Netanagent, a free-to-consumers price comparison website for vendors and landlords wanting the services of an estate or letting agent, has attracted a six-figure investment sum.
It comes from a Bath-based business angel and property developer, Chris Bamford.
Bamford has acquired a major share in Netanagent and he will become a director of Netanagent, which was launched in 2012 by Alex Thorpe, Josh De Haan and Lloyd Nicholson-Taylor.
Netanagent will now embark on a digital and media advertising campaign aimed at increasing awareness in the domestic property market.
Bamford said: “The popularity of price comparison websites has grown enormously in recent years, with an increasing number of consumers enjoying being able to find reliable information on commoditised services quickly and conveniently.
“As such, a company disrupting the estates agency market provided a strong investment opportunity, especially taking into account its extraordinary growth.”
Alex Pyatt claimed: “In the three years since its launch, Netanagent has become the leading UK estate agent comparison site, providing home owners with comprehensive marketing proposals from local and online estate agents.
“Chris’s investment means the business is well set to further enhance its position in the property market.”
Netanagent’s business model is to charge a success fee to an agent when a property is let or sold. The fee for a sale is 0.1%, or a minimum of £150 up to £450 plus VAT. For a letting, the agent will be invoiced for £75 plus VAT outside the M25, and £100 plus VAT inside the M25.
Agents are notified by email when a new property is added and then have two working days to submit quotes for fees, which are then forwarded to the vendor or landlord.
Another scheme to reduce agents bottom line. Only works if every agent signs up to what is a league table which will only benefit one or two agents.Steer clear – another cost. Small agents should steer clear
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From the vendors perspective, what are they getting? Three potential agents that are focused on the fee, rather than the service. It’s a lazy way of choosing an agency and vendors will only have themselves to blame if it doesn’t work out. Why would any agency want to disclose their fee, prior to meeting with the vendor? The agency and vendor may not be on the same wavelength. This only adds to the public perception of agents being a commodity.
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“Why would any agency want to disclose their fee, prior to meeting with the vendor?”
So… are you now saying that you do not require or request that information when selecting your chosen Agents to give their “listing presentation” to your clients?
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What makes you think that, PeeBee?
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I would say that the post is completely self-explanatory, Sir.
What’s the answer?
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You obviously recollect my saying that we ask agents for information on their fees before we invite them to a meeting with the vendor. We do negotiate the fee after the agency has met with the vendor, but if we have given the impression that the fee is discussed prior to viewing the property or meeting the vendor, then I would of course welcome you correcting me, yet again.
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So… let me get this straight.
You DO ask agents for their ‘normal’ Fee package prior to an introduction to a vendor – or have I got that wrong?
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If you have got it wrong, I figure it would be deliberate;)
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Not in the least, Sir. Your ‘answer’ seemed to serve to answer several questions – I only asked one.
To which I take it the answer is yes.
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I do, then, apologise for doubting your sincerity. Just to be clear, the agency fees are not discussed until after the agency(s) has met with the vendor, received the valuation and fee proposal from the agency.
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It’s been a long day and it’s far from over yet – I need to get my head around what I think you’re saying.
Watch this space later for my response.
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All I see here is a race to the bottom and a website that no-one has heard of, or are likely to. There are no agents using it within 30 miles of me and I cant see why they would want to; good luck with the 6 figure investment.
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Unfortunately the site does not allow single word posts so you have to follow this all the way to the end for the response – which is ‘LEECHES’.
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This seems incredibly badly timed! As online agents focus on a low service/low fee model, agents would be well advised to focus on creating distinction as they seek to de-commoditise their offering. On the basis that people choose an agent for who they are, rather than what they do or what they charge, especially in respect of the individual agent they meet, then why would an agent want to expose their fee and their service (proposal) without having even seen the house or met the vendor. As an agent you deserve the opportunity to sell your knowledge, personality, expertise, enthusiasm, integrity, drive, accountability and commitment face to face and then let the vendor/landlord determine whether you are worth your fee. Imagine an online dating agency where the most attractive suitors were the most expensive. I don’t think anyone at the bottom would get any hits sadly. People always pay more for the product/service they prefer. Your job as an agent is to demonstrate your preferability. Ha – all good sport!
