As the portal battle hots up, OpenBrix are, yes, yet another online platform trying to break into the space dominated by Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket.
While the main portals are often panned by agents for the amount of money they charge in fees, despite the volume of leads they often deliver, one agent has expressed genuine satisfaction at the service provided by OpenBrix, and the company is keen to shout from the rooftops about it.
Below is a letter received by the OpenBrix team this week from an agency, Jack Barclay estate agents, attesting to the OpenBrix platform working for them and yielding £1,470 passively from using the platform to help a small selection of tenants.
Mizan Abdu-Kadir cites a £210 profit per property let in additional revenue from 23 ancillary products sold for them.
Adam Pigott, CEO of OpenBrix, said: “Property portals can no longer get away with being just search facilities alone. They must evolve into platforms that make life easier and better value for the consumer whilst supporting and paying revenue to estate and letting agents.
“Our process is proven to work in doing that and provides a super-simple revenue model that pays 100% of the additional revenue earned from conveyancing, insurance, utility switching and tenant services directly to the agent – not just some of it. We guarantee that will always be the case too.”
See the letter below:
Date: Wednesday 19th November 2020
Dear Team at Open Brix,
I recently joined OpenBrix as I had heard about the revenue earning ability they have on their portal. In the first working week of using their partnership options, my agency agreed 7 lettings. I followed the instructions and asked the prospective tenants to register at OpenBrix.co,uk, even though these leads came from elsewhere, and then share their ID as part of the Right to Rent Procedure. I then paired their ID’s with teh respective properties. To my delight, I logged in to my OpenBrix Dashboard today and noted that 23 products have been sold so far by chosen partners. My pending referral fees are all broken down for clarity and are showing a total of £1,470. I am really impressed!
Your sincerely
Mizan Abdul-Kadir
Chief Executive Officer
Jack Barclay
Comments (3)
Woodentop – the point you make – ‘whose client is the tenant’ is a valid and interesting one – but maybe the question needs to be re-framed. A tenant needs services and products from someone, is the supplying of those services or products ‘Service as a Service’ a terrible solution?
You mention what happens when the Landlord finds out you are monetizing the client, but someone somewhere will be making money from the tenant availing himself of a product or service necessary in taking a tenancy, so if a tenant did nothing on the OpenBrix portal but googled a solution to find a service they required, would the landlord be upset to learn that some other entity had made money out of ‘his tenant’ receiving a new consumer?
Letting agencies are not non-profit making charities but commercial entities based on income streams to ensure those in the business have jobs and can perform the functions that landlords and tenants require. In the end the client – belongs to no-one they are a person in their own right, often in need of a solution that they want now due to technology in a Nano-second, in a sense probably 90% of the UK consumers are Amazon clients – trading off their shopping habits for the convenience of purchase.
Woodentop – The letter above is just a letter of thanks and this release was merely informing readers that the agents get 100% of the introduction/arrangement fees, whereas other models (in all cases I believe) take their own cut, some as much as 70% of the fee. At OpenBrix, we do not take a penny. The OpenBrix agent dashboard provides a complete and detailed breakdown of all fees. It will almost certainly be made mandatory in the coming months that agents supply complete transparency to the consumer and this is why we have built this capability into our portal. We have also built the notification factor for the consumer so that they are made aware of these fees at the point of consent. Blockchain is all about transparency and that is why this has been easy to build in. These are consumer products, not Landlords products, so the prospectrive tenant will be the partners end customer/client. However, it is the agents that facilitiate this via our platform that makes the connection and installation/purchase via some pretty impressive integration. It speeds up the process and limits, reduces and in some cases removes, the administration. So it is the agents that facilitate this easy way of setting up these products and why it is they who receive the referral fee. As long as all parties are aware I see no issue. I hope that satisfies your reasonable concern. Best wishes, Adam Pigott, CEO OpenBrix
Not as impressed once your landlord sees you are making extra money from them. The tenant is who’s customer? Are they the letting agents or the landlords? And of course you have told both parties, your landlord and tenant of your commissions!