OnTheMarket comes out fighting and declares ‘We are here to stay’

OnTheMarket has come out fighting after coverage of the open letter to agents yesterday published by the Competition and Markets Authority.

It said some of the response had been ‘sensational and preposterous’ and that the reality is that it has consistently given agents exactly the same advice as in the CMA letter – that agents should not collude in making choices over portals.

Separately an independent commentator, Rayhan Rafiq Omar, said he was astonished by the CMA open letter.

He said:”The duopoly were pushing up prices. There are now three portals, thanks to this ‘collusion’.

“Agents coming together has enabled a situation that’s sustaining a three-portal market.

“If the CMA wants to look at anyone, they should look at the competition commission’s report that said the DPG/Zoopla merger wouldn’t result in reduced competition and raised fees.”

Yesterday evening,  spokesperson for OnTheMarket said: “Some of the response from certain quarters to today’s open letter from the CMA has, in our view, been at best opportunistic and misleading and at worst sensationalist and preposterous.

“The reality is that we welcome the CMA’s stance of cautioning agents against colluding. As a business we have consistently given agents precisely the same advice to make any decisions independently.

“The virulence of some of the attacks only serves to underline yet again the sensitivity of some of our detractors to the progress we are making and to the impact we are having on the market. For instance, the idea that the CMA letter should somehow trigger Board resignations at Agents’ Mutual is frankly ludicrous.

“There has been no suggestion from the CMA that OnTheMarket has acted improperly in any way. Indeed, the CMA explicitly writes that it sees no reason to be in touch with us.

“After just 15 months, OnTheMarket has established itself as a competitive force in the property portals marketplace and continues to grow in terms of agent support and consumer traffic. It might be disappointing for some of our detractors, but OnTheMarket is here to stay.

“The overwhelming majority of our members remain supportive and determined to continue to build on the achievements so far.”

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30 Comments

  1. GilesH

    Wonderfully defensive and arrogant Ian, says it all really. A lawyer write that for you?

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    1. El Burro

      Arrogant? What for giving agents a third option?

      If you want to use that adjective apply it to Zoopla and Rigthmove who thought they had it all tied up between them and have been scr3wing agents year in year out.

      What’s your interest in this Giles? A Zoopla blogger or an agent on Zoopla?

      If it’s the latter what’s it got to do with you how others choose to run their business? If it’s an unmitigated disaster what do you care?

       

       

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    2. Trevor Mealham

      AM/OTM  **** RIP ****

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  2. revilo

    “If the CMA wants to look at anyone, they should look at the competition commission’s report that said the DPG/Zoopla merger wouldn’t result in reduced competition and raised fees.”

    And so they should!

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  3. danny

    After 15 short months who’d have thought that a company that has our association sat on its board would be suing its own members ,having action groups created against it and attracting attention from the CMA. This is surely some kind or record. I bet my children read about this in years to come in their business studies class . At what piece of news does Ian come out and say ” yeah, this isn’t great is it”

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  4. Eamonn

    Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

    the sentiment of this letter  is more out of touch than Adam Johnson is these days .

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  5. Property Ear

    If the groups of agents who gathered in each town and ‘chaired’ by an OTM rep to join forces just prior to launch wasn’t collusion and isn’t now a continuation of collusion, what is?

    OTM? On The Mat!

     

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    1. El Burro

      Of course no other portal before OTM has ever sold themselves to agents as ‘if you all get together and put your properties with us we can give Rightmove a run for its money’ have they?

      #realitycheck

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    2. fluter

      No PE they were OPEN meetings for ANY agent to attend in order to see what OTM had to offer in order to decide if they wanted to join or not. How is that collusion? Me thinks you need a hearing aid

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      1. Property Ear

        If you’d been to the meeting I went to and didn’t consider the content to be collusion – enough to put me off joining there and then – you too would need a hearing aid mate!

        Let’s face it, OTM now resembles Custers Last Stand but your bravery and belief in the face of a lost cause has to be admired.

        One wonders if you’ll get your money back?

         

         

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  6. Clarkuk

    All the press releases by OTM are the same. They re-jig the same sentences again and again its getting boring.

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    1. fluter

      As indeed are the negative comments from detractors like you……..