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Bamford said: “The popularity of price comparison websites has grown enormously in recent years, with an increasing number of consumers enjoying being able to find reliable information on commoditised services quickly and conveniently.
As a developer he should know better! Commoditised service my foot!
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Just out of interest…
How much would you pay up front for a genuine seller lead from a comparison website that did NOT include online only agents? (in my area all agents on NetAnAgent are onliners).
For example, if a comparison site verified the lead prior to issue as a genuine seller and then forwarded the lead to a maximum of three agents (no fees disclosed to the seller) … would you pay £10, £20, £30, £40, £50 ?
If you converted 1 in 3 leads @ £25 a lead your instruction cost would be £75.
I would pay £20-£30 a lead … would you?
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“For example, if a comparison site verified the lead… and then forwarded the lead to a maximum of three agents (no fees disclosed to the seller) … would you pay £10, £20, £30, £40, £50 ?”
Not one penny.
Why would or should I pay for a company to put me in a lottery draw.
I will take my chances with savvy vendors anyday, thank you.
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What a ridiculous comment….
So the only enquiries your agency ever gets are from vendors who only contact you??
If that isn’t the case – which of course it isn’t – then competing with two local agents for a genuine vendor instruction is a simply another opportunity for business.
If you don’t see it that way you are either;
a) not the agency owner
or
b) an agency owner with no idea of maximizing instructions.
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or
c) not susceptible to parasites and their MDT that they are the ones doing you the favour.
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awww, Harree – I take it you gave me a ‘Dislike’.
That wasn’t very friendly… I’m borderline hurt.
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If it was a genuine seller lead that was looking to come to the market and no advertising was promoting low fees i would happily spend £30 per lead.
BUT
I have seen how mortgage leads are sold and purchased, there would need to be massive assurances in place for me to sign up as i see how much these poor brokers lose on buying leads and the naff quality they are.
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smile please … I understand your point, but…
Mortgage leads are notoriously ‘iffy’ , especially if internet generated, because most people just want to know how much a mortgage would cost IF they decided to move ie., they are currently stone cold leads.
My point is that as long as the lead was confirmed by the issuer ie., correct name, tel no, email and genuinely interested in listing their property now – I would pay £20-£30 a lead. If a lead can be proven to be a wrong tel no the issuer should give a refund guarantee.
Excellent point you made also about no advertising on the generating site, I would want to provide mortgage and legal services not have that hi-jacked by the lead generator.
IMO PeeBee has missed the point completely.
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Kind of my point, mortgages leads are iffy but are not sold as such. Brokers think they are buying into genuine clients and they are not.
The same would no doubt be the same for val leads, suppossed genuine movers but in the real world looking for an up to date price for a remortgage, looking for a value to compare with there online valuation as looking to use an online agent, just looking for a fee over the telephone and so on.
I think its too hard to police for the provider of the leads and will just end up getting grief from agents which is why its probably never really taken off.
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Lead ‘quality’ works both ways.
Whether its a mortgage broker or an agent a ‘bad’ lead isn’t simply one that doesn’t convert. If the attitude of the lead receiver is “its only a good lead if it sells” any relationship between lead supplier and receiver will never get off the ground.
Like any other service, a lead supplier can be good, bad or indifferent.
I’d be happy to have a consistent average instruction cost from a lead supplier of £75-£100 providing I could achieve one instruction from a maximum of 4/5 leads supplied. I’d be happy to take the rough with the smooth on that basis.
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Hi Harree, maybe you’d like to google us, valuation or instruction leads will always be completely free of charge.
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Ian,
Tell me, how are you going to drive potential sellers to your app?
Its all well and good charging £150 for unlimited val leads but why are buyers / sellers going to use you and how will they know about you?
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Harree again you make my point and the whole reason it will not work.
You are already trying to blame the agent, i have no doubt that some agents who are poor listers will try and say it was a poor lead but believe me if you or anybody set up a website to just generate valuations to then sell on the only way you will get people to that page is by promising cheap fees or free updates.
You can go onto google now and source any number of estate agents and get a valuation.
Somebody generating val leads the quality will be poor and the agent will have no chance to send back as the provider will say its genuine.
