Marketing
News covering the marketing of residential property, lead generation, buying and selling and business development.
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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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Student lets portal emerges as serious challenger to Zoopla and Rightmove
A website that claims to be the next Zoopla or Rightmove of student lets has won a place in the Top 100 UK start-ups list, joining famous businesses on the AXA insurance-sponsored list such as Deliveroo and notonthehighstreet.com. Founded three years ago but launched in October 2016 the Cardiff-based property portal offers a single platform for students to search for properties in 25 cities and enables them to contact agents directly to arrange viewings. University Cribs says it is planning to have student lets available in all the UK’s 64 student cities before the start of this year’s academic year in September. It also says University Cribs has 120 agent clients across the UK just seven months after launching and 150,000 followers via its social media accounts including 139,220 on Facebook. The company also says it has 122,172 rooms to rent advertised on its www.universitycribs.co.uk site and an audience of over seven million mostly 18-24 year olds through its social media reach. Student lets What’s most notable about the company is the youth of its founders and team. The trio who started up the company – Daniel Jeffreys, Jack Jenkins and Christian Samuel (pictured, left to right) are all under…
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Rental auctions software proptech firm launches to help agents see off Rentberry threat
A start-up proptech firm that enables tenants to bid via rental auctions for properties on letting agents’ websites is about to launch into the London market. Founder Spencer Rose (pictured, below) says LetsBid4Lets.com’s software will help agents market properties directly through their own websites rather than relying on the big portals for leads. “The software is built, but we are looking to raise funding from investors to pay for marketing activity to attract tenants to the websites of the agents who sign up with us,” he says. eBay-style bidding For a fee the company will supply letting agents with white-label auction software to market their rental properties through an eBay-style bidding process. During the auctions tenants will be invited to bid for properties and, if they win, secure them for an agreed rental period. Spencer, who has a property development background from his time at investment firm Palmhurst Group, says tenants using the site will be pre-referenced by FCC Paragon before being allowed to bid. “These references will last for 60 days so if a tenant doesn’t win on one property then they will be able to use the same reference to bid on another, which will be a first…
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