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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
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
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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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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Latest property news
ZPG buys up another agent software supplier
ZPG has bought Expert Agent, the cloud-based agent software workflow system used by 16,000 negotiators in over 2,500 branches that was started up in 2004 by former estate agent Mike Griffiths (pictured, below) and sold to a private equity firm in 2013. This means ZPG now owns two former rivals in the agent software business; it bought PSG last year for £75 million, based on annual profits of £5.1 million. Griffiths, who is 55 years old, says he ‘drifted’ into writing agency software for his own sales and lettings outfit during the late 1980s before turning it into GMW Systems, which he subsequently sold to former Rightmove rival assertahome.com in 2000. That has now happened again with Expert Agent, which ZPG has bought from the private equity firm for an as-yet undisclosed sum based on a turnover of £3 million and which it says has a ‘strong fit’ with its ‘mission and strategy’. ZPG also says it also likes the company’s highly experienced team ‘with deep expertise of UK property and software market’. “We have known the ZPG team for many years and the combination with Expert Agent will be a clear win for UK agents,” says Mike Griffiths. “Whilst…
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Latest property news
Martin & Co franchisees to be offered new ZPG deal
Martin & Co parent company The Property Franchise Group (TPFG), which also owns five other agency brands with nearly 400 branches across the UK, has signed up to a long-term deal with ZPG that will be available to all its franchisees. TPFG is the UK’s biggest estate agent franchise operation in the UK and ZPG says the deal will see a ‘large number’ of TPFG’s brands returning to its online platforms. Martin & Co has also separately signed up to use Jupix, the ZPG-owned property software suite, for a further three years. TPFG will now offer the negotiated listings deal to all its existing members, but will be of interest most to those who have not signed up with ZPG yet, or who thinking about leaving OnTheMarket.com. This was the case for the Exeter branch of Martin & Co whose MD Christopher Perring (pictured, left) says he signed up to ZPG after leaving OnTheMarket following “poor lead levels and a lack of external marketing of OnTheMarket,” he says. Of the TPFG brands, Martin & Co currently has 109 out of 175 of its franchisee branches listed on Zoopla while CJ Hole has three out of 21, Ellis & Co 14 out…
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Latest property news
Big three portal traffic approaches 200 million visits a month
Both Zoopla Property Group (ZPG) and OnTheMarket have reported record traffic during January while Righmove appears to have stopped reporting its traffic entirely, although total portal traffic to the three sites is likely to be just under 200 million visits a month. But both ZPG and OnTheMarket have at least stopped throwing brickbats at each other and neither of their traffic reports mention each other, a change from recent times when both sides have questioned their competitor’s figures. ZPG says visits to its property sites Zoopla and Primelocation increased to a record of 53 million during January driven largely by mobile-based searches, which now constitute 72% of its traffic. The company also says the number of leads it generated increased by 73% year-on-year which, it says, are worth £50 million to its partner agents. “This is a great start to the year for both the business and the property market,” says Mark Goddard, MD of ZPG’s property division (pictured, left). “The numbers demonstrate that we continue to deliver incredible exposure, value and results for our partners.” OnTheMarket also had a record January, it says, receiving 11.2 million visits, an increase of 85% on the same month last year, when just…
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Latest property news
ZPG snaps up Hometrack for £120 million
Zoopla Property Group (ZPG) has bought Hometrack, the London-based property information company co-founded in 1999 by entrepreneur Giles Mackay, one of the richest men in the UK. Mackay (pictured, left) was Hometrack’s CEO for many years before stepping aside in 2013 to become chairman and is likely to be adding several million to his estimated £354 million fortune now that ZPG has agreed to pay £120 million for the company. Hometrack is the UK’s leading provider of residential property market data and works with over 400 partners including lenders, new home developers, investors, housing associations and local authorities. The company is best known for its Average Valuation Model (AVM) which is used by 15 out of the top 20 lenders such as Barclays, Abbey and Nationwide, mainly as a tool to value homes for mortgage lending purposes, without the need for a site visit. ZPG says the acquisition creates ‘the UK’s most valuable residential property resource’ and that it is part of a strategy to develop its data services business. The acquisition also gives ZPG a door into the Australian property market, where Hometrack is one of the leading AVM suppliers. Hometrack is also a fast-growing company despite its vintage and…
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Latest property news
Leaders and Romans sign up to list all properties with Zoopla
Property Service Holdings (PSH), the parent company of leading estate agency brands Romans and Leaders, is to list all its properties on Zoopla. Until now Leaders, which is the largest independent estate agent in the UK, has listed the properties from its 120 branch network on Rightmove and Zoopla, while Romans’ 28 branches were only listed on Rightmove. But in May last year the two brands were brought together during a merger to create a £120m turnover company with a £35m war chest for further acquisitions. The announcement by the company means both brands will now advertise their combined inventory of some 40,000 sales, lettings, new homes and auction properties on Zoopla Property Group’s websites. The move ends speculation that PSH might have gone with OnTheMarket as its ‘second portal’. Peter Loverdos, COO at PSH (pictured, left) says: “We have been reviewing the property portal landscape for some time and as a result of the substantial marketing and innovative product ideas coming from ZPG, we decided that it is the right time to list all of our branches and properties with ZPG to the ultimate benefit of our customers. “We expect to expand materially over the next few years and need…
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Latest property news
Zoopla buys another agency tech provider
If Brexit has damaged the property market this year then Zoopla has managed to dodge the worst of it, its full year results reveal. Profits at parent company ZPG increased by 44% to £36.7m in 2016 while revenue jumped by 84% to £197.7m. Revenue from agents is up by 5% and the number of agents listing with Zoopla increased by 10% this year. ZPG says all its sites, which includes Zoopla, PrimeLocation, uSwitch and recently-acquired agent software provider PSG, totalled 600m visits over the past year. PSG is not its only tech acquisition. ZPG also reveal that it has bought Essex-based cloud agency website design provider Technicweb. ZPG hasn’t quite seen off the OnTheMarket threat despite the upbeat full year results. During a webcast this morning ZPG said its portal-only revenue is down 1%, due to both ‘churn’ created by OnTheMarket and ‘other headwinds’. But it is clear from the results that the purchase of PSG has been a major plank in ZPG’s strategy to grow its agency customer base by luring back OnTheMarket switchers, and today’s announcement that Welsh agent Robert and Co has returned to Zoopla from OnTheMarket would seem to confirm this. The Newport based company said ZPG’s PSG…
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