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I haven’t missed any point – I simply don’t subscribe to the opinion.
We are all entitled to an opinion, Harree – aren’t we?
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Yep … doesn’t say that opinion is right though.
In this case MY OPINION is that your opinion is ill thought through and just your usual negative know it all response.
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My, my – you are a tetchy Harree today!
If you need to let off some steam, go on – just vent it my way – I’m clearly more able to handle it than you and I don’t want you going home and kicking the cat/dog/budgie or shouting at your significant other ‘cos you’ve had another bad day where someone doesn’t agree with you.
Just my opinion, you understand…
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Oh – forgot to mention – you may not have noticed but there’s a few others that also don’t seem to share ‘YOUR OPINION’
But rather than having to fight on several fronts, you just keep concentrating your peashooter on me.
I’m sure they’ll all get the message…
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Zoopla thinking of introducing a new service Harree? Highlight prospective sellers based on their online behaviour and deduce their propensity to move…
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Ah … the old I’m a Zoopla rep again.
PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS.
I’ll give £100 to a charity of your choice and you vice versa on whether I’m a Zoopla rep or not.
How do we prove it?
Easy. Ros has my email address in my agency name and she can call me to confirm.
Shut up or put up…
WHICH IS IT?
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Me thinks the lady doth protest too much…
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Me thinks you are a coward.
SHUT UP OR PUT UP.
What’s your problem little boy?
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So it’s shut up.
What a coward.
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Steady now PeeBee and Harree. You’ll have Ms Renshaw wagging her finger at you if you keep this up. Play nice.
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I AM playing nice, Sir.
When that changes, you will see the mushroom cloud long before you feel the fallout.
;o)
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A six figure investment fuelled by the prospect of a minimum of £150 for every house thats sold in the UK !
Estate Agents are the only people that can make this happen for them, they did it for RM, Z, PL and now OTM why not NAA?
But won’t they be paying for the only part of their business that is currently free and at the same time creating another monster that they can’t control, or daren’t do without?
20 sales per month X £150 Minimum ….. WOW!
Mind you, that would be OK if it was 20 extra sales that were snaffled from their competitors, in reality though it’ll be the same 20 sales they had before only now they have to pay someone else for them.
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It’s amazes me how so many business people, including estate agents, have their heads in the sand.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s the same 20 sales – what matters is whether your business gets the opportunity to pitch for that sale.
More often than not the easier part of business is converting the sale … the harder part is getting more sales leads.
If I had double the valuation enquiries in my area I’d double my business. Simple as.
Why would I be bothered that the total number of instructions across my area would stay the same?
If a comparison site, or anything else, gave me the opportunity to get in front of more genuine sellers I’d trial it without question.
Any business person who would kick it into touch with a cynical sneer needs to get off their off their ever growing high horse.
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Harree,
I get your point but i think you wrong.
Take a breather and look at it.
You say you are an estate agent.
Are you an owner? – I am.
How many times a day do you get marketing calls to advertise or take advantage of XYZ – i will conservativly say i get at least 10 opportunities a day.
Now if you are an agency owner i will assume you get the same.
Now tell me how many times are you given the line “Just one sale from advertising / taking advantage will pay for your subscription for the whole year!” When ever i give the salesman / rep time to pitch to me i get that line 100% of the time.
Just saying you are happy to buy an opportunity to pitch is flawed, as i have put above if the quality is low (and everything points to it having to be low to get the leads) you will be throwing good money away.
We decided turn of the year to cease newspaper advertising for this very reason. its dated, its not relevant and produces little business. we get much better value for the same money printing 20,000 leaflets and getting delivered, we can also target the areas we want.
I beleive by the end of 2017 the local property paper will not exist, and if it does it will be owned by the agents.
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smile…
Just saying you are happy to buy an opportunity to pitch is flawed
If you read my previous posts I’m not saying that.
I’m saying that IF the lead provider offered a genuine service and lead confirmation system backed up by a money back guarantee then I would definitely give it a try.
I am an owner, and I won’t take unsolicited sales calls, but if I received an email from a lead provider with genuine peer evidence of a working and potentially profitable system … I’d try it.
