including your home address and verify your email etc.  Most people will not do this.  But, they have all the data they need before you can lay claim to it.  I will be dropping my feed very shortly

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  8. Gonzo38

    So, what consumers (yep, these people who want to sell/buy/let/rent a home) is another portal with, funnily enough, the same properties as the other two (what, there’s a 3rd one?)?

    What agents want is another portal to spend their money on and put another sticker in their window?

    What vendors want is an agent who’s on every portal in the world, knowing full well that when they themselves are looking for their next home, they’ll look on just the top two (they didn’t know any others existed until the agent told them), because that’s where everything is anyway?

    I’m really struggling to answer ‘yes’ to any of the above…

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  9. Ric

    After watching Corrie last night and seeing PurplePricks board outside the Rovers, (northern thing) I just felt an instant hatred towards Boomin.

     

    I cannot see how I can support a company who’s owner so viciously attacked the High Street Agent and our fee structure.

     

    I did ask Mr B, last night on Twitter if he regrets being so Anti High Street Agent.. TBF he offered a phone chat but didn’t tweet his response to my question, personally I would have declared my regret if I was him and did regret how PB has ruined fee levels and created the new wave of budget hybrids.

     

    So my problem remains, the owner of Boomin feels EA’s charge too much and computers can do a better job, his opinion low up front fixed fees with no reward for extra effort is the best way for the selling public.

     

    So it begs the question, why support a company run by someone who still holds the opinion Online Agency with budget fees is better than HS Agents striving for 1% to 2% or even more of the eventual sale prices, with minimum fees worthy of the effort our people put in for the abuse they get.

     

    Boomin is not set up to beat RM, Boomin is set up to ultimately be floated and make the board (top level) millions on the stock market… (No issue with that, good luck if they achieve this, but I am so surprised at Agents thinking Boomin is all about them and their business)

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    1. MarkRowe

      @Ric

      Spot on! You had more patience than me to write out exactly what I was thinking too.

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    2. Hillofwad71

      I guess he is still hopeful of pulling Purplebricks out of the hat so keeping them sweet until he has bagged as many of the independents as possible.  
       
      He wouldn’t  have  the nerve,would he ?
       
        “Keep your friends close and your enemies dead and buried in the basement.”  

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  10. Gangsta Agent

    Boomin has nothing to do with leads, valuations, sales, making money for agents. Its about how many shares the top boys can give themselves and then sell. Thought that was clear

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  11. Rebel Agent

    I don’t think it is any different with Rightmove or Zoopla though.

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  12. A W

    I’m only here for the comments…. they’re hilarious! Thank you brightening up my day everyone

     

    🙂

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  13. HIT MAN

    Why would any agent share their stock with Boomin it’s like sharing with a local competitor agent.

    ”Dear local Agents I’m setting up an estate agency in your town and don’t have any stock please give me your stock my website is great and I will allow you to play around with it but the first ones that do I will give you some leads” “ I PROMISE!”

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  14. SLF

    You’ll all be on it soon. You’re all cutting of your noses just becaue it’s the Bruce brothers. Don’t be so shortsighted. Why the hell pay that parasite RM? You moan about them just as much but chuck your money at them happily enough.

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  15. TB

    You really don’t get it do you.  I can only assume you are not in the business, on a youth opportunities scheme or recovering from a lobotomy.

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  16. Once Bitten

    If Boomin is Xmas then you are the turkey. Anyone with a brain will realise that once your customer registers with Boomin they cease to become your customer. The Bruce’s will try and float this **** at the earliest opportunity if that doesn’t happen then you can add it to the long list of their previously failed ventures (see company house for details)

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