EweMove says that its recruitment of Local Property Partners is now firmly under way.
However, managing director Nick Neill has criticised the quality of some applicants who have experience of similar roles at other online firms.
He said: “We have had applications from Local Property Experts at Purplebricks.
“One approached us saying they did not want to get involved in selling houses, or have anything to do with the sale.
“They told us that all they wanted was two appointments a day to go out on and try to list, and then they wanted to go home, having done the job and made their money.
“It was a very easy decision for us not to take on this person.
“We are only looking for excellent agents who will see deals through from beginning to end.
“We want to recruit agents who will see the valuation visit as the first step on the journey, not the only and last step.
“It is something I am passionate about – for the vendor, the person that they first sit down with on the sofa will be the same person they see at all the viewings, and the person who will do all the negotiations and progression.
“That is actually quite rare in estate agency.
“We do pay our Local Property Partners for a listing – £250 – but the bulk of their pay is on the sale, when they can typically expect about £500 more, depending on area and type or property.
“We think that if a Local Property Partner lists ten properties a month and sells half of them – although we are doing better than that – they would be earning £65,000 a year.”
Neill said that the initiative to recruit Local Property Partners was only launched at the end of April, but the reaction has been mostly promising.
There are currently two Local Property Partners ‘live’ in the field, with two more about to start work. There are a further 23 applicants who look likely to be accepted.
He said: “We want to do this properly. I think we will take on 40 or 50 this year: any more than that, and I would probably want to slow recruitment down. It is vital we take on the right people, not take part in a race to recruit the most people on the ground.”
He said that EweMove, part of The Property Franchise Group, will continue to recruit new franchise owners.
“One of the reasons we wanted to go the Local Property Partner route is that, in recruiting new franchisees, we met some excellent people.
“But some were worried about the risk of taking on a franchise, and others simply didn’t have the capital.
“We offer our Local Property Partners three-year contracts, to try and bridge those issues.
“At the end of the three years, our partners can make the decision to leave, carry on as they are, or take out a full franchise if they have convinced themselves the model works and they can make more money out of it.”
– for the vendor, the person that they first sit down with on the sofa will be the same person they see at all the viewings, and the person who will do all the negotiations and progression.
We have been operating like this since 2014. The real secret is to keep instruction to completion rates at well over 90%. That then allows you to give an exceptionaly personal service, that vendors truly love.
Using this methodology is hard work at times, but extremely rewarding from a job satisfaction point of view.
There is, however, one thing that is required to make the system effective and successful.
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It is an effective system for sure!!
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Fake news. The Lord may create an online paper for real estate agents soon. If they are so disruptive why do they have to leech off reputable businesses media.
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Is it not obvious that the headline is just click bait? Higher clicks higher ad revenue.
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Irony101 – dompritch134 you are the fuel that feeds the clicks. Higher clicks = more awareness about the mess Purple Bricks are in.
Good work dom, now go home.
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These guys are so deluded it’s unreal? The Ewemove business model is even easier for these ‘so called property experts’ to rinse their employees and paying customers. EM are once again falling into the trap (we’ll it’s not a trap, it’s a business model that means you don’t have to sell to earn) of paying these people on Instruction. So here’s the thing, if these quick buck online agents had any idea of how agency works, they would know anyone of their listers would simply go out and overprice every property out there to gain the instruction, why wouldn’t you? You don’t have to sell it? They incentivise them with 20% sale completion bonus but why would you bother? List another over priced property and you get 5 times that amount?
Rant over!
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Hi Moveaside01 – I think you’ve missed the point (or based your analysis on incomplete information).
1 – The commercial deal we have with LPPs requires an ongoing minimum completion rate
2 – We don’t charge the vendor a single penny to list their house for sale (not even for the tried and tested High Street trick of charging for an ‘enhanced marketing package’ – which we provide as standard anyway). We only charge on completion.
So who’s getting rinsed? No one who sells with Ewemove, that’s for sure.
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One of the reasons that agents can be so successful in the US is that realtors recogonise different skill sets.
I know from a limited period of time that I spent working with the RE/MAX network that some agents were just fantastic at winning instructions. Forget formula and geo farming, they had an empathy with the vendor that just won them over almost every time. Perversely, they couldn’t sell property to save themselves. So they worked with a colleague who was fantastic at selling. Invariably this colleague couldn’t ever have won an instruction.
Together both playing to their strengths and sharing the listing and selling commissions they both made serious income for themselves and the branch.
I don’t accept or believe that the person that lists is the person that sells or the person that does the progression and hand holding. Frankly you just can’t do all these things well.
