City analysts were told in a briefing after Wednesday’s half-year results for ZPG that the days of a threat from Agents’ Mutual were “long gone”.
William Packer, of Exane BNP Paribas, reported in an investors’ note afterwards: “Management argues days of Agents’ Mutual ‘materially’ affecting ZPG are ‘long gone’.
He said: “ZPG stated that circa 750 agent branches return from AM in total, further evidence of progress.
“We estimate returns continued (in the first half this year) at a rate of 40 branches per month, slowing from circa 70 (in the second half of last year).”
However Ian Springett, chief executive of Agents’ Mutual, which operates property portal OnTheMarket, poured the iciest of water on the claim that it is no longer a player in the market.
He said: “We noted with interest Alex Chesterman’s comment that the days of OnTheMarket.com ‘materially’ affecting Zoopla are ‘long gone’.
“Alex Chesterman has consistently predicted the demise of OnTheMarket.
“It is now more than two years ago that he claimed that the portal would be ‘a short-term event’ and analysts have been hearing variations on this story ever since.
“OnTheMarket.com continues to have a positive material impact on the property portals landscape.
“Many thousands of agents switched from Zoopla/Primelocation to join us.
“Many thousands of agents continue to support the objectives of the business by creating a genuine alternative portal for consumers and agents alike.
“Many thousands of agents have not returned to ZPG portals with their advertising budgets and their data.
“Meanwhile, OnTheMarket.com has made impressive headway in a very challenging market, achieving millions of monthly visits with a record-breaking month of 11.2m earlier this year – an 85% year-on-year increase.
“We are here to stay.
“We are concentrating on long-term growth strategy, and with regard to the legal proceedings between Gascoigne Halman and Agents’ Mutual, we shall continue to respect the Tribunal by not commenting on or around it as it completes its deliberations and prepares its judgment.”
The case, heard in February, was in the Competition Appeal Tribunal, studying claims and counter-claims over the One Other Portal rule imposed by OnTheMarket.
There is no ruling yet, and no timeline as to when this could be issued.
The one thing I find incredibly hard to understand is why it should take so long for the Tribunal to come to its final decision. Surely all the relative evidence should have been presented at the proceedings in February. I was very busy at the time, so did I miss a good reason why reaching a final verdict would drag on so long?
This length of time is stopping OTM getting on properly with its business, whichever direction it has to head afterwards.
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That is part of the vexatious, disruptive nature of the case; tie up the competition in expensive and time consuming legals. With a time focussed project burning up 20% of it is already a result for those desperate to see OTM fail.
Strategically it was mad to have been lured into the trap; losing customers, gaining customers is all part of being a service supplier. If the product isn’t good enough to retain customers take that as a driver to up your game rather than a convenient excuse for not progressing to plan. Losing customers through change of circumstance is no big deal, allowing principle to top trump common sense never makes sense.
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It’s a pity they can’t make a case for the time wasted being commercially damaging.
Oh actually….no we don’t t want to go down that route do we!!!
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I find it incredibly strange the CEO still has a job. Is it making profit? where is the money going? What is the plan to take out rightmove as they havent even hurt zoopla…..?
Yearly 1 -2 -1 ::::: And report to memebers:
Set up a new portal ( the hardest thing to do ) : Done
Take out Zoopla : Failed
Take out Rightmove : Failed
Get public awareness : Failed
Keep members happy and away from court : Failed
Get Rightmove to reduce fees : Failed
Um,,what else are you measuring your performance on becuase thats why i joined…
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And the award for MOST RIDICULOUS COMMENT OF THE… (well… ever, I would suggest), goes to:
“…as they havent even hurt zoopla…”
Utter ******** – and you know it, Bless You. You’re capable of far better than that.
Zoopla were gutshot. They are in a state of ongoing, painful recovery.
They will manipulate and twist today and tomorrow’s figures to feign they didn’t feel a thing – but they can never truly recover what was lost – and what remains lost to them.
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pee bee what are you talking about ?? zoopla are alive and kicking and so are right move…try to keep to the main story if you can…..you often take threads off on a tangent with unrelated weirdness .
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Bless you
“zoopla are alive and kicking…”
I didn’t say they weren’t – and you know that. Your post is an abject lesson in desperation in words.
Stop trying to be clever – in this instance it has blown up in your face.
I may have been wrong – maybe you’re not capable of better after all…
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Bless You
Respectfully suggest/ask that we set aside our apparent OTM differences – and concentrate on what we both know to be the real issues within our industry.
I’d rather fight with you than with you.
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Ian Springett is deluded.
