A new online agency has launched, sharing an office with a high street firm, and offering what appears to be the cheapest package anywhere in the country – just £99, including VAT, to sell or let.
99Home’s launch elicited what can only be described as virtual gasps on social media, as industry figures envisaged a race to the bottom.
In a wry response on Twitter, industry trainer Julian O’Dell said: “Blimey. Where will it end?”
To this, both Chris Wood and Henry Pryor independently gave the near-identical reply: “In tears”
Property commentator Pryor added a question mark, while estate agent Wood did not.
99Home is based at 326 High Road, Willesden, north London, which is also the address for Property Hub, a high street business which lists at OnTheMarket.
So, what do you get for £99?
Well, you do your own valuation and take your own photos. The property is marketed on 99Home, plus Zoopla and Gumtree.
Two other packages are on offer – the ‘combo’ package is £499, and the ‘high street’ package costs £999 – which both include Rightmove listings.
The company profile on Zoopla reads:
“Welcome to 99Home Ltd, your online estate agents, run and loved by our clients to let or sell their properties. Our vision and reason for our existence are:
- Provide an excellent service with low fixed fee where the property gets a nationwide explore, though the full control of deal will be in owner’s hand.
- Escape from heavy estate agent’s fees, and sale or let your own property on just £99.00 which is legitimate cost for the service.
- World is moving towards modern methods of marketing and technology to save time and energy so as we provide are here to provide this platform so our client can achieve their dream.
Provides a cloud-based online system which gives you more control to manage your property’s lettings, sales, management and onwards services. We’re capable of selling or renting any sized property in any location within United Kingdom. We also offer a low-cost conveyancing service, evictions, property insurance and much more. We deals with residential, commercial, lands and we are open 24/7, please contact us to find out how fast we can sell or let your home successfully at a very low-cost”
According to Zoopla’s website yesterday, 99Property had one home to sell and one to rent, although 99Property’s own website showed 34 listings.
At 99Property, Vijay Vashisht told EYE: “Property Hub is a high street agent, whereas 99Home is completely online. The only thing we have in common is the office.”
He said that people these days are perfectly capable of taking good pictures, dealing with leads directly themselves, and handling viewings.
The more expensive packages were for people with less time. He emphasised the ‘high street’ package had nothing at all to do with Property Hub.
He said that the launch of 99Home was in response to the likes of Purplebricks and eMoov taking business from high street agents, including Property Hub.
https://www.propertyhubltd.com/
In a strange way, I really want these corner shop online agents to do well. It will wipe £m off Purplebricks and Emoov. Then in the near future, everyone will realise it’s all sh*t and a waste of money and time. The corner shop agent will then realise it’s not sustainable at 99p and then start selling crisps and pork scratchings at inflated prices to sustain their ‘on benefit’ lifestyle. Long live the 99p online agent, sell and rent your home for 99p – that’s the future.
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No mention of an EPC anywhere in their “comprehensive” pricing matrix. After almost 10 years there are still agents paying lip service and dismissing the value of the EPC as they have not bothered to learn anything about the document and thus they think it’s just a little coloured graph and not a 5 or more page illustration of a property in energy terms.
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If the appalling grammar and substandard syntax are a reflection of the overall quality of this operation, their clients are in big, big trouble.
As Jan Carlzon of SAS Airlines said “Coffee stains on the flip tray suggest to our customers that we do not service our engines properly”…
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That’s brilliant.
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I wonder if they will negotiate on that £99?
I think they should for such a low level of service!
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And in a further statement:
“People these days are perfectly capable of taking out their own appendix, extracting their own teeth and performing their own brain surgery. They are not so perfectly capable of realising that if you pay peanuts you get monkeys – which is why they are so happy to be paying us £99 a pop.”
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“At 99Property, Vijay Vashisht told EYE: “…The only thing we have in common is the office.””
Well… only the office and maybe a few ‘shared’ listings.
Actually, quite a lot of shared listings.
They claim 33 properties on their own frankfully woeful website – which states
“For just £99 your property will be listed across all the main property selling portals…”
They currently list ONE property on Zoopla, and NONE on Rightmove.
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I think I made a comment about Indians last week….. its now the time of the cowboy indian!
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It’s called a “loss leader”. Designed to bring in a stream of mugs to then upsell to.
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This is a blatant listing service. This in no way satisfies the portals requirements to be classed as an estate agent.
Righmove & Zoopla need to cracking down on these type of companies now.
They should have more stringent checks in place to make sure this is not allowed.
The fact another has got through the net is unacceptable.
The portals are in breach of their own T&Cs – Very soon an agent will take them to court for lose of business.
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“This is a blatant listing service. This in no way satisfies the portals requirements to be classed as an estate agent.”
And that is exactly the point.
Interestingly, smile please, it is apparently only the £99 option which breaches the Ts&Cs (and for that you supposedly get listed on Zoopla only – BUT it must nevertheless have an impact on their eliigibility to list on Rightmove.
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I pay my photographer more than that just to take the photos….. buy cheap buy twice.
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One of my favourite ever conversations was with my cousin. He was discussing a salesman trying to sell him an old car, to which my cousin replied to him “It’s not vintage, it’s s**t.”