Nick Neil said ” It is something I am passionate about – for the vendor, the person that they first sit down with on the sofa will be the same person they see at all the viewings, and the person who will do all the negotiations and progression.“That is actually quite rare in estate agency.
Yes Neil, the reason being it doesn’t work.
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This is a really good point. Aces in their places!
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I do get the point Mark re ‘division of labour’ as it is a more efficient model for the agent, but it is an agent focussed model and doesn’t in practice, put the customer (vendor or buyer) at the centre of the service.
And to be fair, if we all did it the same way it would be a fairly boring and homogenised industry.
There are pro’s and con’s with each business model but we know that if we get high quality, skilled people, they can do it. If I was working with trainees / lower skilled people, I’d certainly do it differently!
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Couldnt disagree more with Mark Connelly. Certainly, as a customer myself, I dont want to be dealing with different people. I am all for Nick Niel’s view. And, it does work. Perhaps Mark Connelly could elaborate on why it doesnt work.
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Toz4 Do you think that people in the industry don’t sell their own homes. We are also customers. I don’t want a not very good negotiator agreeing my sale or a not very good progression person ensuring that I get to exchange.
Let me try and explain this very simply. If the first person you see when you are ill is your GP, are you happy they do the heart surgery and post operative care? Probably, yes, because as you have stated you don’t want to deal with different people.
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What a ridicuouls analogy!
I’ve been in the business for 35 years and couldn’t disagree more with your opinion.
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“If they list 10 and sell 50% they will earn £65k a year.”
On average Ewemove’s agents right now are listing a couple of properties a month which is £13k……
The reason why the PB guy wanted to do 2 vals a day is because he’s got another 2 jobs to go to.
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Uber and Dominos?
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Agents signing up to this ridiculous role are just looking to make a quick buck and care not one jot about long term careers. Which ever company employs them!
Lets say this hybrid idea / online does take off (its already been 10 years and they have only cornered the 5% FSBO market).
The sellers pay circa a grand. The ‘Lister’ gets £250 upfront and another back end payment according to this article circa £500 which leaves just £250 to the ‘company’.
Is any company going to be happy with this long term? No. Why do they pay these commissions now? Well because they are not listing many and its hard to employ ‘listers’ so they need to make it as attractive as possible.
Fast forward 5 years and in the wildest of the dreams the online / hybrids have a 50% market share (sure i have seen this promise somewhere).
They will all be fighting over the instructions all offering the same and they will all be going lower on fee, A Lot of onliners will go bust or merge and to make themselves more profitable the offering to the ‘Listers’ will decrease as more choice of them now and margins are even smaller.
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Hi smile please. Where did you get £1000 from? We don’t charge up front, sellers pay not a single penny to list their house with us and we only charge a fee on completion. Typically 1-1.5%.
Probably why we have over 4,000 reviews on Trustpilot and are by far and away the most trusted agency brand in the UK!
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Every agent i speak to is the most trusted estate agent / hybrid / online / high street.
Fact is very few people have heard of ewe (pun intended).
The £1000 is not aimed at you soley. It is the fact the business model does not work for either the company or the employee.
How many of your franchises are still trading with their original owner after the third year anniversary?
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Ewemove want to take a look at their own website. Their website is still claiming the average Estate Agency fee to be 1.8%.
Following research by MyHomeMove & reported by Which? the average fee is now widely accepted to be 1.3%.
https://www.which.co.uk/money/mortgages-and-property/home-movers/selling-a-house/estate-agent-fees-and-contracts-an2n90t09n2g
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Head_Shepherd#2
I have had the pleasure of locking horns on many occasions with your predecessor, and a few rounds of ‘two tups in a pen’ with yourself to date.
I read the above article with interest. Clearly there is some form of LPExodus from PurpleBricks. I have seen many of their past names appearing on the books of other similar Agencies – and even one or two popping up working once again for High Street Agents (presumably to get some more experience under their belts to more truthfully claim the title “Expert” – before loping over the fence once again to whichever greener-looking pasture tomorrow brings forth…).
Would I be correct in assuming that your engaging with some of these LPEvacuees was more of an information-gathering exercise than a serious look at the ‘talent’ on offer?
After all, it is pretty clear to anyone taking an interest in the model that it would seem that in the main their LPExiters are pure listing machines. Anyone in doubt just need to read the 1- and 2-star Trustpilot reviews (before they get #NUKED from public view, that is…), their Tw@tter feed or Facebook posts to be firmly put in the picture.
