Leading OnTheMarket agent says touting letter was mistake

| Rosalind Renshaw

A leading OnTheMarket agent sent out a touting letter last week mentioning that it was on both Rightmove and Zoopla.

But yesterday afternoon, Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward said it had been a mistake.

The issue came to light in a post on an Eye story yesterday, when a reader said that he had been sent a letter dated the same day of the launch of OTM. He received it on January 30.

In fact, the letter was dated January 26, 2014.

The letter was sent out by the office in Beckenham which is one of 50 Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward offices across London and Kent.

It said that the company features properties on its own website, plus 11 others including Rightmove, Zoopla and Prime Location.

Eye asked Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward to comment and a spokesperson said: “On investigation, it appears as though the branch unfortunately used an outdated letter by accident.

“We updated all of our touting letters on the 20th of January, a week prior to our properties listing on OnTheMarket.

“We have reissued communications to all branches to ensure that only the latest letters are issued to customers.”

KFH

x

Email the story to a friend!

More top news stories



27 Comments

  1. GPL
    February 3, 2015 at 07:23

    We currently offering discounts on our fees? It's pretty disappointing to see this tired old line in any correspondence as in my view it continues to diminish the value of our profession? Maybe I'm the dinosaur re Touting Letters although if fairly presented and not put thru the doors of competitors homesellers or landlords then it is part of local marketing… but cheaper ir discounted fees as your USP? The letter itself?… let's hope it was just an error? …and have I missed the obvious?… no mention of OTM?… maybe that backs up the… it was an Old Letter?… hopefully not a lack of promoting OTM as they are quoted as one of its leading members.

    Report
    1. dave_d
      February 3, 2015 at 08:33

      I wouldn't overlook things like this. I once targetted a property on Rightmove that had been on for a while and had awful pictures. I screen printed the page, took their pictures off Rightmove and brightened them up. I then put the original and the brightened image side by side on A4 in colour and posted it through their door with a bit of info about how it only took me seconds to make their advert look better.. – The next day, we went out, valued their house and sold it a month later.

      Report
      1. dave_d
        February 3, 2015 at 08:40

        The price also remained the same 🙂

        Report
      2. GPL
        February 3, 2015 at 09:48

        Fair point dave_d…. no excuse for poor photos/presentation.

        Report
    2. PeeBee
      February 4, 2015 at 18:18

      GPL – your post had me nodding so fiercely I'm now worried that we will actually start to agree regularly which will completely spoil our present relationship! ;o)

      Worst offender (well… JOINT worst, at least…) in my patch is an OTM Gold Member whose most recent touting spree offers a 25% 'discount' to "Dear Homeowner" on their CURRENT Agent's fee – never mind their own! Now call me a dinosaur also – but if an Agent can't even negotiate a decent fee for themselves, what chance has the poor vendor of getting best price when same incompetent 'salesperson' is negotiating with a buyer who wants to pay bottom dollar? Similar case last week (this time a non-AM Member) – pretty young thing sitting in front of my soon-to-then-be vendor started HER 'negotiations' with a figure plucked out of thin air that is var-nigh twice that of the average 'fixed' fee in town – and when owner snorted her disbelief, PYT's response was "Well – you have to start somewhere – how's about (almost 25% discount)?" Owner's response – I can get it cheaper. Over to PYT – "Well I CAN match any other fee… but it costs us money."

      Result – WE got the job… and at MY fee, of course!

      ANYONE can list for peanuts. I'm proud NOT to be 'anyone'.

      Report
  2. RealAgent
    February 3, 2015 at 07:31

    No doubt the anti OTM brigade will make a meal out of it but it's clearly a standard letter that wasn't updated. Hijacking this thread somewhat, the spike in visits on Sunday with the first tv advert were 49% up in visits to the properties we have onthemarket. It will interesting to see the response following last nights rather prime time slot!

    Report
    1. EHenderson
      February 3, 2015 at 08:40

      No doubt Zoopla will be wanting those consumers contacted to be written to again with an apology for their misleading claims?

      Report
  3. RussellQuirk
    February 3, 2015 at 07:38

    Dinosaur GPL? Surely not

    Report
    1. RealAgent
      February 3, 2015 at 08:15

      What a mature comment for a supposed CEO to make.

      Report
    2. GPL
      February 3, 2015 at 09:53

      Well the Dinosaurs did die out eventually… I think it was Dinosaurs Direct that killed them off… however they died off too… because they turned out not to be real Dinosaurs and not as good… by the time everyone noticed it was too late 😉

      Report
      1. Paul H
        February 3, 2015 at 09:57

        Hey Russell, can you shed some light on a tweet sent yesterday from an agent in Oxford that stated that Alex Chesterman is now an investor in E-moov, is this correct?

        Report
  4. Robert May
    February 3, 2015 at 08:19

    "We updated all of our touting letters on the 20th of January" Ros please ask the NAEA/RICS to comment on that very public admission of Touting. I thought Touting was expressing forbidden by the Code of practice by both organisations.

