Zoopla is this week sponsoring a meeting of agents who have committed themselves to OnTheMarket.
Zoopla, which is covering the costs of refreshments at the meeting at a four star hotel on Wednesday, will be putting its case as to why it should be the “one other portal” come the New Year.
The group in the north-east, consists of 90 agents with over 200 offices between them.
Spokesman Steve Henning said: “As you would expect, there is differing opinion on which portal to support alongside OnTheMarket.
“Some agents intend coming off both the current main portals. Some will stay on Rightmove and others on Zoopla.
“As a group, one of our aims is to secure the best rates from the portals without obligation for all agents to use that portal.
“We hope to achieve cost savings for our businesses and therefore on our customers’ fees.”
The meeting will also include an update on Agents’ Mutual.
Henning, who is operations manager at Jan Forster Estates, said a similar invitation will be extended to Rightmove to attend the group’s next meeting in October.
The meeting is at Ramside Hall, Durham, between 11am and 2pm, and all agents in the region who have committed themselves to gold or silver membership are welcome to join.
Any agent in the region interested in knowing more but who has not signed up to OnTheMarket can email:
Steve.henning@janforsterestates.com
Comments (8)
I think it is a pity that some to most in this industry want to spend all their time skewing every little update on this subject to a pro AM angle, rather than 'telling it like it is' so that we might all enjoy an honest ongoing debate. When AM secure genuine little victories along the way/post launch I will congratulate them – this isn't one of them but once again the grand delusion rules supreme!
How many times does it have to be said that RM and Z are simply in business to provide a service to their subscribers and advertisers – the agents. The agents use these portals to enhance their service to their own customers, but when any business to business service becomes too expensive you have to look around for a better value alternative. If AM have achieved nothing else (so far) they have at least galvanised groups of agents to act together in this way to try to get better value for themselves. There is no doubt in my mind that the inexorable increase in portal charges can be restricted by the advent of OTM whether or not they achieve domination of property advertising on the internet. Some in the industry will pocket their savings, some will invest them in improving or expanding their agencies, but whatever happens to any money saved it is better that the individual agents can decide how to spend it rather than it ending up in the pockets of RM and Z shareholders. I think it is a pity that some in this industry want to spend all their time trying to find reasons why not to support AM, rather than acting to try and encourage the success of the only currently viable proposal which might keep some of our advertising costs under our own control for a little longer.
Shame house buyers don't do the same thing, to get a better deal from Estate Agents eh! Same difference, but are agents going to reduce costs, no. Will charge as much as agents can get away with.
Read once… read twice… nope, sorry – this makes no sense to me whatsoever. Please explain your thought process leading to pressing the 'Submit' button with the above statement, 1stTimeBuyer…
Well I've been around a long time, and I have never come across any business which charges it's customers LESS than it can get away with. That's just not done, is it? Be it a taxi firm, airline, bank, sweet shop – name me any business which sells itself under the market level and I'll show a business which is going bust.
I think it's important to note that Zoopla seem to have accepted an invitation to attend (& pick up the bill), rather than having called the meeting themselves. One can just imagine the bad press had they declined the invitation. They would have attended a meeting of 90 agents over any subject once invited, it says nothing about how much or little Zoopla are threatened by AM.
Funny how from "It will never get off the ground" it has changed to "Can we be the other portal please?"!
Curiouser and curiouser