Zoopla this morning reported what one analyst described as “significant agent losses”.
Zoopla said in a trading statement that it had record levels of consumer traffic, with 50.5m visits in January. It said that it had grown its reach and audience “significantly” and was continuing to invest in marketing its brands and “developing our platform to help … our members market their listings more efficiently”.
The update, covering the period between October 1 last year and January 31, said Zoopla will continue to develop “numerous further exciting features” over the coming months.
The update also said that, “as guided in November 2014”, the number of agency subscribers had fallen due to the launch of Agents’ Mutual and its restrictive only one other portal rule.
Zoopla reported that membership had fallen 11% by the end of January, down to 16,967.
Of that number 13,402 are UK estate agency branches, 2,793 are new home developments; 635 are overseas agency branches; and 137 are commercial agency branches.
However, Zoopla said that of the figures: “The UK agency number includes an estimated 500 branches that served notice in January and are no longer listing but are still paying members as at the end of the period.” At the end of September, there had been 16,373 estate agency branches.
It said that while it expects “limited further UK agency churn, this is likely to be partly offset by the return of some members who found the Agents’ Mutual restrictive ‘one other portal rule’ damaging to their business”. Zoopla said it is well positioned for long-term growth.
CEO Alex Chesterman said: “We believe that Agents’ Mutual remains a short-term event and that its success will be determined by whether consumers engage with it. So far it appears to have got off to a very slow start with consumers.
“We continue to enhance the services we provide to our users and the value we offer to our members, and our record traffic highlights the success of this approach.
“ZPG remains the best value digital marketing platform for UK property professionals and our focus remains on building our brands and business for the long-term and providing the most useful property resources to our users along with being the most effective partner for our members.”
City analyst William Packer of Exane BNP Paribas said this morning: “Estate agency members have fallen by a significant 21% since September (including 500 branches that have submitted notice but are not yet off ZPG).
“This leaves Zoopla with just 12.9k agency customers.”
* Eye’s story yesterday which carried Zoopla’s claims about traffic for OnTheMarket drew a statement from OTM chief executive Ian Springett towards the end of the morning.
Although we added it, the story had already been widely read and you may not have seen the addition.
Springett said: “As we have stated previously, the Hitwise figures which continue to be reported by Zoopla are inaccurate and demonstrate Zoopla’s increasing desperation to reduce the number of agents who are removing their properties and advertising expenditure from them to list with OnTheMarket.com
“It’s only our third week and we have already overtaken Zoopla in certain spots of the country with our property listings.
“We know OnTheMarket.com is already producing excellent leads for member agents and we are confident at becoming the number two portal within a year.
“In around 90% of cases, our members have chosen to remove their listings from Zoopla and we have also been told by many that having removed their properties from their less effective portal, it has become obvious just how many leads were previously duplicated.
“The feedback about the website has been overwhelmingly positive and our multi-million pound advertising campaign is continuing to drive the expansion of our membership base each day along with consumer traffic.”
shame this wasn’t part of original story- i took a bit of heat for daring to suggest the figures from hitwise courtesy of zoopla may not be gospel/the full picture whatever. in any case, wood lost for trees- its just silly in my view for an 8 year old consolidated plc to be attacking a 2 week old infant. all stats debate aside, as a business issue i don’t think its the right strategy and surely agents on both sides of the fence can agree on that. lets see the OTM figures in due course….it should be given time- it’ll take a year or more after google indexes its pages etc
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What do OTMs members do in that year whilst OTM sort out their traffic issues? It’s a competitive market and fairness doesn’t come into it. I’m disappointed with OTMs site and launch marketing strategy after what I thought was an excellent pre launch execution of their recruitment and pr campaign. I have to assume Ian S is keeping his powder dry for the moment.
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What traffic issues? That was part of the point of my post. But in answer to your question re what agents are to do as you put it, I don’t know, maybe take time to figure out whether they ever needed the one they dropped at all regardless of the fortunes of OTM. That’s the biggest concern for the big 2 I would imagine and why there is such a drive to do OTM down. I suspect Mr Springett is adhering to what many would perceive as class and is keeping his powder dry and will release info to his timetable as any good, confident business would.
