It’s been another hectic week for the industry with disputes over On the Market pricing continuing and another rogue lettings agent exposd.

First: Is OnTheMarket on or off the mark?

Controversy over the property portal continued as agents met, apparently to discuss legal action against the portal.

Members of the newly formed action group are believed to want clarity and transparency over pricing, although they were publicity shy when it came to journalists, only allowing a statement to be issued on the behind closed doors proceedings.

A spokesman for OTM told EYE: “We have no reason to believe that there are any grounds for legal action.

“The board and management team of Agents’ Mutual have at every stage of the company’s inception and development taken suitable legal advice.

“We continue to take appropriate legal action to ensure that agents meet their contractual obligations.”

Reader response was mixed.

Consumer perspective commented, “Agents Mutual members outside the inner circle of the 6 or so founders have been led up the garden path and duped into thinking an unknown website with insufficient funds and naive joining terms was ever going to challenge the 2 big guns. It was, and never will be about bringing them down.”

But there was some support for OTM, and EYE reader MF said: “All that should really matter for agents is that OTM succeeds long term .  Not whether short term ‘cheaper deals’ are offered to some, to get them on board (if that’s what’s happening). Certainly, getting more agents on board is key to OTM’s success.”

 Second: 17

That is the number of victims of a man claiming to work for lettings agent who conned people out of deposits, admin fees and the first month’s rent.

Some were left homeless in the process.

When they arrived at the flat in Slough they found they could not move in.

EYE readers have also had enough of rogues.

Woodentop said: The issue is the power of the internet …. riddled with making fraud easy peasy. Online only lettings companies should be outlawed.”

Robert May, who is working on a system to root out rogue landlords, said: “You might be shocked at quite who is up to what. It isn’t  something that can be laid at the door of any particular business model. The internet is an easy facilitator  of fraud but it is also the greatest uncensored ally of a solution.”

Third: The return of the 100% mortgage?

Barclays announced it was removing the deposit on its Family Springboard mortgage this week.

EYE reader Property Paddy wondered on the Arena forum whether this was a sign of deja-vu in the property market.

He said: “Does anyone here think 100% mortgages are probably not a good idea apart from me?

“Every time we get 100% mortgages we get over accelerated house prices plus a crash 5 years later.

“I think the government should insist on 5% minimum deposit for all mortgage borrowers irrelevant of their profession. Ideally the borrower should demonstrate they didn’t get the money from mum & dad but actually saved it up themselves.

“This wouldn’t harm the property market but make it sustainable and less likely to overheat.”

Meanwhile an old debate has been repopened after new EYE reader Macadam pondered wage levels.

He said: “I find it difficult to see how negs in this industry survive on the wages they earn. Sure in bigger towns (London especially) there are some decent wages being paid (5 years ago, in a not brilliant market, one of my negs had a six figure salary) but I sit here now in the suburbs and the negs around me are earning perhaps £25-35k. At the risk of showing my age, that is a salary I was on back in the late 1980s and I just don’t see how they will ever buy a home of their own.”