Agents have been told by Zoopla that they face substantial hikes in their monthly fees from early next year.
Agents will see their portal listing fees increase by 7.5% from February 2022, according to an email from Zoopla earlier today.
EYE has been sent a copy of the communication from Zoopla to its member agents indicating that a 7.5% price increase will be brought into effect from 1st February 2022. See below.
A number of agents have contacted EYE to express their displeasure.
Zoopla unveiled this morning its new ‘vision’, insisting that it is now ‘more than just a portal’, but one commentator is not impressed.
The agent said: “The fluff from Zoopla today is a precursor to an inflation busting price hike. 7%!
“Why didn’t they include that in their ‘we’re doing a great job for you’ press release today I wonder?
“Very slippery. Why not just be honest? And didn’t Charlie Bryant pledge ‘no increases’ last year?!
“Dear valued partner’ indeed…”
But others appear to think the price hike is justifiable.
Zoopla has certainly defended the listing-fee increase.
A Zoopla spokesperson told EYE: “When we launched our Vision at the start of the year, we outlined our goal of combining our unique market position and data-led intelligence to put agents firmly in control. Over the last year, a record number of agents have joined us on this journey and our customer numbers now stand just shy of 20,000. This reflects Zoopla’s position as the optimal partner that helps agents to grow their businesses – and ultimately the category.
“Our continued investment to improve our offering, combined with the industry-leading support we provided to customers during the pandemic, which included up to nine months free portal usage, has helped ensure agents are in a great position to maximise their growth in the high volume market of 2021 – and as it continues into 2022.
“Price rises are not blanket and instead are related to performance. For a significant number of our customers, this will be the first time they have received a price rise in two years. We’re continuing to do everything we can to keep costs low for agents and look forward to continuing to support them as they capitalise on the busiest property market in a generation.”
Comments (7)
Personally, as a Zoopla agent, I have actually taken the time to speak to my rep and my increase is not now 7.5%, equally, I have locked in the new price (which equates to about 20 pound pcm) for 24 months. When I look at what Zoopla did for us during the covid period and the actual increase in monetary terms (alongside the monthly cost) I don’t think it offers a bad deal to be honest. They do deliver. We have not been with the other money grabbers for a couple of years now TBH, but I remember their increases that ran into hundreds! Think we all need to be a bit more realistic over this if I am honest.
Don’t get me wrong, if I had my own way, we would get rid of the lot of them (we do everything we can to make our own direct marketing work in the hope that one day we will sack off the lot of them), but, whilst they are a necessary evil I can’t help but feel this is the least evil!
Forgive me for being a wee bit confusted here, but in the email they sent out, it states “We hope you’re keeping busy with all the demand we’ve delivered over the last 2 years (including 18% more valuation leads, 16% more rental leads and 29% more buyer leads)”
Yet, in the other Zoopla article, it states “Leads to agents via the Zoopla app have increased 45% year-on-year, while valuation requests are up 42% during the same period.”
Is this an admission that the app really isn’t performing as well as they would have everyone believe as it has only delivered 42% of 18%… or 45% of 29% – or is it simply a case of Zoopla chucking a load of statistics into a hat and picking some out in the hope that nobody really looks at the numbers?
“This will allow us to deliver even more value for your membership”, it ends. To me, the best “value” they could deliver would be putting an end to countless property adverts being recycled to a point where viewers of the site can no longer put an ounce of trust in the “Just added” flag being a true representation of the property’s actual listing history.
I’ll not hold my breath…
Look at the actual cost in pound notes compared to Rightmove’s relentless money grabbing extortion. Zoopla has been fair over the last few years so I am not really concerned. When we renewed our deal with RM they were absolute [insert word here] – Zoopla were very decent and understanding.
I’m outraged!
That’s an extra £17.25 I’m going to need to find!!!!!!……oh hang on a minute, Rightmove have bumped me for an extra £180 this year…….maybe not so bad!
#fussovernothing
Not surprising after the large free periods offered and locked prices of the last 2 years- we still get incredible value from the portal. Admittedly, timing is poor (a NY announcement would have made more sense) but if they are coming then it doesn’t matter when we get told I suppose. Interesting not to see a similar alert around another certain portal- from comments in various agency group chats, 7.5% increase is a bargain- with many facing substantial double-figure increases elsewhere. Who am I eluding to? Answers on a postcard- winners will be selected at random.
What a rip-off and totally unjustified. Time to rename themselves to Zoomove since they want to emulate Rightmove.
What a rubbish email to break the news to their “valued partners”, two weeks before Christmas. As tactful as a taser to the neck.