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London firms help agents forge improved free deal with Zoopla

Dreamview Estates, Hausman and Holmes, and Alan Goldin Estates persuade Zoopla to give an improved offer on the portal's original 'free fee' deal announced last month.

Nigel Lewis

Three leading estate agents in London have negotiated a new deal with Zoopla following several days of negotiations between the group’s managing directors and the portal’s commercial chief, Andy Marshall.

Dreamview Estates, Hausman and Holmes, and Alan Goldin Estates are to enjoy a fee-free period of five months from May 1st as all agents on Zoopla, but without having to wait to extend up from three months. After the five-month period has finished, they will move to new paid-for contracts individually.

Significantly, Zoopla is happy for the news of the deal to ‘go public’ and therefore many other agents, and agent groups, will be wondering if they should agree similar five month free deals with the portal.

Andy Marshall, Chief Commercial Officer, Zoopla, says: “Supporting agents and partnering for the long term is a business imperative for us, and we are delighted that Dreamview Estates, Hausman and Holmes, and Alan Goldin Estates have signed up for another term.

“We look forward to working with them closely, and to continuing our successful partnership for the months and years ahead.”

Murray Lee, MD of Dreamview Estates, says Zoopla’s revised offer to his group shows that the portal believes it has a rare opportunity to persuade agents to leave Rightmove in significant numbers and is willing to better its recent deal in order to achieve that.

“We believe that when Rightmove’s 75% fees cut period ends, because Zoopla are on a par in terms of delivering leads, we now have a fall-back position if Rightmove try and hammer us later on,” says Murray.

“Zoopla put two options forward recently but we felt they did not go far enough and we wanted them to try and go a bit further to help

“I’m also disappointed with OnTheMarket because they seem to be faffing around in the dark, offering all sorts of different deals to different agents – among us three we’re paying anything from free to £199 a month. I would call on them to come off the fence and say what they’re doing. Like Zoopla they’ve got an opportunity here to achieve something.”

 

April 6, 2020

2 comments

  1. Zoopla to date has not had the hysteria that Rightmove has created for itself. But interestingly though its pricing model seems very fair if compared to Rightmoves much higher charges, Zoopla’s pricing also perpetuates the high cost to list on a portal myth.

    Both Zoopla and Rightmove charge agents for the convenience of listing stock that the agents had to pay to obtain, the argument is that Zoopla is a superbrand that the public want, but new contenders like Homesearch, might become a superbrand overnight is adopted by enough agents, especially if they come away from the two main portals.

    The interdependence between agent and property portal has never been so starkly highlighted as at this point. Agents looking at their fixed cost model of agency have some choices to make, keep paying high portal fees or adopt enmasse new portals which are free.

    After all if agents and stock populate new portals, the public will find them. Interesting times.

  2. Only to say also thanks to Ashmores as well and thanks for everyone’s support and #togetherwearestronger

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