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As long he’s got powder to keep dry, otherwise the explosion wont be his to control…
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Here Here! We don’t need two portals at all. For the last 6 months I’ve listed rentals and sales on only one at a time of the big two (swapping them around each time) to see how they went.
RM’s all sold and let as did Z’s. They all sold/let at asking as well.
Now this tells me that only one is needed and that it doesn’t much matter which one.
I still believe OTM will fail because they went about the launch wrong. All they have achieved is to offer another portal, nothing more. If all the agents had pulled their listings off the big two you would have given the buyers no choice but to look there, and that’s how you win.
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You say they offer ‘nothing more’ but you ignore the glaringly obvious difference that is the main attraction for all its members – their price structure is clear, transparent and fixed for five years. This is the difference that will have all the non-believers reconsidering their position when RM and Z have hiked their prices by another 40-50% over the next three years.
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I have re read what I typed, re read your reply and stand by my ‘nothing more’ comment.
They are a portal, cheap and transparent to us, yes. But to the buyers, just another portal
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The word delusional “springs” to mind pun non intended..
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Funny how the number of hits on the Zoopla site per month (50m) is roughly the same as Rightmove, perhaps because it’s the exactly the same people looking at both sites. Do you really need both Rightmove and Zoopla is the question being asked by all agency owners up and down the country!
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Paul,assuming your a OTM member and saying that the audiences of RM and Z are exactly the same people ..which portal did you go with , the expensive one or the cheaper one with the same people looking at it? If the answer is anything else but your with Zoopla either –
A) You dont believe yourself what youve written above
B) You like giving away money
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There was a number of factors behind my decision to drop Rightmove. Firstly the price difference for me is around £1500 per year (which for me is half a let or 1/5 of a sale fee) between RM and Z, it’s not that much for me really. Secondly in my area Rightmove have a slightly better perception and was asked more on a valuation about RM, never about Z. Thirdly it was a strategic decision between me and the other agents in my area, where after a meeting we all pretty much decided to drop Z so as to make OTM instantly number 2 here based on listings. Lastly I do not agree with Zooplas valuation tool, never have and for me on a point of principal I always wanted to drop them first.
And it’s not a case of not believing myself, more a case of seeing the leads come in and note no difference, I suspect thousands of other OTM agents are all finding out the same now , hence why Zoopla are fighting the wrong battle, they think agetns will come back because theyre losing leads which is folly and goes to show how backwards they are in their thinking!
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Appreciate you honestly and its a good answer. Personally speaking ive got 5 branches in Yorkshire and am one of the ones monitoring the situation . I told my branch manager to ask for feedback about the situation and her eism honest view having spoken to them
– Not many of my clients have heard of OTM
– Those that do where dissapointed in their expernience, they expect more data on eahc house, how long its been on for, what it was originally listed for ETC. I appreciate that this sometimes makes it harder but I Think its a trade off.
– That my vendors expects to be listed on both.
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The answer is in your staff training?
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Otm know what their traffic figures are. Only one reason they are not releasing them. Or, put it another way, if they were good, we would be sick of hearing about it.
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Bang on.
OTM Agents – what are your lead levels like? Honestly? Stock is largely an irrelevance if no one’s looking at them.
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No answers?
Interesting.
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Do you really think that stock levels will fall because one portal has been dropped? The no answers is probably due to no one being bothered to respond! The reason one portal over another would have been chosen, would have been down to performance, i.e. it wasn’t needed, because it didn’t perform. If OTM fails it will be purely down to Estate Agents lack of belief in themselves, fear and the misconception that portals sell houses. The majority of agents that have joined OTM, I suspect won’t return to Zoopla, because they were not needed. We don’t need 2 portals, we only need one and one we control. The question of what portal are you on, rarely comes up in conversation with a vendor and so it shouldn’t. If you have got into that question in a valuation then you are dead in the water already and if your competitors are using it against you, that just demonstrates how poor they are. Remember, your corporate peers would love to be OTM, but the simple fact is they can’t so next time a vendor comments on a tout they got from Countrywide etc, make sure they understand its out of their hands and then remind them who has market share in your town as its unlikely to be one of them. People buy people, not the portal you are on!
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Sold three properties all from OTM and I can prove this as they were only listed on OTM. Thank you. We have educated our customers and staff, give it a try, it works.