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      1. Clarkuk

        we all have an opinion on this….

        but unfortunately my business doesn’t run on hopes and dreams of a bright future it runs on hard work and time I put in. Give me an immediate reason to join and I would.

        And if you had read any of my previous posts what i am fighting for is clarity from AM and OTM.  I don’t have any allegiance to RM or Z.  I want a reason to leave that is based on my immediate ability to trade and so far nothing from the mouth of IS has given me a good enough reason to put myself on the front line and throw myself into the oncoming traffic.

        fluter maybe you can help me? rather than calling me a ‘detractor’ tell me how this will benefit my Sales business, in the North, where there are 4 agents (not great agents either) in my locality on OTM and where Z and RM leads keep me busy on a daily basis.  Where is the sense in moving to help OTM – not myself – to grow?

        I know i’m selfish but that’s the nature of this business – we don’t work this hard to be on a level playing field with all the other agents.  we want to be one step above – which I am at the moment.

        I WANT TO BELIEVE in it – and labelling me a ‘detractor’ is far from the mark.

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        1. fluter

          Clarkuk, I fully understand your thoughts but to put you in the picture we are in a South Wales market town, albeit a generally more affluent part away from “the valleys”. In our town there are 6 main agents, three are with OTM & RM the others with RM & Z. We consistently list and sell more that our competitors, as we also do with lettings. The issue of which portals we advertise on rarely surfaces, although some vendors ask if we are on RM. We focus on our superior service, longer working hours, more experienced staff and subsequent results. If you are as you say, the leading agent in your area then this will continue regardless whether you advertise with Z or OTM, as long as you focus on the things that actually make you better than your competition. OTM was never a short term option for me, nor for the 1000’s of genuine supporters of the concept. It’s about looking into the future to see where our industry is heading, as dictated to by RM & Z, something that I, along with many others do not relish and therefore have taken a decision to actually try and do something about it rather than do nothing. If you are not a detractor then I apologise, it just appeared that way from your post. I urge you to get on board and support your last opportunity to regain some degree of control from RM & Z. If every agent that is able to, did exactly that then the leads will undoubtedly follow. We dropped Z in favour of OTM and have not noticed the difference and no doubt you will do as well. Kind regards.

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          1. Clarkuk

            Thank you fluter

            As I don’t do lettings the portal that delivers viewers to my door is my priority as if I don’t sell I don’t earn.  not that I don’t have a healthy business but if my sales slip I have no back up plan, I have no lettings delivering another income stream.

            But only doing sales has insulated my business against Z lettings leads and from what I have heard there are loads of them but poor quality. I have a healthy inflow of business from both of my portals. 1/3 Z – 2/3 Rm.  I only have to rely on Z and RM for enquiries about properties I DO NOT rely on them for vendors. in fact only a few of my properties have come from val requests because we charge more. 1.5% standard and some much more.

            This is where OTM would fail me, it would reduce my incoming enquiries – by a substantial proportion for an unknown number back. I actually believe that if I did remove myself from Z those buyers would find me anyway (on Rm) but 1/3 of my business is a lot to ‘gamble’ especially for the price I pay it is giving me a very healthy return for my investment.

            IF OTM could satisfy my craving for buyer enquiries then I would be there in a heartbeat. – I want some sort of clarification from the OTM board as to what they are delivering to customers not smoke and mirrors and mud slinging.  IF Z leads me to equivalent of 50k of business a year that’s a lot to gamble when I pay such a small proportion of that out.

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  7. Property Paddy

    Dear OTM.

    If you don’t drop your 2 portal rule you will always just be

    1/2TM

    and no one will take you seriously.

     

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    1. Property Paddy

      only 7 dislikes !

      And I suppose you all think the two portal rule is a good idea?

      I also suppose estate agents should run a cartel?

      And you all think having a monopoly on where you get your daily bread/milk and fish is also a good idea?

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  8. WelshWatcher

    I think the questions that need asking are. Why wouldn’t you support AM fellow colleagues. Just a shame our industry has so many glass half empty opinions. Lets see how empty that glass gets when prices keep rising and we have no control over our data….. #biggerpictureopenyoureyes.