So – learning by the mistakes of others isn’t a bad plan, all in all. And then relating it to us all might even get you a brownie point or two!
Now – to the other stuff.
In the article you state
“We think that if a Local Property Partner lists ten properties a month and sells half of them – although we are doing better than that – they would be earning £65,000 a year.”
IF you’re “doing better than that” – why not quote that figure? In response to Moveaside01 above you state
“The commercial deal we have with LPPs requires an ongoing minimum completion rate”
So – why not quote THAT figure? (or might it just happen to be the same 50% that you state you’re overachieving on…?)
And finally onto the subject that Mr Barnard touches upon. That t’interweb thingy.
In past I… guided… (politely put) your predecessor on website do’s and dont’s. We had such a jolly time of it, down the other pub, scrawling our notes to each other all over the bog door.
Thing is – looking at the site currently you need some more… guidance… as I strongly suggest the claims you make are no longer capable of being validated by the information you are clearly relying on as a ‘Get Out of ASA Bother’ card.
And that’s just for starters.
I’ll watch with interest. I’m sure ewe‘ll get it sorted.
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Hi PeeBee
I do look forward to your posts on all articles, but especially ours. They do make me chuckle as sometimes they appear tongue in cheek and others observational and insightful!
One thing’s for sure, change is a constant – whether it’s the copy on our website or our proposition to franchisees, LPPs or our customers. We’ll keep pushing and updating and I’m sure you’d expect nothing less! As long as our customers remain delighted and our franchisees/partners do too, then I’m happy with that.
On the Purple Bricks front, we’re not actively targeting those folks, but have had enquiries from some. We’ll put them through the same assessment as we would anyone else. If they can do what we want and can demonstrate the skills and customer focus we’re after – great! If not, then it’s a no.
We currently sell and complete on over 70% of listed stock BTW and that includes all the get-out’s such as marketing breaks, withdrawing from the market due to changes in circumstances etc etc etc and all the other reasons that some may ‘recalculate’ their performance figures. I understand from Rightmove that the average is closer to 50% . Zoopla reported c45% last time I asked them, so we’re doing pretty well.
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Mr Head_Shepherd#2
Thank you for your reply – always appreciated and I can normally count on you coming back, unlike those that like to chuck their damp squib into the room and run back under their rock, chuckling like a pixie (credit: Robert May).
By the way – whether they appear ‘tongue in cheek’ or otherwise, my comments are predominantly on-subject… in some way, shape or form. And whilst I’m pleased to hear that you appreciate (at least some of) my rantlets, I reiterate that I don’t comment for any other reason than ‘voicing’ my personal opinion.
Your performance figure is admirable, by the way**. We’ve had this discussion before and you cordially invited me to your shearing shed to check the figures but as I said at the time I’m allergic to sheep-5h!t so best I keep away – I’d hate to ruin your sh@g pile. I note that you didn’t take up my counter-offer of providing the data via EYE and I would check it remotely – but I suppose that’s almost understandable, what with GDPR looming and all…
It frankly scares me that the portals come up with these performance figures. I’ve never met an Agent yet who doesn’t claim to sell at least 50% more properties than they actually list, for three times the Asking Price, two weeks before they were instructed!
So I guess RM & Z have got it wrong.
Whilst we have no guarantees to give to homeowners that:
we will sell…
within any timescale…
for any price…
it seriously saddens me that so many seemingly cheapen the work we do by simply working The Numbers Game that corporatism introduced and our industry seems to be stuck with.
‘Listers’ have that attitude. Get that one on… move onto the next. What happens from there ain’t their problem.
Well, sorry, Mr/Mrs/Whatever Lister – but it is. You just ain’t figured the smell of that particular brand of coffee yet.
It’s a fatal flaw that unfortunately runs through parts of all models of our industry. And I don’t know how to fix it (but I’d love to be part of the force that does…).
There – I’ve ranted enough for today.
** Can’t wait to welcome you to ‘The 80% Club’!
(or better again for ewe, – ‘AgentV’ is, it seems from the above post, President Elect of The 90s Association!!) ;o)
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We do have a special set of circumstances…..mainly deal with less expensive properties and rarely a chain of more than three, but I also do spend a significant amount of time each year doing my absolute utmost to hold sales together until completion. I believe in nipping potential problems in the bud, as early as they are spotted, before they develop into real issues.
As far as I am concerned every property I take on to sell, just has to complete. Otherwise I don’t get paid!
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Wasn’t meant to be anything other than complimentary, AV – I aspire to hit 90% success rate.
Mahoosive kudos to those that do.
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