Zoopla
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Products & Services
Zoopla, Countrywide and Connells partner with Proptech firms
Zoopla, Countrywide, Connells, Fixflo, Property Detective, Trussle and Landbay are to work together in a series of investments and collaborations to bring further services to consumers. FixFlo, the UK’s leading online repair reporting platform, will provide ZPG agent members with tools to help them manage tenant maintenance issues more effectively; PropertyDetective is a supplier of property and neighbourhood research reports and they will provide more in depth property data to Zoopla users and agents; MD and founder of PropertyDetective, Barry Bridges said, “Our reports are now recognised by the industry and consumers alike as the best residential property reports you can get your hands on, full of useful information about the local area, giving an unbiased and genuinely useful picture of the facts that anyone moving home should be making themselves familiar with BEFORE moving home. Today, we start bringing those reports and our insight to a national audience of millions.” Landbay is a leading peer-to-peer lender for property, which will allow ZPG users to invest in the UK residential property market from as little as £100; Trussle, the UK’s first online mortgage adviser, will help ZPG users find the best value mortgages for their needs. Alex Chesterman (right), Founder…
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Agencies & People
Andy Botha to join Zoopla as CFO
Andy Botha will replace Stephen Moran as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Zoopla Property Group (ZPG) it has been officially announced. Botha joins the company on Monday 18th April, coming from notonthehighstreet.com where he has been Chief Commercial & Financial Officer since 2013. He has also held senior commercial and financial roles at Betfair and lastminute.com. In a statement on Monday, ZPG said Botha has a proven ability to execute different multi-brand, multi-channel business models across the digital and technology sectors. “He brings with him a wealth of highly relevant experience in tech businesses and demonstrable success in leading financial teams and business units during periods of high-growth,” said Chairman Mike Evans. Botha will join ZPG’s recently strengthened senior leadership team, which includes Paul Whitehead as the newly appointed Group Strategy Director. Paul was most recently Chief Commercial Officer at uSwitch (recently acquired by ZPG) and was previously Head of Corporate and Business Development at Channel 4 for six years. Alex Chesterman (left), Founder & CEO of Zoopla Property Group Plc, said, “I am very much looking forward to working closely with Andy and Paul as we continue to deliver on our strategy. There is much to play for…
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Housing Market
Britain’s housing stock worth £7.76 trillion
Britain’s 28.6 million homes grew in value by nearly £1.4 billion per day during 2015, says Zoopla research. Brentford and West Drayton are areas with largest increases in 2015 (24% and 17% respectively) Wales is the region with the lowest price gains over the past 12 months, at 2.2% Edinburgh, Bristol and Glasgow amongst top online property searches in 2015 Zoopla says that the country’s 28.6 million homes are now worth a combined £7.76 trillion (£7,764,650,690,201) — with the total residential stock value rising £519 billion (7.2%) over the past year. The average British property is now worth £290,827 and has risen in value by more than £20,000 (7.4%) on average in 2015 – marking a bigger increase year-on-year than 2014 (6.9%). Homeowners in London have seen the highest price growth in 2015 of any region, with an 11.8% annual uplift. The East of England follows closely with an 11.6% rise – up from 9.6% during 2014. However, property owners in Wales and Scotland saw the lowest growth in house prices in the last 12 months, with values rising just 2.2% and 2.7% respectively. Bodacious Brentford Brentford in Middlesex, Greater London finished the year with the greatest increase in property…
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Latest property news
OnTheMarket “diminished as a threat” says Zoopla boss
It was billed as the property website that would finally break the so-called duopoly between Rightmove and Zoopla, but OnTheMarket (OTM) is turning out to be a bit a damp squib, according to Alex Chesterman, Head of Zoopla Property Group (ZPG). Zoopla said that the number of agents on its books has increased in recent months as it posted better than expected full-year earnings. ZPG has announced a £25.4 million profit in the 12 months to September despite greater market competition from OTM which has increased its market share since launching in January, primarily at the expense of Zoopla. Zoopla had 12,702 agency partners at the end of September, compared to 16,373 a year earlier, largely as a consequence of OTM’s ‘one other portal’ rule requiring their member agents to stop advertising on either Rightmove or Zoopla with a view to winning greater market share. The rule hit Zoopla significantly harder than Rightmove, with client numbers falling sharply. But Zoopla report that they are now winning some of those customers back, with Chesterman insisting that OTM’s “threat is diminishing”. ZPG’s growth in revenue for the year ending 30th September has been supported by the group’s acquisition of home services comparison…
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Marketing
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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Marketing
Moving target
Andrea Kirkby reviews the financial and market positions of the major portals as the new challenger squares up to ‘the establishment.’
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Marketing
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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Housing Market
House prices set to rise
Residential property prices look set to increase by an average of £60,000 over the next five years, hitting more than £320,000 in 2020, according to Cebr, the Centre for Economics and Business Research. The economic forecaster expects the average price of a home in the UK to reach £263,000 this year, up 5.6 per cent on last year, but believes that the market offers further room for growth of 3.5 per cent in 2016, with further annual price rises of in the region of 4 per cent in the four years that follow. If accurate, these price hikes will take the average price of a UK home to £321,600 during 2020 – £58,600 more than the average residential property price in 2015, according to Cebr. Nina Skero, CebrEconomist and main author of the report, believes that capital growth will be primarily fuelled by a growing “reduction in the number of properties being put on the market” as a result of low levels of housebuilding, as well as other factors such as an ageing population and the rising cost of moving up the property ladder. He commented, “The price gap between a first-time home and a larger family home has skyrocketed…
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Agencies & People
Zoopla sees ‘return to growth’
Zoopla is going from strength to strength thanks in part to its acquisition of comparison website uSwitch earlier this year, which is doing even better than expected, as well as a rise in estate agency customers. According to its latest trading update to the City, Zoopla, which earlier this year acquired online price comparison site uSwitch for £160million in a move designed to differentiate it from rivals Rightmove and OnTheMarket, has attracted a further 146 UK estate agents to its membership since July, contributing to growth in turnovers and profits. Zoopla has accepted that it lost business this year to challenger property website, OnTheMarket.com (OTM), but now insiststhat its UK agency membership is “continuing its return to growth.” Zoopla now has a total of 12,701 agency customers on its books, along with 2,706 new homes customers and 737 overseas members. Zoopla forecasts that full-year revenue will increase by a third to £107 million, with adjusted cash profit up by a fifth to £48 million. These optimistic projections are supported by the company’s decision to diversify its offering with its uSwitch acquisition, which has outperformed expectations, while its portal division was in line. There has been a positive reaction to Zoopla’s…
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