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Challenger portal sets out its stall ahead of 21st September industry launch

OpenBrix claims to help agents make £125,000 a year on average for branches signing 40 tenancies a month, but will agents adapt to its new model?

Nigel Lewis

Letting agencies signing up 40 tenancies a month who sign up to OpenBrix have the potential to make up to £125,000 a year in revenue on average via the platform’s Partners programme, says its CEO Adam Pigott.

The claim was made in an interview with The Negotiator during which he explained ‘the maths’ and that so far some 7,000 branches have signed up to be potential early adopters ahead of its September 21st official launch.

Pigott says his research shows 65% of new tenants take up an average of five products such as utility, internet/TV, insurance and maybe rent guarantee insurance each with an average referral value of £70.

For lettings, this equates to £350 per tenancy and, for an agency achieving approximately 40 tenancies a month, an extra £125,000 a year.

But this approach is not plain sailing – OpenBrix is therefore in competition with larger agencies and corporates who guard their third-party relationships jealously.

Corporate agency

“One corporate agency told me that they sell the providers products best and far better than the partners do,” says Pigott. “I have spoken with nearly all the providers and that view is disputed by them all.

“It may be what they say to the corporate agent’s board member, but it is a view that is not upheld behind closed doors. “Our partners are excited to finally get to do the ‘selling’ themselves. And you watch these sales increase. The knock-on is that the agents will get even more commission.”

Key attraction

“You can talk about our Multi Listing Service, the democratic way the platform will be run by the agents and the pioneering property blockchain technology behind it. But the key for most agents is that we will enable them to increase their revenue and free them up to run their business,” says Pigott, who has 200 agents trialling the service.

“We can do this because we don’t take a cut of the referral fees like other portals and platforms do, and we’ve streamlined the way agent and their parties work together.”

Pigott says he’s got 28 supplier partners on board and that he’s persuaded them to give agents more commission through OpenBrix.

“Partners like Tili and Sky like us because they don’t have to train the agents to use their platforms – agents introduce them to their tenants, vendors, landlords or buyers and then the partners do the selling themselves and that’s why we can maximise the commission.

“We pair the tenant or home buyer/seller with the property and the agent then walks away – so partners sell to agents and the agent sells to the end user.”

Read more about challenger portals.

September 4, 2020

3 comments

  1. Thanks Jonathan. Hoping you can join us soon! You have a great product that gives substantial discounts to the end consumers.

  2. Sounds like a great platform. Best of luck to Adam and the team.

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