Marketing
News covering the marketing of residential property, lead generation, buying and selling and business development.
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OnTheMarket is not going off, says CEO
One of last week’s noisier stories in the press and on social media was about OnTheMarket members and theo pen letter from the Competition and Markets Authority(CMA). Ian Springett (left), CEO, OnTheMarket (Agents Mutual)defended the portal’s position and its status with the CMA, asking Jungledrums to remind estate agents about their obligations under competition law when choosing online property portals to advertise their properties. “The CMA has been very clear in cautioning agents to act independently and not to collude. At OnTheMarket.com, we welcome that stance and have consistently given agents precisely the same advice to make any portal selection decisions independently. “For the record, there has been no suggestion from the CMA that OnTheMarket.com has acted improperly in any way. Indeed, in its reminder letter to agents, the CMA explicitly states that, “it has no reason to write to OnTheMarket in this connection at this time.” OnTheMarket certainly needs to defend its position, Mr Springett said, “Success attracts its detractors. The letter from the CMA triggered some predictably opportunistic attacks on us from some who are perhaps sensitive to the impact we are having by injecting competition and increasing choice in a portals market dominated by two big listed…
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In other news – OnTheMarket signs new member!
Estate agency Goadsby which has offices across Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire, has joined OnTheMarket.com. The firm – which was established in 1958 – will now be listing all of its properties for sale and to rent at OnTheMarket.com. Goadsby will continue to advertise its properties on Rightmove as its ‘other portal’. OnTheMarket.com announced earlier this year that the level of overall support for the portal had risen beyond 6,500 estate and letting agent offices across the UK, which was an increase of more than 50 per cent since this time last year. The figure consists of contracted members and agents who have signed a Letter of Intent to join OnTheMarket.com when total support reaches 7,500 offices – which is OnTheMarket.com’s next major milestone. David Errington (left), Group Chief Executive of Goadsby, said, “We are keen to support OnTheMarket.com, the UK’s only agent-owned, agent-controlled portal. “OnTheMarket.com is an excellent portal which enables agents to present themselves and their instructed properties in the best possible way with no distracting non-property advertising or unhelpful information added. This is just one of the reasons we have chosen to join.” Ian Springett, Chief Executive of OnTheMarket.com, said: “We are extremely pleased to be welcoming a…
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OnTheMarket battles continue
It’s been a tortuous few weeks in the property industry, fears about online agents, portal battles, tax hikes and the EU Referendum have combined to make many property people just a bit jittery. Certain people are searching for a fall guy. And they’d like it to be a big one. OnTheMarket is one of the current bookies’ favourites for the role, as disappointed members (some saying 200 disappointed members) attempt to get out of their contracts without paying their fees. As if an internal ruck isn’t enough, coincidentally (or perhaps not) the Competition & Markets Authority, published a statement warning online property portals which prevent those listing homes on them from also listing on rival sites that they may be breaching competition law. One of the founding principles behind it was that any agent wishing to list properties on OnTheMarket would have to choose between either one of its rivals – meaning either Zoopla or Rightmove would lose out. Ann Pope (left) Senior Director, Antitrust, at the Competition and Markets Authority who has a holy name and a worrying title, wrote in an Open Letter to all estate agents that “when an estate agent makes a commercial decision about its…
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Rightmove grows in spite of OTM
Rightmove continues to hold a dominant position in the online property search market after increasing its market share to 77 per cent, up from 74 per cent a year ago, in spite of fresh competition from the arrival of OnTheMarket.com at the start of 2015. Recognising the fact that its website remains a must-see destination for buyers and renters, the number of agents listing on Rightmove rose by two per cent year-on-year to 19,752 over the year to the end of December. The rise in the volume of agents listing on the portal helped boost Rightmove’s revenue by 15 per cent to £192.1 million in 2015, while pre-tax profit was up 12 per cent to £137.1 million. In total, Rightmove attracted 1.3 billion visits to its website in 2015, up 18 per cent compared to a year earlier. Rightmove’s underlying operating margin also increased from 74.6 per cent a year ago to 75.1 per cent. This comes as a blow to its competitors, especially Agents’ Mutual, which had hoped to break Rightmove’s stronghold on the market with the launch of OnTheMarket. Zoopla announced last week that it also increased its agent members by one per cent to 12,841, indicating that…
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Rightmove posts record traffic