OTM is the biggest missed opportunity in the history of our industry. If you have a product or service that you really want to challenge the market leaders you’ve got to promote and market it vigorously and constantly. You also have to listen to the concerns and input from those who pay for the service you provide…..without them it’s goodnight campers. OTM do so little to promote their brand and support the agents that use them it’s embarrassing.
“Here to stay” …..not if the ruling goes against them. They’ll be history.
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“…if the ruling goes against them. They’ll be history.”
I really doubt that will be the case – but they will be different.
In fact – regardless of the outcome I would say that will be the case.
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FIFTEEN ‘Likes’?
I don’t think so.
Neither, I suspect, do the rest of the readership.
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Have you seen Thomas Flowers’s post below? Would you consider the role?
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Would you join if I did?
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Of course I would join if you had the role.
The whole OTM proposition needs new invigoration to take the next step forwards!
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Thank you for the vote. But I’m not up for election.
I don’t think that my CVs ‘lifetime achievement’ – that of remotely destroying a keyboard using a combination of the living legend that is Eric Walker and a cup of skinny latte (or similar) to perform the act – fully qualifies me for the role.
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OTM please take note of the 23 so far, thumbs up’s, to FromTheHips64 first post. One thumbs down.
Around four months ago any critism of OTM would have attracted around a 50/50 ratio.
OTM do you need a new plan and a new General with the ability to win and inspire?
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“OTM is the biggest missed opportunity in the history of our industry…”
Says one of those that missed it.
They never seem to see the irony – or the sheer idiocy – of that…
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Says one of those that missed it……No idea what you’re talking about PeeBee. Par for the course.
Incidently, one of the “likes” was mine, I like to pat myself on the back sometimes. Others out there obviously have a similar view that OTM could and should have been our saviour. It was a one off opportunity that won’t happen again.
……..a few years down the line OTM will be long gone. By then the PB brand will be as well ingrained as RM. They’ll change their model and quicker than you can say “new portal” they’ll be the ones challenging RM…..and us lot will be setting up direct debits to the Bruce brothers.
You couldn’t make it up.
Have a good day!
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FTH64
“Others out there obviously have a similar view that OTM could and should have been our saviour”
Would you agree that there were – and still are – three distinct ‘camps’ of opinion over OTM/AM:
1. ‘INs’
2. ‘OUT’s
3. ‘ON THE FENCErs’
FYI – and in the spirit of transparency… which is well documented both here on EYE (and down the other Bier Keller when unser wundervoller Gastgeber, Frau Renshaw was previously Der Wertin…) over the last three years or so, I was a staunch ‘3.’ with leanings towards being a ‘2.’ A Board vote forced my hand and, whilst kicking and screaming against it. I became an overnight ‘1.’ – but I have never lifted more than one cheek off my perch on that fence.
“It was a one off opportunity that won’t happen again.”
It shouldn’t need to happen again. It is still there. It is still ‘happening’.
Even if people don’t agree with the ‘how’ or the ‘why’, they cannot deny its’ existence or its’ effect.
It just needs to continue to happen.
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Meanwhile back at the farm Bricks SP has soared above 400p today .With a current market valuation of £1.1bn +This is higher than the combined total of Countrywide,LSL and Foxtons values
Clearly the market thinks Purplebricks is going to be No 1 by a country mile Worrying!
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I have no doubt the market also believes they will take over from rightmove at some point, particularly as RM does nothing other than help them at the moment in their quest for market dominance at the expense of smaller customers.
Who hasn’t seen one of the PB banner adverts in amongst their property listings on RM of late?
To me this is the same as Yahoo missing and allowing the rise of google and google missing the boat with social media whilst Facebook took off…..all rolled into one!
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“Clearly the market thinks Purplebricks is going to be No 1 by a country mile…”
Hillofwad71 – ‘the market’ can think what the market wants.
When you think it, you’ll no doubt become their zillionth LPE and at that point, the world as you know it will cease to exist.
Resistance IS NOT futile!
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To put Bricks “Market”Valuation in context The market currently values them second only to Savills (a class outfit if ever there was) Current market valuation £ 1,248bn .Annual Profits £135 m
Thats certainly a huge jump expected for Bricks to make from currently making a loss Heavy resistance certainly required
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To put the whole shebang in context:
Share price today has had a variation of, I believe 25p. That is a differential of around 3.6% or 3.9%, give or take 100th of a percent, and whether you look at it as 25p max gain or max loss.
It’s all about timing, innit?
Sell? Then you run the risk that you could have got a sheckel or two more.