    Report
    1. Robert May
      February 3, 2015 at 08:20

      That should read 'expressly'

      Report
    2. smile please
      February 3, 2015 at 08:24

      Robert 90% of agents do it, It might be against guidelines but most agents do it. And guidelines is all these rules are as NAEA / RICS / any other body are toothless.

      Report
      1. GPL
        February 3, 2015 at 10:11

        Local Marketing Letters/Leaflets fine… however direct marketing thru the letterbox of existing clients of other agents (unless as dave_d said earlier re clearly poor presentation etc)… it's a shameful practice and one which brings our profession down to the level of scavenging vultures. The odd client if mine that receives them takes great delight in telling me/dropping in the offending materials… and without exception they express mild revulsion at this method of approach when they clearly read the lies in between said Touting Drivel! Usually the corporates altho not exclusively… I occasionally phone the valuer/manager and explain the letter that I will send to their clients… along the lines of "Dear ?, You may be surprised to learn that instead of getting on with actually selling your home your agent is trying to scavenge more properties for sale from other estate agents. I would suggest that it may be worthwhile popping into your agent's office and asking them why they are using time to engage in such an unprofessionsal activity when they should in fact be focussing on selling your property and others which they currently have for sale. It is, after all, why most people select their estate agent… to sell their home and act in the best interests of their clients. The enclosed letter from your agent was given to us by our client who received it… needless to say they were grateful that they had chosen our agency as we focus on actually marketing and selling our clients properties…. etc etc"

        General marketing fine. Direct Touting?… a shameful blight on our profession!

        Report
        1. Woodentop
          February 3, 2015 at 10:29

          And for the effort, the one property you loose is the one that is sticking for a long time and often you wish you hadn't got on your books after all.

          Report
        2. smile please
          February 3, 2015 at 17:23

          I guess you guys don't enjoy "Door knocking" either 😉

          Report
  5. IndAgent
    February 3, 2015 at 09:40

    Can't blame them trying to get the last bit of promotion out of their selling tools which have been taken away now…. Another fine example of poor prep across the industry for something which we have all apparently been desperately waiting for…..
    Thumbs up if you are pro OTM, down if not………

    Report
  6. Paul H
    February 3, 2015 at 09:59

    Well this is just a poor show from KFH. Really should get their house in order and made sure that all departments were aware of the change of portals prior to any of these letters going out, especially as they are no longer on Zoopla.

    Report
    1. Hound
      February 3, 2015 at 10:56

      Change of tack Paul H? yesterday in the thread that first highlighted this touting letter you said 'I really am not too worried about agents sticking to the one other portal rule' but now it's a 'poor show'!

      Report
      1. Paul H
        February 3, 2015 at 11:12

        Now your twisting my words Hound. You know what I said. What's a poor show is that KFH could not get their house in order and make sure that all correspondence did not make reference to not being on both Rightmove and Zoopla especially as they are not on Zoopla. As said yesterday I am not worried that agents will not stick to the one other portal rule as I know they will.

        Report
  7. Hound
    February 3, 2015 at 10:38

    Quote from the KFH website: 'Major property portals including Rightmove and OnTheMarket'
    I realise we're talking semantics here, but the implication, and the way most would understand that sentence to mean several portals including the two mentioned.
    I guess they are not quite brave enough yet to say we 'ONLY' use two portals!

    Report
    1. OnTheFence
      February 3, 2015 at 11:07

      This was changed OVERNIGHT after PIE brought this to their attention; yesterday it read Major portals including Rightmove, Zoopla and Primelocation, no mention of OTM!

      Report
    2. Harree
      February 3, 2015 at 12:16

      Hound – dead right, KFH are being disingenuous. What a farce.

      Report
    3. RealAgent
      February 3, 2015 at 13:44

      Do you tell customers what you don't do then Hound?

      Report
      1. IndAgent
        February 3, 2015 at 16:18

        I think there would be an assumption that a potential vendor would expect that the agent would advertise on RM and Zoopla if they previously had been doing so, or advertising it up until a week ago. The public will only find out about the one other portal rule indirectly unless agents are very honest with vendors, which based on my experience so far isn't happening. If you were to drop Rightmove and not tell new clients how many would be unhappy when they found out? 90% or more? Although Zoopla is not as powerful it is still a household name so I expect 50% + of homeowners would not be happy to find out indirectly that their agent has stopped using it.

        Report
        1. PeeBee
          February 4, 2015 at 13:21

          "I think there would be an assumption that a potential vendor would expect that the agent would…"

          So… to be perfectly clear – YOU ASSUME the VENDOR ASSUMES that the Agent MIGHT…

          Is that it? ;o)

          Report
X

You must be logged in to report this comment!

Log In Register

Back to Homepage

Comments are closed.

Thank you for signing up to our newsletter, we have sent you an email asking you to confirm your subscription. Additionally if you would like to create a free EYE account which allows you to comment on news stories and manage your email subscriptions please enter a password below.