online agents
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Agencies & People
easyProperty seeks fresh funding
easyProperty, which last week became the first UK online estate agency to offer clients the ability to exchange legally binding property contracts online, is seeking £5 million to fund its expansion and additional investment in marketing. Talks with investors are believed to be at an advanced stage, with the company hoping to use part of the fresh funds to expand into the auctions and international markets. It is understood that the company also has an option to expand the business into six other European markets, including France, Germany, Greece and Italy, while easyGroup has an option to buy a further 3.4 per cent of the property company’s shares, as part of an exclusive 20-year agreement with easyProperty. News of easyProperty’s latest attempt to attract new investors comes just days before Purplebricks, a competitor online agent, unveils plans to list on the London Stock Exchange. In a statement, a spokeswoman for easyProperty said, “We can confirm easyProperty’s CEO Rob Ellice has been undertaking a planned third round of investment talks in line with commercial plans to fund the continued expansion of the growing online estate agency business.” Ellice (left), who claims that there has been “strong interest from major players”, reports…
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Latest property news
Zoopla delivers record number of appraisals to agents
Zoopla Property Group’s (ZPG) appraisal tool, which allows homeowners to directly contact prospective local agents to arrange a valuation of their property, delivered record levels of appraisal referrals to ZPG members in the first half of 2015, according to ZPG. ZPG reports that since January, prospective vendors and landlords have already sent in excess of 135,000 enquiries to ZPG member agents requesting appraisals, up 40 per cent on the corresponding period in 2014, and potentially worth in the region of £100 million in fees, based on Zoopla’s calculations, from resulting instructions so far this year. Given that the vast majority of property searches now start online, it is perhaps unsurprising that more prospective vendors are using the ZPG appraisal tool to contact local agents about selling their home. “Home movers are increasingly using our websites to identify and select local agents for valuation purposes,” said Jon Notley (left), Commercial Director at ZPG. Mr Notley says that these figures demonstrate his firm’s ongoing commitment to aiding its members in their efforts to winning new valuable business. He added, “Any agent not on our platform and therefore not visible in our unique appraisal tool will be losing out on these valuable leads…
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Latest property news
Online marketing strategy vital for estate agency success
A new survey of over 4,000 homeowners by Zoopla Property Group (ZPG) reveals that 94.2 percent expect their agent to automatically maximise the marketing exposure of their property, which includes listing the property on the major property websites.
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Agencies & People
The big debate: traditional agent vs online agent?
Traditional agent Lee James Pendleton makes the case for the traditional model while Alex Gosling bats for the online agent model.
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Agencies & People
Resi Roundtable
Let Alliance invited Chester agents to meet to discuss current issues in the property market. Sheila Manchester reports.
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Features
Online agents – what do they really offer?
Andrea Kirkby explores the world of the web-based estate agent.
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Agencies & People
Sellers warned to beware of agents who list homes on OTM
Homeowners who want to sell their properties could miss out on potential buyers, as thousands of estate agents continue to stop listing homes on either Rightmove or Zoopla, as a result of OnTheMarket.com’s (OTM) ‘one other portal’ rule requiring their member agents to stop advertising on either website, Zoopla has warned. Various agents have in recent weeks stopped listing properties with Rightmove, but it is Zoopla that has been most affected by the new OnTheMarket website, with a larger share of agents opting to cancel their subscriptions to Zoopla, in accordance with OnTheMarket.com’s strategy. Ian Springett (left), Chief Executive of OnTheMarket.com, in a press conference recently, said that OnTheMarket “want to keep growing” and get to the “number two position” in the portals market “as quickly as possible” and at the expense of Zoopla. But by preventing their member agents’ from listing homes on both Rightmove and Zoopla, which between them get more than 100 million hits a month, Zoopla argues that OTM is restricting consumer choice and the potential market reach of those vendors and landlords trying to find buyers or tenants for their properties. Lawrence Hall (right) of Zoopla said, “Marketing a property as widely as possible is…
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Features
Comment: ‘Don’t forget portals are about traffic as well as listings’
Can the online ‘disrupters’ get any traffic? Nigel Lewis shares his views.
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