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    1. Digital Expert

      This bothers me a little. The perception held that agents have any ownership over the particulars of a property. The data is details of the Vendors house – it’s their data, that they give to you to help sell it. An agent is an intermediary who houses data temporarily whilst it’s available for sale.

      Also, intellectually, no piece of data you put on the internet, unless TM’d is any of ours. This applies very single piece of behavioural data on the internet – google knows so much about you & your family it’d shock you to discover. And they use it, every second of every day. For profit and to help sell things to you. Even Sky TV know what you’re searching for on-line and serve adverts to you during your favourite tv shows accordingly. You don’t see the same ads as your neighbour.

      Daughters shoe size, bank details, very personal tastes, passwords, dreams and fears and everything inbetween.

      2016 ladies & gents.

      This view won’t be popular.

       

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      1. Robert May

        Do you understand the legal definition of the word agent? How about copyright? Then a hard one Fiduciary.

        Your view will only be unpopular because it is wrong.

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        1. Digital Expert

          I understand intellectual property. And the reality of the scenario. And it’s without bias, by the way, as I’m not an agent and have nothing against agents – quite the contrary.

          It isn’t wrong Robert, the way many agents define the owning of data is now outdated.

          I’m just pointing it out as I see it written down as a grievance so often.

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          1. Robert May

            Your posting history and the contents of your posts suggest very heavily  that you work for a  digital service supplier.

            Despite what convenient understanding of law is perpetuated digital service suppliers have the same obligation to their clients as an agent does to theirs.  The  copyrights of photographs and particulars belongs to the agent who has been employed to take and write them. the recording of  fields within a  cloud based CRM system ought to be as secure as that entered into a desktop system.

            The grievance surrounding data is that agents  have naively believed that 3rd party data sharing did not include passing  sensitive commercial information to direct competitors or profiting  from selling mailing lists to spammers.

            If a property is entered onto a CRM system but not marketed  on the internet I.E. not put in the public domain are you able to tell me which modern  law permits that data to be shared beyond  an agent’s relationship with a service supplier to be a custodian of their data.

            If an agent enters a valuation property onto a CRM system is it now permissible for  details of a possible instruction to be passed to the agent’s competitors who just happen to be shareholders of the service supplier just because the definition of owning data is apparently out dated?

            Please enlighten me and the EYE audience  how the whole data ownership thing is supposed to work these days?

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        2. revilo

          He certainly doesn’t understand copyright!

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      2. Trevor Mealham

        When an agent creates details its their IP right (not the owners) unless the owner has paid for the script to be created, rather than paying in terms post sale under a commission on results contract.

        Its like a painter painting a view of a field. The field owner doesn’t own the picture, just the field.

        Agents logo’s etc should be trade marked. Equally an agents data is their data and not that of their software’s

        The prepared details are the intellectual property of the agent and as such their skills in producing good/bad details are a tool they create in order to entice buyers in. As such not the owners or a portals or a softwares (unless a party has requested and paid for details being prepared).  As such the agent and not the owner are responsible for their work under CPR’s and BPR’s.

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        1. Digital Expert

          Doesn’t the owner pay for the script as part of the fee an agent charges?

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          1. Chri Wood

            No. In general (dependent on the contract) the fee earning event is for the successful introduction of a buyer to an unconditional exchange of contracts. How agents achieve that fee earning event may be stipulated as part of the contract (e.g. which portal they might be advertised on etc) but it is ancillary

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          2. Robert May

            I am concerned an expert digital service supplier is demonstrating such naivety of the fundamental laws that govern the industry.

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  9. Stevie

    That’s a little naive de! The data does belong to the owner but the use of that data belongs to the instructed agent and you wouldn’t like me selling your instructions for my company just because you don’t own the data, of course you wouldn’t, so to all intents and purposes that data does belong to that particular agent for as long as they are the owners choice of agent

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    1. Digital Expert

      exactly right – the agent is the temporary intermediary custodian of the data, but intellectually not the owner. So by rights, it’s the vendor’s data not the agents.

      And the vendors know full well it’s going on to the portals for mass consumption – this is what they want…if I’m wrong I’d need it explained to me!

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  10. berna@forthestates.co.uk

    Yet every time we discuss with OTM their lack of performance, the stock response is that WE are not doing enough to collude with our competition to switch……….    hmmmmmmmmm

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