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About as interesting as you banging on all the time about traffic and stock without taking into account OTM has been live for 19 days. Come back on when you’ve considered that.
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I moved to OTM in January and although the leads are down from Z at the moment I didn’t expect anything different. OTM is in the same position Z was when it started. It will work and when it does it will then be RM that should worry. It was about time we started taking control of our own stock instead of dishing out £££s over the last couple of years. As someone said above the question really is did we need to be on the two sites at all….
Z is for buyers and its “valuation” tool was/is ridiculous. I lost count of the amount of conversations I had with buyers who insisted the property was overpriced because Zoopla said so.
As to the question of what agents do for a year while OTM gets legs….continue to get your leads from RM which is still by far the go to site for pretty much everyone. If a buyer is only going to buy a property because it was listed on Z and not look at RM I would be extremely surprised, it just wouldn’t happen.
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Exactly right. I am amazed that some people were thinking that the leads would be flowing like swollen rivers. Its not even a month old and this apparent “waste of a new portal” has turned the property world on its head. The original OTM members have made a commitment for 5 years, they are not going to be worried about the first month, 6 months of year. And if sadly it doesn’t work, that won’t be the fault of those members or the members that joined prior to launch, it will be because of those that failed to act, those that could but chose not to. Forget about hitwise, traffic and all the other hot air. OTM success will be down to the agents, end of. If you want to allow the likes of RM to control your destiny in a time of great change in our industry, then crack on. Those that want to take control and want to shape their own destiny, will be those that survive the things coming our way over the next few years and will adapt while the others hope things work out or sit in the shadows to wait and see. Well be careful people, because one day, there might not be anything left to come out of the shadows too!
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” it has become obvious just how many leads were previously duplicated.”
This is the main thing I have noticed in leaving Zoopla (we left 3 months before the launch of otm) is that you don’t need to be on RM AND Z, whatever your views on OTM. Any agent that is still with RM and Z should consider leaving one or other and saving £1,000s…….your business won’t be affected.
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This is compeltely different based on what are of the country you are from.
This isn’t the case at all from where we are based, Rightmove are more or less 75% more leads than Zoopla but the 25% leads we do get from Zoopla are different from Rightmove and are converting into sales/lets.
Why anyone would consider leaving either of these portals without doing their homework first is beyond me..
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You seem to have fallen into the trap that many agents fall into and that is believing that you would lose instructions if you didn’t stay on both. That isn’t true. I agree agents should do their homework but that should extend to speaking to them and asking why they have contacted you ,whether by RM or Z. I guarantee to you that those leads when questioned did not go onto Z or RM to get their property valued by agents that advertised on the sites…….Granted the e mail may be generated by the website but when you really talk about how the seller found out about you I guarantee they will already have been aware of you and if they couldn’t contact you via ,say Zoopla, they would have rung you from one of your boards, google, or your own website. That is if you are a strong agent in your town. If you aren’t then it maybe because you are sitting and waiting for all your leads to be handed to you from one of the major portals?
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I think that is the big thing that is overlooked in all these debates over portals.
It differs form town to town what might be right for somebody up north might not be right for somebody down south.
And this is one of the issues with OTM, How can you get thousands of agents to agree to go in one direction?
OTM needs in my opinion 60 – 70% of independent agents nationwide to be a success. The different business challenges around the UK makes the “One size fit all” not work.
I cant see how OTM will recruit new members, and this “Give it time RM did not have 100 million hits in the first month they launched” does not wash as the internet has evolved, RM launched with no competition and now everybody is paying catch up.
For what its worth we get around 4 RM lead to every 1 Z lead, And i cant say the majority of them are duplicated.
In my humble estate agent opinion OTM need to grow as fast as possible. And i know he gets his knockers but Harree came up with a good idea yesterday.
Drop the exclusivity rule charge agents £50 – £100 per branch, gain a massive amount of stock over night and look to kick on from there. At least that way they are in a position of strength and not playing catch up.
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“Drop the exclusivity rule charge agents £50 – £100 per branch,”…My answer to that would be WHY? Why change course when it is working. Today Jefferies (who usually always steer in favour of Zoopla) stated that they predict a further 7 % will ‘churn’ from Zoopla to OTM, that will be roughly a further 3000 branches this year. If this happens they that will mean roughly 8000 branches would have signed up, this is the target by the end of this year. So why would Springett want to give Z & RM the upper hand when he has caused the disruption required. Don’t forget that apparently branches have signed up who wanted to wait to see the site first, as yet we don’t know how many have signed up since the 26th Jan?!
