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Latest property news
Over 800 OnTheMarket agents have returned to ZPG, says Goddard
ZPG has today claimed that 808 branches have returned to its portals over the past two years from rival OnTheMarket.com since Agents Mutual launched it in 2015. And ZPG senior figure Mark Goddard (pictured, left), who heads up its Property Services division, has gone on the attack, saying that agents who spend their marketing budgets on OnTheMarket are doing so “inefficiently”. Recent returnees include 16 agency branches which ZPG says have moved over during the past week, helping increase its returning total by 58 since it last reported on its attempt to persuade agents back from OnTheMarket. This was within its 24th May half-year results. “We do not comment on individual agent relationships but the facts remain the same as they did last week when Zoopla gave a similar update,” says Ian Springett, Chief Executive of Agents’ Mutual (pictured, right). “OnTheMarket.com continues to have a positive material impact on the property portals landscape.” “Many thousands of agents switched from Zoopla/Primelocation to join us. Many thousands of agents continue to support the objectives of the business by creating a genuine alternative portal for consumers and agents alike. Many thousands of agents have not returned to ZPG portals with their advertising budgets…
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Latest property news
Gary Lineker joins Zoopla to back home insurance disruptor Neos
Neos, the home insurance digital disruptor backed by ZPG that believes it is the “‘future of insurance” has raised a further £5 million in a round of funding lead by insurance giant Aviva but also including TV presenter Gary Lineker (pictured, right). The company was set up by Matt Poll, a former MoreThan executive with automation expert Krystian Zajac. It offers home owners real-time updates about their property on their smartphone as well as access to a 24-7 emergency assistance team. “In a fantastic move for Neos that will guarantee our major growth over the next year,” says Matt (pictured, left). “The new investment will let us not only develop our connected home systems but also grow our underwriting capacity, through an MGA agreement with Munich Re.” Lineker was also part of an initial round of angel investors in the company in October 2016 and has made several successful previous investments in other insurance-based start-ups. Strategic investment In November last year Neos announced that ZPG had made a ‘strategic investment’ in the company, which offers an app-based home insurance service coupled to home monitoring and fire and water leak prevention hardware, including home sensors and HD cameras. ZPG, which made its investment…
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Latest property news
ZPG reveals record growth, 750 returning agents plus lettings and mortgage launches
ZPG has reported record results in its half year results for the six months ended 31st March. This includes revenues up by 22% to £117.9 million, and profits that have increased by £25 million. The company also says it has seen “accelerated win backs” from OnTheMarket.com and that over the past two years the number of agents returning to the fold now totals totals 750. Over the past six months ZPG has also grown its branches list by 6% to 14,271 and its inventory by 9% to 928,000 listings. This caps a busy year for the company which has been expanding its vertical integration through the industry with the acquisition of data firm Hometrack, which ZPG say now services 17 out of the top 20 banks, and agent software outfit ExpertAgent. But these acquisitions have cost it dearly – debt at ZPG is now £209.3 million, borrowing which has also reduced its profits for the six month period. Mortgages ZPG has also revealed that it now has a mortgages team, part of a plan to expand its presence in the home financial services market. Traffic to its website and apps grew by 5% to 314 million visits and the company also…
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Latest property news
Trinity Mirror launches campaign to take on portals for agent spend
The UK’s largest regional newspaper and digital publisher Trinity Mirror says it is to “fight back” against the increasing slice of agent marketing spend being taken by Rightmove and Zoopla. Trinity Mirror has over 140 regional daily and weekly newspapers across the UK including big hitters such as the Manchester Evening News, Birmingham Mail and Bristol Post plus 80 websites. It is also publisher of the Daily and Sunday Mirror and three other national newspapers. The campaign is designed to persuade agents that Trinity Mirror’s online and print titles are the best way to ensure they are one of the ‘three’ that vendors and landlords traditionally ask to appraise their properties before deciding on which one to instruct. Campaign message Called #Be1ofthe3, the campaign message is that the major portals “don’t want agents’ brands to stand out – it’s not good for their business model – so they suppress them”. “Agents need to consider other forms of marketing to build their brand presence in the regions they operate within,” the campaign material says. Trinity Mirror, which bought rival regional publisher Local World in 2015 for £220m to make it the largest regional media company in the UK, says its titles reach…
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Latest property news
Market is feeling cold winds of the general election, research reveals
The looming general election is beginning to affect confidence among home buyers and sellers, research has revealed. The number of people planning to sell their home within the next six months has dropped to 17%, says Zoopla, down from 23% in October last year. Its figures also reveal that a similar drop in the number of people planning to buy a property, down from 25% in October to 17% today. The portal says these drops in confidence are directly attributable to the looming general election called by Theresa May for the 8th June. Homeowners may be reluctant to move home in the current political and tax environment, but 87% of them across the UK are confident about the value of their home and expect house prices to increase over the next six months. According to Zoopla’s Housing Market Sentiment Survey, this is an increase of 4% since its last survey six months ago. General election “Despite a continued period of political uncertainty, it’s encouraging to see a rise in confidence for property price growth,” says Zoopla spokesman Lawrence Hall (pictured, left) “[But] we can’t ignore that there’s been a rise in reluctance to buy and sell properties. With the upcoming general…
