Marketing
News covering the marketing of residential property, lead generation, buying and selling and business development.
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Escalating Purplebricks vs allAgents spat goes global
A year ago the story about a spat between Purplebricks and the UK largest agent reviews site would have stayed a specialist concern for agents and perhaps regulators. Similar stories about the company’s multiple run-ins with the Advertising Standards Authority in the past have hardly stirred much interest overseas or even within the UK’s national press. But Purplebricks’ recent expansion in the US and Australia means its minor scrapes with UK regulators and review sites now make global headlines. The latest clash between the online agent and – this time – allAgents.co.uk has been so far reported in the Australian Financial Review, The Times, and the New York Times. among others. The story broke late yesterday after allAgents removed Purplebricks’ profile page following “repeated threats of legal action”, the review site said. The arguments started after Purplebricks noticed that approximately half of its reviews on allAgents posted by users were the lowest, one-star rating and asked the review site to remove them. Purplebricks told Reuters that “Purplebricks is proud of its reputation and the quality of the service that it delivers.” The company appears to have taken legal action against allAgents, which is based in Glasgow, and the reviews site…
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So that’s why sales are slowing down! Brits now move home every 23 years
The time gap between people moving home has increased from nine to 23 years since the late 1980s as high house prices have made moving up the property ladder more expensive, research by market analyst Hometrack has revealed. This may explain why property transactions have not recovered their pre-financial crisis crash. Before the global banking meltdown approximately 120,000 properties were sold each month, a figure which is currently running at just under half that number, according to latest Land Registry figures. Scottish movements Hometrack, which was purchased by ZPG recently, says the average Brit moves home every 22.7 years. Those in Scotland are the most frequent home movers, changing address every 19.6 years followed by the South West at 20.6 years and the East of England at 20.9 years. The Welsh are the most reluctant movers, changing home every 26.8 years on average. Residents in Powys, mid-Wales only move home once every 33.1 years, the data shows. On a very local level, Midlothian in Scotland, which covers the area south of Edinburgh between East Lothian and the Scottish Borders, is where people move home the most frequently, or every 14.9 years, five years faster than the rest of the UK.…
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OnTheMarket agents vote overwhelmingly to demutualise and float
OnTheMarket is to demutualise and float on the stock market following a vote by its agent members. It is also to drop its controversial ‘one other portal rule’ and will now attempt to raise £50m from City investors. Nearly 90% of agent members of the website’s operator Agents’ Mutual voted to convert their existing membership interests into shares in a new company called OnTheMarket Ltd. Agents’ Mutual says 70% of members voted in person at the meeting in London yesterday or by proxy. After the vote is approved by a court hearing early week the demutualisation will then proceed on 12th September, and following an initial IPO on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) it is expected that some £50m will be raised by offering investors a minority stake in the new business. Advertising campaign This will value OnTheMarket at between £200 and £250 million. The money raise is to be used to take on Rightmove and Zoopla with a huge national advertising campaign on TV, digital and print media as well as significant radio and billboard activity. “I am very pleased at such a resounding demonstration of broad Member support for our strategic proposals for the business,” says Ian Springett,…
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OnTheMarket to end mutual status and float on AIM
The parent company of OnTheMarket.com, Agents’ Mutual, is to raise £50m by floating on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange 30 months after the mutually-owned property portal launched. The flotation will value OnTheMarket at between £200 million and £250 million, a sixth the size of nearest rival Zoopla. Much of the money raised from the City will be spent on a huge TV, radio, print and digital advertising campaign to raise awareness among consumers and, no doubt, stop agents jumping ship back to Zoopla. OnTheMarket’s flotation will also require existing agents who list on the site to convert their membership into ordinary shares in the new company, and commit to a further five year agreement to list their properties on OnTheMarket.com. “This is the beginning of a very exicting new chapter in our development,” says Agents Mutual Chief Executive Ian Springett (pictured, left). “For consumer and agents alike we are committed to creating a genuine agent-controlled alternative challenger business and brand to the two leading incumbent portals.” A minority stake will be offered to investors as part of the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of new equity which will be used to give OnTheMarket the sort of…
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Advertising watchdog censures Houser over ad, but is anyone at home?
