If the Government really wants to drag the home moving process into the 21^st Century and bring estate agents, conveyancers, surveyors and removals firms onto one platform then ministers should have a chat with Homemove co-founders Louis O’Connell-Bristow and James Freestone (main image, L-to-R)

Both are serious about bringing about meaningful change for home movers and recently raised £3.5 million from investors, part of which of they have just spent on acquiring the UK’s oldest property portal, Home.co.uk.

Freestone tells The Neg that he bought the portal, which was founded by Ben Horton in 1995, for its considerable traffic and rich property market data.

Home.co.uk is well known to the property industry largely because it was the first portal to launch in the UK, going on to become largely a provider of valuation and other market data to estate agencies so help them understand their local or regional performance.

The 900 estate agency branches which already use Homemove will be offered free listings on Home.co.uk as will new branches that join, and the offer overall for estate agents is two-pronged.

The first is to enable estate agents to present an enhanced offer to potential vendors and therefore win more instructions, while also revenue sharing with them any referrals for services used by buyers and vendors who use Homemove including mortgages, surveys, conveyancers, removals and home set up services.

Also, vendors can use the app to find ‘trusted agents’ and are offered a data-driven valuation tool too.

“We are unique within the housing market because we help those moving home throughout the whole process, but the acquisition of Home.co.uk supercharges that proposition,” he says.

“I have for many years watched proptechs come and go that have tried to knit together the home moving buying process both from and industry and consumer perspective – like Boomin- but have tried to do too much too quickly.

“Instead, we’re trying to play the long game and bring everyone on board onto a platform that truly enables all the players in the housing market to have a better experience – and offer agents an alternative to Rightmove’s high-cost model.

“We feel that pressure has been building for some time now on this front and that we’re close to reaching the point where a straw does break the camel’s back and things change for the better.”

AI indifference

But although Freestone is keen not to comment directly on Rightmove’s recent embrace of AI, he is puzzled by the industry chat on the subject, highlighting that the investors he’s talked to aren’t that interested in the technology, largely because anyone can use it and therefore it doesn’t make platforms, like Rightmove or its smaller competitors, unique by adopting it.

“One advantage we have is that home movers and agents are already using the Homemove app and the purchase of Home.co.uk gives us both traffic – 45,000 people a day – plus cashflow and profit that means we’re not just another start-up, and therefore we don’t have to spend millions of pounds marketing to the public,” he adds.

“We will also be keeping Homemove and Home.co.uk separate because they serve two distinct functions,” he adds.