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I dont think it is working as well as it could! either that or the PR machine of OTM is not working. Z are attacking OTM every other day with press releases, Why are OTM not? (please dont say something along the lines “Because they have more class” this is a business!)
I can see why you and the other 2500 members firms signed up, you bought into a dream rightly or wrongly.
But how do you now get more members???
If you had an influx of agents and made a stipulation (again like Harree said) of 72 hours first list on OTM then you would gain massive market share and a real USP.
Also remember how purchasers search for property, they dont search like you and I. They type into google (or said search engine) House for sale in xxxx Do this right now and you will see one or two agents or the first page lots of Z and RM and may be if you are luck page 3 or 4 you get OTM (this is excluding the yellow PPC links which consumers are nervous of)
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“I dont think it is working as well as it could! either that or the PR machine of OTM is not working. Z are attacking OTM every other day with press releases, Why are OTM not?”…Your right here why are OTM not attacking Zoopla and why are Zoopla continually trying to attack OTM. Possibly, a number of reasons, firstly perhaps OTM doesn’t need to perhaps they are signing people up and we don’t know about it yet, in fact coululd this be the reason that Zoopla are sending out these press releases which is try and stop the endless flow of agents that are still signing up and are issuing notice? Perhaps we will find out in the coming days/weeks but for now OTM are just carrying on business as usual.
“But how do you now get more members???”…Like I say Smile, what if they are signing up the numbers right now what if agents are seeing the adverts or the site and calling in the reps, time will tell, truth is we don’t know if they are or aern’t?
“If you had an influx of agents and made a stipulation (again like Harree said) of 72 hours first list on OTM then you would gain massive market share and a real USP.”…Or some of the agents on board would go back to Z or RM and mean that OTM will take 1 step forward and 2 steps back, this will defeat the object!
“Also remember how purchasers search for property, they dont search like you and I. They type into google (or said search engine) House for sale in xxxx Do this right now and you will see one or two agents or the first page lots of Z and RM and may be if you are luck page 3 or 4 you get OTM (this is excluding the yellow PPC links which consumers are nervous of)”…Well that’s fine by me and probably accounts for the reason why I’m getting so many more leads through Rightmove.
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If it was all about the fear of losing instructions no estate agency would have ever stopped advertising in local papers.
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The only reason we’re still on Z is because all the other agents around us bang the drum about being on ‘the big 2’ and until we agree to move forward together I’m not willing to lose out on one new instruction to save a few £. Some of you might think this is short sighted but all I car about is turnover and profit and as long as were in the green I’ll be happy. My core belief is that we will provide the best opportunity to market our properties as possible which at the moment has no place for OTM
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“Some of you might think this is short sighted ”
I don t think it is short sighted…….it IS short sighted. Can you really, honestly, 100% tell me that you would lose instructions to all your competitors if you weren’t on Zoopla? Really, please try and answer honestly and not with “we might lose this or that without them” because too many agents are using the duopoly as a crutch they can’t give up. I bet in your area all the agents have kept a presence in the newspaper? You see most agents advertise where their competitors advertise because they aren’t confident of their own abilities on vals and trade on making issues out of “so and so isn’t on both portals” “so and so gave up advertising in newsapapers” “so and so isn’t open 7 days a week ’til 8pm”…..Sellers won’t make a decision based on these matters and that is a fact so why not guarantee a few £1000.00 added to your bottom line for 2015 and just go on one portal? Or you can continue to be scared of what your opposition might say, choice is yours.
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Paul h…
Im doing just as good a job. I sincerely believe that I am not going to lose out on sales or lettings leads by dropping Z. Imagine you are looking to buy or rent a house. Do you go on just zoopla and look or just RM or just OTM, no you don’t. I don’t believe any buyer or tenant is just going to look on one site and then make a snap decision and potentially miss a better/cheaper/more matching property by not looking anywhere else.
As for valuation leads from Z, I think I may miss a couple over the next 12 months but cant honestly say that will be more than 6 and I can deal with that for the long term gain. Generally val leads from any of the portals aren’t that fantastic. A bit of a “why don’t we get a valuation dear, look it says press this button” The real leads come from how your are performing in your own area and by serious sellers.