Hybrid property portal Houser has been criticised by the Advertising Standards Authority after it ignored efforts by the watchdog to investigate a complaint about one of its listings. Agent Newton Fallowell, which has over 30 branches across Lincolnshire, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire, had complained to the ASA about a property listing on Houser that was for a house that had been sold two years ago. The ASA said that potential buyers would have understood from the ad that the property was still on the market when it was not, and that therefore it was misleading under rule 3.1 of the CAP code. But when contacted by the ASA, Houser did not respond to its enquiries, and the watchdog says it is “concerned by Houser’s lack of response apparent disregard for the Code”. “We remind them of their responsibilities to respond promptly to our enquiries and told them to do so in the future,” the ASA says in its judgement. Property hunting reinvented Houser launched in January 2015 after buying the assets of failed property search engine NeedaProperty, describing itself as “the one you didn’t see coming” and that its service is “property hunting reinvented”. The company offers agents free listings…
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Former commercial property giant Movehut sold for £55,000
Movehut, the commercial property portal once tipped to be the next Rightmove which at one point had Rightmove founder Harry Hill as its chairman and was backed by TV presenter Carol Vorderman, has had most of its assets sold off by the administrators for £55,000. The payment, by a company linked to the website’s founder Gary Stuart, includes £20,000 for its customer database, £2,500 for fixtures and fittings at its Newcastle-under-Lyme offices and £12,500 for the intellectual property attached to its software including the website and domain name, and £5,000 for its existing customers contracts. Unsecured creditors are owed £207,900 says administrator Kevin Lucas of Lucas Johnson Insolvency Practice, who also says Movehut Ltd will soon move from administration to liquidation. AIM listing Movehut launched in the early noughties and by early 2013 was claiming to be the largest commercial property website in the UK with over 100,000 listings and soaring web traffic. It also had plans for an AIM listing that would have valued the company at £10m. But then the Movehut story began to fall apart. Harry Hill (pictured, left) and Chief Executive Justin Bates left the company in October 2013 and, although Carole Vorderman fronted ads for…
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Newspaper giant fights back against portals
The UK’s largest regional newspaper and digital publisher Trinity Mirror, is to “fight back” against the increasing slice of agent marketing spend taken by Rightmove and Zoopla.
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LonRes launches commission sharing site for new build agents
Commission-sharing and property data platform LonRes has launched a service to enable agents who sell new-build property in London to commission share with other agents, it has been revealed. Called ResDev, LonRes says the service will help agents tap into London’s burgeoning new homes market, which last year saw 16,230 new homes built. “With access to a network of properties and potential commission splits, ResDev is a natural extension of the LonRes system,” says says Lonres co-founder Anthony Payne (pictured, left). “Just as LonRes transformed the way in which London agents worked together, ResDev promises to do the same for the new build sector.” The ambitious building efforts of London’s developers, who are finishing projects such as the mixed-used redevelopment of Battersea Power Station started when the London market was over-heating, make it the ideal time to launch the ResDev. LonRes says the numbers of new homes coming to the market is up 53% compared to five years ago. Such extraordinary growth compares with the struggling general sales market in London, within which the number of homes sold has dropped by approximately a quarter year on year. LonRes say its new service will offer agents selling new build properties access…
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Revealed: how TrustPilot’s review verification system really works
Details of how TrustPilot enables estate agents to verify and manage customer reviews have been revealed follow a complaint about Purplebricks from one of its customers. Brighton-based lifestyle blogger Laura Tells (pictured, left) posted a low rating of Purplebricks on Trustpilot recently after receiving zero viewings for her flat. Soon after posting her review Laura was contacted by TrustPilot to say that it had been taken down because “Purplebricks has reported the review because they don’t believe you’ve had a genuine buying or service experience”. Laura was then told that to have her review put live again she’d have to provide her proof of service with Purplebricks. A protracted debate ensued on Twitter between Laura and Trustpilot, during which several traditional agents weighed in to demand the review site clarify how their ratings management process works, but largely to no avail. Company guidelines The Negotiator has contacted TrustPilot for a response. It says that, following the Twitter exchange, it has contacted Purplebricks to “clarify” its usage of the term ‘verified’ and to “make sure they comply with our company guidelines,” says spokesman Alexander Tolstrup. “Companies should not refer to unverified Trustpilot reviews as verified even if the company have done…
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Landlords and tenants get free £10 Uber ride
A landlord services company that manages over £500m worth of property on behalf of clients has struck a deal with Uber to give its landlords and tenants a free taxi ride worth £10. The Happy Tenant Company, which is unusual becomes it manages properties and tenants on behalf of landlords but uses approved lettings agents just for ‘tenant finding’, says the deal will also raise money for charity Make a Wish UK. When anyone signs up for the first time to join Uber – existing customers are excluded – they will be given £10 of free credit on their account if they use the voucher code ‘HAPPY TENANT and £5 will be donated to Make a Wish UK. The Uber deal echoes The Happy Tenant Company’s business model, which is to use its group buying power to gain bulk discounts for services to landlords such as tenant finding, maintenance and inventory services and then pass them directly to their customers. “We’ve focused on delivering more than just property management, by using our size to secure discounts across a range of service suppliers to help our landlord and tenant clients; something which experience has shown us is the key to harnessing good…
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