A promotion sent out by Rightmove to consumers said that if they bought a new home they would get “a guaranteed buyer and no estate agent fees to pay” for their existing property.
The “find your new” e-flyer, send out under the Rightmove Partners promotion to registered home hunters on behalf of developer Barratt Homes, infuriated one agent who decided he had definitely not found his happy.
He told Rightmove: “With ‘no estate agent fees to pay’, as an estate agency, we don’t have a business and then you don’t have a business.”
A spokesperson for Rightmove said: “Rightmove sends hundreds of e-leaflets on behalf of both estate agency and new homes customers every month, as they prove to be an effective way for them to target motivated home-movers with their chosen messages.
“Rightmove has final copy approval on the e-leaflets and has a set of guidelines that all customers must follow, and there are a number of statements that are not allowed within these e-leaflets.
“Within the context of a part exchange, the factually correct statement that there are no estate agency fees to pay is permitted.”
Comments (17)
RM work on the principle that all agents are unable to work together as a single entity and consequently there isn’t the collective power to control them …….. however they took it for granted it was always going to be a sunny day with just their heads stuck in the profit clouds and do as they please. Remember your contracts small print prevent you from communicating with other RM agents. Well that bubble started to burst when their customer did get around a table and started OTM a very large consortium of dissatisfied RM customer. What it now needs is for someone to get those same agents to push the destruct button ALL at the appropriate time. Make it clear to those agents that have not joined OTM they better get their skates on or the public will be asking them some awkward questions for it will be they that are disadvantaged, a case of on the other foot?
This may not be a big issue in the grand scheme of things but it’s the principle behind it that shows the contempt that RM have for the long term relationship with the vast bulk of their customers. My concern is that not enough decision makers in our industry seem to care enough about this to take action – yet. All we would have to do to demonstrate our dissatisfaction is to make all our stock invisible for one week, all at the same time. If RM had nothing on their site for one week I believe they would realise that they simply cannot take their income for granted, and their relentless drive for growth and ever greater profits must be curbed and linked instead to the commercial and market pressures all their customers are facing. Of course, there are other web-sites……
This is a clear case of “Conflict of Interest” by RM. Here they are stabbing their main customer data base for an insignificant client, for what …… their own profit. Many of us have known that this type of activity has been going on behind closed doors for some time, but now if anyone was in doubt …… look in the mirror, wake up people, RM do not and have never been concerned over your welfare. You know what to do, do it, the writing is on the wall.
I must agree with the earlier comments about OTM offering an alternative.
Zoopla will cross sell 3rd party products all over the site (eg Alternative Financial services will be offered and shown NEXT to YOUR sellers property.
Rightmove are happy to sell data from buyers enquiring about YOUR sellers’ properties to OTHER agents so they can sell property and Financial services to them.
Just 2 of of many data based reasons that pro agents should protect their businesses (medium/long term) against shareholder portals.
They really are mugging you off guys!!
Isn’t it about time the Real Estate industry got some teeth, portals cannot survive without your support . . . . . . All portals who bite the hands that feed them, should reap the repercussions.
The answer is clearly group action and your various associations should lead the way, to protect its members.
I was just about to type my thoughts when Garrets response appeared so all I will say is ditto
Tracy – seeing as ‘ditto’ is today’s buzz-word – I refer you to my response to wilko – and ‘ditto’ to you.
Not that I’m any friend of RM but I think it needs to be pointed out that although the local estate agents don’t get the vendor’s initial instruction, with Part Exchange, the property will quickly come back to one (although normally 2) local agents to sell on behalf of the Part Exchange company.
If anything, because this is a B2B instruction, the asking price will be realistic and this will be saleable stock.
“with Part Exchange, the property will quickly come back to one (although normally 2) local agents to sell on behalf of the Part Exchange company.”
Oh yes……normally 1% inc vat(rest of fee to the “introducer”) with loads of extra paperwork and payment of commission up to two months later . NO thanks.
Not to mention the fact that if you carry out a valuation for a part exchange company and subsequently take it on yourself then you still owe a huge fee to the part x introducer!
wilko – obviously ‘garret’ has no experience with Barratt Homes. Market all PX properties themselves via their “Oakleaf Homes” brand – may take on a local Agent as a back-up but usually only as a last resort. As you say – expect you to jump through hoops backwards for peanuts at best, or stuff-all more likely.
On the contrary, I’ve had quite a bit of experience with Barratt.
You’re right in that they do market all their properties through Oakleaf however, you are wrong to intimate they don’t give local agents a look in.
The reality is, they virtually always instruct a local agent alongside.
What’s more, the local agent usually gets to list the property first as show in the following example:
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/find.html?locationIdentifier=POSTCODE^4240178&insId=3&minPrice=475000&maxPrice=500000&includeSSTC=true&_includeSSTC=on&googleAnalyticsChannel=buying
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/find.html?locationIdentifier=POSTCODE%5E4240178&includeSSTC=true&_includeSSTC=on&googleAnalyticsChannel=buying
All our corporate instructions have been for 1%+VAT which personally I think is easy money given the saleability of the property. Each to their own I guess.
Rightmove’s answer does nothing to quash the fact that they are promoting an offering cutting out the estate agent – the people paying Rightmove’s fees…
Thank you Rosalind.
Agree totally with RealAgent. This is yet another cynical and calculated move by an organisation that not only has its own lunch but is looking to eat ours too. Watch out for the next obscene hike in the rates we pay.
This should serve as a very clear warning as to what Rightmove could be capable of in terms of estate agents businesses. Given all the evidence now supporting the fact that actually OTM will not cost you business, I would urge anyone not currently on the site to find a way to join it. It’s only being unified can we possibly have any say on the outcome of things like this.