Hold? Then you run the risk that your investment can go down as well as up.
‘The market’ that you refer to is, today, made up of some 900+ individual transactions of between one and 18999 share units (unless I’ve missed a bigger one).
This is a market of whims, Hillofwad71. People hoping to make a buck or two – happy to have a punt because it’s slightly safer gamble than the Lottery but the stakes are so, so much less likely to lose your shirt for you – or kit you out in gold thread undercrackers that you can afford to bin after a single wear.
There’s no serious ‘market’ there. Like there’s no ‘value’ when it can upswing or downturn by a few percentage points in as many hours because the fickle buyer-sellers decide they want to own a bit of Toys’r’Us instead today.
Ho-hum!
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No great fan of Bricks as you are aware Market may be fickle and overpriced but you cant ignore the sentiment that many .hardnosed investors think that Bricks is going to be the no 1 player even though they may be wrong
Folow the trend . We aren’t talking a few % points they have 4 times multibagged from 100p to 400p since last November and thats with a Rights issue to dilute too.That is one big vote of confidence from Planet Earth
That sentiment is worrying and so far the industry has done little to counter that and that the court case with OTM only serves to reinforce the view that agents are incpable of bandying together to form a cohesive response
During the Autumn I thought Bricks were faltering with a falling sales instructions but all it took was an expensive TV campaign with asimplistic message to boost it back up again Sure they have manipualted the number of instructions Trustpilot reviews Its not cricket but they seem to have got away with it This month might hit 5,000 instructions
If they can kick up to 8,000 pcm and be able to generate eenough traffic to come off RM and Zoopla it will give them more punch
As you say strong resistance is needed !
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Those market makers who pour funds into PB could be like the crowd who saw that the King had no clothes on but were afraid to say so.
The same market makers who have backed in the past some of the biggest company crashes on the FTSE 100.
The same market makers who caused I seem to recall a rather sharp crash in the stock market a few years ago.
PB could for all the market makers interest in what they do be a ball bearing manufacturer. They flock in and rather like a flock of birds they suddenly get spooked and …………………fly off to land elsewhere
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We live in a world where one of the biggest global brands, Uber, has just filed annual losses of $2.7Bn. Not a typo! When that bubble finally bursts, and it eventually will if they can find no way of reversing finances, then there will be huge focus placed on bonkers valuations for loss making businesses. Investors continue to double-down driving up valuations but, again, there will come a time when the pied piper will need to get paid.
OTM has, indeed, been a lost opportunity. In my eyes, they failed from the offset, placing far too much focus on the reduction of costs for agents and nowhere near enough focus on building a portal that had a completely unique UI to RM & ZPG. Instead, it was a cut rate portal for a cut-rate fee has has drawn little loyalty from users because there is nothing special about it. A portal has to win users first and foremost (it doesnt matter how much agents love and adopt a platform) and thats the key. So many attempts in recent years have taken the attotude of- well, we will just get stock/listings and figure it out from there. Nope, nope, nope!
I now only hear about OTM in industry press and almost exclusively articles citing its inevitable demise. At the array of industry events over the past 12 months, I have only heard it mentioned in a deragatory terms or mourned as a lost opportunity- I havent heard anyone retain an optimistic outlook.
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“At the array of industry events over the past 12 months, I have only heard it mentioned in a deragatory terms or mourned as a lost opportunity- I havent heard anyone retain an optimistic outlook.”
You’re sitting on the wrong tables and/or propping up the wrong bars, mate.
Stop hanging around with negative people – their toxic energy will eventually wear you down.
;o)
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Some people really want to lighten up today…
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But if it was reinvigorated with new leadership (or/and one that listened to members) and new revolutionary ideas?
I have high hopes that this is exactly what will happen from the point of the verdict onwards.
Hearts and minds….thats the way, inspire everyone with what it is all about and develop new products everyone wants!
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Sorry, On the who?
Offices in Kent, Essex and London.
London vendors would not instruct us if we were not on Z and RM – fact.
Most vendors in Kent and Essex have not even heard of OTM – fact.
Actual fact. Did I mention that the above are fact?
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Agents cannot collaborate successfully
By their very nature they have learned to despise each other, be envious of each other, covert each others instructions, staff, and whatevers!!!
OTM was doomed at the outset because it relied on agents working together to promote it.
Take a look in agents’ windows now – any sign of OTM anywhere? even in the gold class of members? Didn’t think so.
The shame is Zoopla and RM take your money, my money, and their interaction with us is simply appalling – spend that kind of money with anyone else and get no service and you would complain. They have us by the curlies, and always will I am afraid.
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