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Some excellent and interesting points. One question: If you don’t need RM & Zoopla as people look at both (comscore will tell you if thats true or not btw) why would you need to spend money gambling on OTM? Surely you just drop Z, stay with RM safe in the knowledge that compared with local paper rates and the many old print media options you are likely getting greater reach, lower cost per listing, more eyeballs, better transparency etc etc. Touch of Devil’s advocate about this post as I’m genuinely interested.
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“why would you need to spend money gambling on OTM? Surely you just drop Z, stay with RM safe in the knowledge that compared with local paper rates and the many old print media options you are likely getting greater reach, lower cost per listing, more eyeballs, better transparency etc etc.”…Main reason is because agents that have thus far signed up can see the benefit in having an agent owned portal and not a money hungry portal such as RM and Z and want to help make it work, but I fully understand that others want to come on board at a later stage. But if you feel that OTM isn’t something to support now and you want to drop one of RM and Z then why not and do whatever you want with the money, but believe me you don’t need two.
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The real leads come from how your are performing in your own area and by serious sellers”
I think you have a great point there. Certainly, in towns we cover, it is the weaker agents that have remained on both z AND rm and this is probably true across the country with a few exceptions. There is one agent that is one of the market leaders in one of the towns we operate. I had a chat with him a fortnight ago and tried to get him to join OTM as he deals with a lot of sales/lettings in that area and is highly respected. He said he was keen but for him it would mean extra spend. When I said
“yes , but you save by dropping one of the main 2” he replied
“I’ve only ever been on Rightmove – never joined any of the others”
You see this is the thing, OTM or no OTM most of the strong, successful agents in all areas are NOT on RM and Z…..it tends to be the weaker,lazier ones that can’t see the reality that their business success is not entirely dependent on leads from R and z.
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Perhaps Zoopla would like publish the traffic that came to their site in the first three weeks of launch to demonstrate why they consider Onthemarket’s results are so poor.
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Typhoon….
#
absolutely!……great point
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And what about all those people who do not use the internet or do you not have any foot traffic? If you think you have to be on one of RM or Z web portals, just ask another agent who isn’t on that same site, why they are doing fine with the other one or a third or fourth or fifth web site. Customers go where they are told by their agent.
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TUTT TUTT TUTT, let the children play, On the market is only a more extreme version of the 2 others, they have 0 chance in the long run, what we need is not more constrain, quite the opposite.
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The most ridiculous, and most often repeated, claim by AM agents is that dropping Z has made “no difference” to their business. Really? NO difference? So a Z enquiry never got you a sale that you otherwise wouldn’t have got ? Never got you a valuation that you otherwise wouldn’t have got? So why are there millions of visits to Z every month? Is not one of them interested in buying a property? Is not one of them interested in a valuation? Does Z’s advertising and site somehow only attract timewasters? Any rational person would answer a resounding “NO” to every question. But of course … AM agents say that OTM presumably by using their own brand ‘magic dust’ marketing only attracts “serious buyers” and presumably “serious sellers”. If you AM agents have lead monitoring strategies so sophisticated that they identified Z as producing zero instructions and sales for you business … why did you keep hanging on wasting money until OTM came along?? This ‘dropping Z has made no difference to my business’ is a myth.
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You do a great job in highlighting the problem….Let’s leave OTM out of this one shall we and just look at the main 2 again. You have constantly claimed that OTM has been ineffectual thus far, so in saying that lets assume agents that are with them are only really on 1 portal.
Like I’ve said before there are some serious market leaders out there who aren’t on both z and rm any more, and they are STILL market leaders.It has tended to be the middling to weaker agents that have remained reliant on the duopoly for valuation leads. Are you seriously suggesting that someone that would want to use Savills to sell their property wont make contact if they cant find them to make contact with via Z? …What about the market leaders in towns who never joined Z and only ever used rm? they haven’t EVER been on z and still lead the market ? I think you needn’t continue being bothered about OTM but you do need to seriously look at your clouded ideology that RM and Z is the only way to be really successful….because fact is most of the market leaders aren’t on them both anymore
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Where did I say that being on RM and Z is the only way to be really successful? I’m not saying that at all … what I am saying is that AM agents saying dropping Z has made “no difference” to their business is a myth and … if AM agents have lead monitoring strategies so sophisticated that they identified Z as producing zero instructions and sales for you business … why did you keep hanging on wasting money until OTM came along?? … Let’s not argue against me by bringing in points I’ve never raised.