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Latest property news
Zoopla TV ad gets its claws into the property market
The new Zoopla TV ad has been released. And it’s got legs. Plenty of them. And the stars are hermit crabs with model homes stuck to their backs. Hermit crabs, it seems, are the only creatures that move house more than humans. Rather than struggle with the elements on Brighton beach in January, Zoopla’s ad agency 101 enlisted the help of David Attenborough’s director of photography Doug Allan and trekked to Costa Rica to find appropriately qualified and one assumes, Equity-licensed actors to star in the film. Zoopla’s Chief Marketing Officer Gareth Helm says: “This is an exciting moment for the Zoopla brand, which has long been associated with helping consumers to make smarter choices when it comes to moving home. “We are looking forward to revealing our fresh take on the topic and to showing how even the house-moving experts of the animal world – who, quite literally, carry their homes on their backs – can benefit from all the tools and advice that Zoopla has to offer. “The launch of our new campaign and the use of hermit crabs, who themselves are moving experts, provides an ideal platform to talk more about the evolution of Zoopla. We expect…
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Agencies & People
ZPG purchase of Expert Agent to be reviewed by competition watchdog
ZPG’s purchase of software company Expert Agent earlier this month has been called in by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and is now under review, prompting shares in ZPG to drop this morning. The CMA has served an initial enforcement order to ZPG under section 72(2) of the Enterprise Act 2002. The announcement was made by ZPG this morning, saying that “having been informed of the review and the order ZPG is now engaging in a consultation with the CMA and will make a further announcement in due course”. The move has been widely anticipated within the industry after ZPG acquired Expert Agent – which trades under the name Websky Ltd – from private equity firm Metropolis. It in turn bought the company off founder Mike Griffiths in 2004. The ZPG acquisition of Expert Agent gave it a substantial slice of the UK agent software market, as it had already bought Property Software Group in April 2016. PSG at the time of acquisition by ZPG claimed to be used by over 40,000 estate agent letting agent branches across the UK, while Expert Agent is used by over 2,500 branches. The CMA has been in the warpath within the property…
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Latest property news
Hybrid bridging-lender-cum-agent Nested wins £8m of new funding
As if agents needed more competition from digital start-ups, a company called Nested that offers to buy a client’s home if a buyer can’t be found has won a fresh £8 million injection of cash. Launched 14 months ago, Nested promises vendors that it will sell their homes via its own listings on Rightmove and Zoopla within 90 days or provide them with an interest-free loan to buy their next property. Nested is chasing the 40% of home movers in the UK who do not have a mortgage and therefore find it frustrating when they caught in lengthy buying chains. Hefty fee There are some catches to the deal. Nested guarantees to sell a vendor’s property, but only for 95-98% of the asking price in return for a hefty 2.5% sales fee. If the property is sold for more than the valuation range, it splits any ‘profit’ 70/30 in favour of the lender. But if the property does not sell, Nested then takes out a first-charge mortgage on the property and advances the necessary cash to enable the vendor to move home. When the property sells, the ‘bridging’ mortgage is then cleared. “There are lots of people in this situation and…
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Latest property news
Agent makes lone stand against landlords who advertise direct on property portals
Newcastle-under-Lyme letting agent Rocket Homes Rentals has locked horns with the two largest property portals over listings by two local student lettings companies. It says they are advertising on the big portals even thought they are landlords who only market their own properties. Hybrid agent/landlords like these are springing up across the UK at the moment to enable a single landlord, or group of landlords, to bypass letting agents entirely and advertise their properties to rent directly on the large portals. Rockett Home Rentals, which has a single branch in Newcastle-under-Lyme but covers Crewe, Stafford and Stoke on Trent and has been in business since 2003, says its two rivals are advertising on Rightmove and Zoopla. “I’ve talked to both portals and no matter how they want to dress this up, they seem happy to let these ‘agents’ list because they have paid money and that’s it, regardless of how their business works,” says director Bill Rockett (pictured, below) “The only properties they have are the ones they own – they’re not an agent for anyone and they don’t service any customers except themselves. “It worries me that in the small area around my business I’ve seen ‘agents’ like this…
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Latest property news
Alex Chesterman? He’s so Moneysupermarket
Alex Chesterman has revealed his disappointment with the way Brexit has been handled by the government but, despite the challenges of leaving Europe, says he wants ZPG to become one of the world’s most influential tech companies. These and other views were revealed today during an interview with London’s City AM newspaper. In it Chesterman says he hopes ZPG would become the ‘Amazon of the home’ and that his nearest competitors were Rightmove – as you might expect – but also comparison website Moneysupermarket.com. But Chesterman also says Brexit has put the property market – and his £2 billion baby – on shakier ground. “We saw property sales volumes fall quite significantly in the second half of last year, compared to the period before the vote,” he told the paper. “Buying a home is one of the biggest and longest term decisions that people make so they tend to hold off making such important decisions in times of heightened uncertainty.” He also said that public sentiment and uncertainty would not improve until there was “clarity and what Brexit actually mean” although the ZPG CEO is not entirely a Remainer, his comments reveal. Good Brexit The 47-year-old says a good Brexit could…
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