Rightmove delivered more leads than ever before on the back of record online traffic in January, the company has revealed. More than 127 million people visited Rightmove last month, up almost 20 per cent compared to the corresponding month last year, and surpassing the previous record of 118 million set last August. The sharp increase in visits helped to ensure that email and phone enquiries to agents and developers hit a new record of over 4.9 million, up 15 per cent year-on-year. The latest data also confirms what many of us already know. We are a nation obsessed with property. Collectively people spent the equivalent of over 2,000 years browsing Rightmove in January, with the number of page views for the month hitting a new record of 1.7 billion. The most popular places people looked for a new home after London was Bristol, Cambridge and Milton Keynes. Miles Shipside (left), Rightmove Director, said, “These January statistics should give both sales and lettings agents confidence that an active year with plenty of business opportunities lies ahead. While January is usually a very busy month for home-hunting, the scale of these records shows just how habitual Rightmove has become when people are…
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OnTheMarket targets 7,500 members
OnTheMarket is now targeting 7,500 members as part of its efforts to replace Zoopla as the number two property portal after gaining the support of 6,000 UK estate and letting agent offices across the country. The level of support, which consists of contracted members and agents who have signed a ‘Letter of Intent’ to join OTM when total support reaches 7,500 offices, was achieved less than 10 months after the launch of the portal in January 2015. The growth in members, in addition to website traffic which OTM says reached a record high of 5.7 million visits in October, ensures that the portal will enter 2016 in good shape, according to Ian Springett (left), Chief Executive of OTM. He said, “We will be entering 2016 in a strong position – supported by another heavyweight national marketing campaign – and intent on overtaking ZPG in terms of available UK residential listings. “From that point, we believe that agent momentum will snowball and we will focus all our energy on continuing to build a sustainably low-cost alternative to Rightmove to serve both agents and consumers better.” Mr Springett pointed out that it was nine months ago that Alex Chesterman, the CEO of…
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OTM’s ‘one other portal’ rule stifling transactions
A well-respected figure in the estate agency sector has written an open letter in conjunction with his business partner to Ian Springett (left), CEO OnTheMarket (OTM), urging him to drop the portal’s “One Other Portal” rule. OTM is attempting to break the so-called duopoly held by Rightmove and Zoopla with its ‘one other portal’ rule preventing their member agents from advertising on both Rightmove and Zoopla, with a view to saving agents money. The duopoly of the current two biggest portals means that prices of listing on the two portals have increased significantly in recent years, but to prevent further growth, OTM launched earlier this year with a view to saving agents money overtime. But with traffic to OTM failing to attract anywhere near the level of website traffic being generated by Rightmove and Zoopla, the number of leads being generated for some agents is falling, contributing to the current decline in transaction volumes in the UK, according to estate agency Consultant and Trainer, Richard Rawlings (right) and his business partner Bradley Payne. In an open letter to OTM’s CEO, one behalf of “the approx. 1,000 agency branches we serve, as well as the wider industry”, Rawlings and his business…
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Portals remain ‘valuable lead generators’, says housebuilders
With more househunters than ever now searching for their next home typically looking online on one of the major property portals, it is not just crucial that estate agent maintain an online presence that goes beyond simply listing properties on their own website. Senior housebuilders have concluded that they should be listing homes on the portals too. A recent gathering of senior professionals from the UK new home building industry raised a healthy debate about the future of portals and online content accessibility for new homes available to consumers. Thirteen senior figures, representing 80 per cent of new homes currently being developed or in the pipeline in the UK and with an estimated portfolio value of £1 billion, concluded that portals are still valuable lead generators. It was agreed that portals serve as a critical central resource of whole market offerings in one place for consumers who are not necessarily brand loyal when it comes to a new home purchase. The London Lunch was hosted at The Ivy by New Home Finder and facilitated by Dave Bexon (left), Group Sales and Marketing Director of Redrow Homes. It was attended by Redrow Homes, Bovis, Taylor Wimpey, Persimmon, Linden, Kier Living, Miller…
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OTM continues steady growth
OnTheMarket.com (OTM) has claimed another rise in traffic levels last month. OTM said that based on its own internal data from Google Analytics, the website achieved 5.6million visits in September, including 2.7million unique visitors, up from 5.4million in August. “We believe it is only a matter of time before we overtake Zoopla as the number two portal in terms of available UK property listings and provide agents and consumers alike with a credible alternative to the current duopoly of Rightmove and Zoopla,” said CEO Ian Springett (left). However, despite OTM’s growth, their level of website traffic and brand awareness at this early stage of their existence remains low compared to what Zoopla and Rightmove are achieving, and a significant number of agents are now thinking of quitting the portal as a consequence, according to a report by Barclays. The report states that nine of the 100 OTM member agents that it apparently interviewed expressed an interest in leaving the site, while a further 35 said that they will review their membership. According to its last trading update, Zoopla said that it had attracted a net rise of 213 branches in the four months to 31 July, after winning back 100…
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