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“no difference to their business is a myth”…I’m sorry, it’s only a myth in your own mind…..in reality it isn’t true, I assure you. Unless you happen to have every agents P&L accounts/pipelines how can you say it’s a myth?
“if AM agents have lead monitoring strategies so sophisticated that they identified Z as producing zero instructions and sales for you business “….I don’t think they have such monitoring strategies ,but I don’t see the market leaders going backwards either. eg Savills share price up another 10.5 and Zoopla down another 4.9 today. In our towns the agents that aren’t on z and rm are still the market leaders (and some were never on z….only ever been on rm!) The market leaders don’t depend on z…..simple as that. Other weaker agents may feel differently and maintain faith with an organisation that is going backwards in the hope of the odd “extra” viewing/lead to try and help them compete with the market leaders on their patch, whilst those that have left the duopoly are moving forward (in business terms).
” why did you keep hanging on wasting money until OTM came along?? ” I didn’t….. Ive said before I gave up z for all our branches well before the otm launch. Some of the key competitors that we compete to lead the market in certain towns never ever signed up with anyone except RM.
“Let’s not argue against me by bringing in points I’ve never raised.”…Sorry, you didn’t say that RM and Z were the only way to be successful,……but you do, in my view, hold them in much higher esteem than some of the countries best estate agents do.
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“why did you keep hanging on wasting money until OTM came along”…A question I currently keep asking myself especially as I now realise what a complete waste of money it was by being on the two main portals, wish I had jumped ship months ago. Buyer and tenant enquiries are up, in fact we have more than enough buyers for each property, the viewing diary is booked out and deals are being done. Business is good!…. “This ‘dropping Z has made no difference to my business’ is a myth.” How do you know that, you won’t until you leave one of RM or Z will you. Truth is thousands of agents across the country are realising for themselves that they didn’t need two portals, the buyers and tenants are finding the property, but hey Danny don’t take our word for it, if your happy then why not keep giving them the money.
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So Paul H, you’ve come off a site with 10s of millions of visits every month onto one with 10s of thousands and you “have more than enough buyers for each property, the viewing diary is booked out and deals are being done. Business is good!” … WOW!! Give us the proof and we’ll all be signing up to AM.
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Afternoon Harree, it’s unlike you to sound so dismissive. I would imagine that all agents right now have ‘more than enough buyers’, not sure what’s happening in your part of the UK but I hear that the problem is the supply side at the moment and not the demand side and that’s certainly the case where I am.
“10s of millions of visits every month”…Yeah that’s right but for some reason all my buyers and tenants are still finding our properties, perhaps those “10s of millions” are logging on to Zoopla for one of their valuations or going their to see less stock so then heading somewhere else!!
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Still banging the drum for Zoopla I see Harree and to think some thought you were their rep!
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A question to everyone, how much do you still spend in the local rag and what do you get back from it? Some of you need to recognise that the world has moved on from 15 years ago and the main site is where the public go because they trust it like we all trust and use Google. I just don’t understand why coming on here all the time talking about how to take down these two companies is doing your clients any favours, shouldn’t you be on the phone trying to sell their houses?
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“shouldn’t you be on the phone trying to sell their houses?”…..Don’t be stupid, we leave that to the property portals nowdays!
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All this bickering has only proved one point …. a lot of innuendos or lack of understanding about OTM. If you are arguing a point, please try and remember that is also applies to any other web site when it started but didn’t have anything like the start-up support that OTM has. No-one has actually showed why it will not work, just hot air “it will not”. Well it is working and it will get stronger as time goes by. It isn’t going away so get to grips with the situation. Most hot air, actually also applies to RM & Z if you take your blinkers off.
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I also see several posts which make we wonder how experienced some are. Some basic estate agency practise being ignored or poorly trained, or you are not who you say you are. Clearly those that are web only portals comments glaring do not know how to do the job at times. That should get a few dislikes but I wager it will not get passed the teens.
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