I believe there are agency undecided vendors out there who, already used to comparison sites, would use one to help find a reputable local agent. That’s my point and if that helps me grow my market share I would definitely be interested.
We aren’t selling an impulse purchase and we can’t persuade homeowners to sell and move on if they don’t want to … therefore in practice we are all competing locally to get in front of the same sellers.
NetAnAgent, in my area, are directing the undecided’s to online agents and I would guess – given that agents have to display their fees – that this is where the majority of their leads go.
A well run, non online agent, no fees advertised, agency comparison site has a chance of success IMO.
I might just have talked myself into starting one!
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As i say if genuine quality leads i think its a winner i just think to get the traffic to the site and then for them to get an appointment you will have to compromise on the the quality and that it will be too much.
Put it another way, sure you are part of RM and or Z how many leads a year do you get from them? – Given the millions of so call views they have a month.
But if you think its worth a punt go a head i would be interesting in knowing what you get back in a three month period.
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* Sorry by leads i mean genuine valuation leads not buyers or viewings
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Hi Smile,
As a provider who has used that very line time and time again I know exactly what you are saying, it doesn’t sound much like any rep gets that far in your office though.
We have put an enormous amount of time and money into analysis of the property market and have created something that uses the latest cutting edge technology and has identified the key problems that vendors, buyers and agents live with on a day to day basis.
We have something completely unique and it’s sad that the property industry lacks an open mind when it comes to anything new.
How many times do you think I’ve heard “who else is doing it” ?
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I have looked at the app,
Yes the idea is different but to be honest i fail to see why using a location search on a mobile will wow users.
Its not like they will stand in a street and say i want to be within a mile of here. They will sit at home on RM and type in a town and see what is to offer. Also as i say above RM and Z get millions of hits per month but i do not know a single agency that get a good amount of val leads.
I hate to sound like a knocker as you have obviously invested time and money into it but in my opinion its just not needed. But even if you sign up 50 agents its 7.5k a year coming in doing nothing once the app is developed so a nice additional income.
You are right not many sales reps get through the door to me but the ones that do i see a clear benefit to either myself or my clients and i do buy / sign up to good ideas.
Leads, portals, press advertising, seo, ppc, web development, review sites, apps, its all pretty much the same from provider to provider just tweeked a little different. Wow us with something that really captures the imagination and makes a difference and we will sign up.
As PeeBee points out and i have used the phrase myself in the past too many leeches out there offering nothing new.
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I’m glad you’ve had a look Smile,
Absolutely, people will sit at home looking at RM, but the only reason they ended up at RM in the 1st place is because Google ranked them number 1 and they stole that traffic from you, now they report their massive web views to you and charge you a fortune
Will they really not stand in the street and look at details, when 70% of all web traffic is on a mobile device? So why bother with the boards?
Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think you should underestimate your public, he will walk into a shop, pub or garage and wave his iPhone at the terminal rather than open his wallet and take out a card, when he gets home he’ll flick movies at his TV from it, then he’ll turn up his heating and adjust the lighting, I’m working on an app next that will take his dog for a walk….. But I’m sure you’re right when you say that he’ll wait until he gets home and find the property the hard way.
Please tell me as an agent, and I suspect a highly regarded one at that, that you wouldn’t rather have more traffic to your own domain, a method for people to view YOUR similar properties before your competitions.
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“If I had double the valuation enquiries in my area I’d double my business. Simple as.”
If you had double the valuation enquiries you COULD POTENTIALLY double your business. You could simply double the work and effort to get the same amount of business – which could lead to you cutting fees to ‘buy’ business – thereby doubling the workload for less than the current income generated.
That’s the bottom line, Harree – whether you agree with my opinion or not.
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This entire proposition is a total nonsense. They don’t present a case based on who the “best agents” are, they simply present a case based on those agents who sign up for the service, meaning their offering has no integrity at all. Both agents and vendors get screwed.
Not only that, but we all know how many agents game the system .e.g. change the asking price online closer to the sale agreed price, so it looks like they sell their stock at 99% or above of asking price, rather than 90%. This data then gets presented to the vendor as fact, meaning vendors are making decisions on a fudged reality.
Total nonsense…
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