As always, discounted prices mean a discounted product. In this case, the service is so discounted as to actually make me question whether this a product worth having.
My plea to anyone planning on using this service – don’t. It’s dirt cheap because it’s dirt.
Please also note that for £99 you can decide your property price. This is horrific and I’m going to end this comment now because I’m mad at these con artists.
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Fab, the £99 model offers ancillary services like *Floorplans at £29
This means it is NOT a ‘passive intermediary’
**As such I’d suggest agents do some viewings on vendor listed dwellings, as any errors or omissions on details found opens the agent to potential £5k fines
What a cracking great model. Try and screw all the other agents, and by not knowing the lawful description of an agent, this ill thought out model where no agent goes in to check the details is open to fines 51 times higher than the client fee.
Fab. Now anyone got a better thought out £49 model
Can we see the powers that be looking closer at this type of model not helping the industry or consumers.
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“This means it is NOT a ‘passive intermediary’”
But Mr Mealham – they aren’t claiming to be a passive intermediary – they are claiming to be an “Online Estate Agent”
I would say that their claim is actually further from the mark.
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That’s my point PeeBee. If a passive, they wouldn’t be responsible for any vendor errors.
As agents, they are responsible for any errors the owners make in details, unless they check information shown. At £99 it’s totally unviable.
Thus any errors of wrong infomation given or any information not given that would affect a transactional decision, then the ‘AGENT’ would pick up any fine.
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Great example of the ‘coffee stains on the flip tray’ locally this morning. All but 2 of the pretty average photos on a new listing by online agent appearing sideways!
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Currently has about 0% of market share……
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“Currently has about 0% of market share……”
Agreed – but will you be crying into your coffee mug when that ‘0%’ could, at some point in time, become 0.001% ?
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Good luck to them. Nice to see a bit of innovation.
As Blues mentions above, the idea is to get people through the door and then sell them their full service at a fraction of the cost compared to people like Foxtons who I see are charging 2.5% + VAT.
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Went to the rescue of a Purple Bricks client yesterday. It was incredibly challenging not to look patronising when asking perfectly valid questions about their experience thus far as the realisation dawned on them £1,100 for **** photos and a demonstrably incorrect valuation was not quite the roaring deal they’d thought. I suspect the £99 experience would be an even more dismal waste of time and money.
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My view, for what it’s worth, this is simply how the market is going to move. Self-listing is going to be a HUGE part of the future of property transactions going forward and how do I know this?
1 – Well I believe evidence is clear already on Facebook where there are literally thousands of people interacting and concluding deals without the need for an agent’s involvement.
2 – The growth in online agents (which a lot of traditional agents said would never take off only a few years ago) has now introduced how simple online marketing can be. As more people get used to this medium, it’s a natural step to self-listing and the main barrier to entry at present is the access to the property portals, i.e. Rightmove, Zoopla, et. al. who are able to dictate and control the market as they don’t allow self-listing (albiet that line is becoming somewhat blurred every month it seems).
So Totallymoving was created to help people choose, i.e. they can pay to list as an online agent does, they can self-list, or can list multiple properties as an agent (ALL FOR FREE). The point is going forward the industry needs to offer a choice to Vendors and not simply rely on the fact that things have always been done in a particular way, controlled by the most part by those with a vested interest in keeping the status quo, i.e. high street agents who charge a relatively high fee (in particular in a boom market where a property could sell in a single day) with seemingly little associated effort by the agent. Along with the portals wanting to keep control (monopolise???) the market for their advantage, with ever increasing monthly fees and/or ways to increase their bottom line (which we have to accept is their duty).
How does Totallymoving intend to make money, well that’s for a later discussion and I’m happy to have that discussion with potential investors. This article represents my personal opinion and is not intended to offend or otherwise upset anyone. Simply stating my opinion, having been working in this space for over 20 years.
Check us out at http://www.totallymoving.uk
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I searched our city on your site and I quote the results: ‘0 Properties found’.
Now I just need to pluck your words from above… ‘online agents (which a lot of traditional agents said would never take off’
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“Check us out at…”
Thanks – that’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back.
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And another non responsive website is launched.
2005 called. It wants its website back.
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All these competing services are wonderful for the consumer though.
After time things will settle down and consumers will become more aware of the pros & cons.
For the more capable seller a cheap DIY service must surely be the way forward. For those who don’t understand the pros & cons I imagine guides will become available from the likes of Which? Telling consumers which services suit their own requirements.
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A misdescriptions minefield – Hope these guys have good lawyers!
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And I hope they are registered with all the revelvant bodies and as the go-between they have responsibilities in law. Misdescriptions is the least of their worries, Someone didn’t do their legal homework?
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I see the site has been taken down and replaced with a holding page stating
“Launching on 2nd May, 2017”
Whoopee doo! – diary duly noted.
I can’t wait…
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The high street branch ( in the same building but not us, honest ) “Property Hub” offers mortgage services but displays none of the disclaimers about risk of loss or any mention of financial ombudsman or FCA statement, surely this is a total breach of compliance requirements
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