A new For-sale by owner website has launched, apparently with a large marketing budget, initially costing £2m.
It is described by its owner as the Autotrader for houses and the “Google of buying and selling property”.
It tells sellers that they can be the estate agent they always thought they could be.
CubbyHole, the brainchild of Peter Lampe who has no previous experience of the property market, launched at the weekend, offering to market a property for the first 30 days for £1.
After that, the cost rises to £60 per month, with no advertising on either Rightmove or Zoopla, or OnTheMarket.
Cubbyole will provide a For Sale sign and list the property on the site. Owners must upload their property, undertake their own valuations, and take the own photos.
Lampe says he is spending £2m on an initial media campaign to promote the business, with adverts for it at tube stations and magazines, and on various Sky channels come Christmas.
Media coverage has already included a Telegraph article, and local media.
According to one local Kent newspaper, the website has a variety of features including the Find a Pro section, which advertises a list of services and trades in the user’s search area.
There is also a Useful Tips category for questions about how to conduct a viewing and a checklist counting down to the customer’s moving day.
Lampe, who also has business ventures in the drinks and software industry, said: “Our clear and easy to use website allows you to browse the property market from the comfort of your own home or on the go.
“CubbyHole provides a quality service and concept to guarantee success at reasonable costs, allowing you to be the estate agent you always knew you could be.”
Comments (15)
I think Eye should take this Telegraph journo to task. Their leading statement is that “On a £500,000 house, people may pay an estate agent upwards of £10,000 to market it for sale…”
How can you get so much wrong in one sentence, especially from someone who is supposedly a “property & money” specialist.
I also like the statement further on in the article saying that London Agents “pocketed” over £1.1 billion in fees last year…. With such biased reporting, no wonder people get on our backs. I wonder if surveyors or solicitors also “pocket” their fees, or whether it’s a very specific trait of estate agents.
When the light went on in Mr Lampe’s head, someone could have done him a big favour in switching it off again fast!
tis right, his light is a little dim !
A £1? No Rightmove or Zoopla? Seems a little overpriced to me
2 million pound advertising to gain instructions at £60 p.m.
Free bit of advice, take a tenth of that budget and start up a good high street agency. You will get between £2,000 – £8,000 per sale depending where you are in UK excluding London.
You will make more money and you will have a chance of surviving more than 12 months.
I threw up chunks onto my keyboard from the speed things whoosh across the screen and from cranking my neck 90 degrees one way and then the other to view incorrectly oriented, poor quality photos and then it dawned on me. This guy should have built a roller coaster with his two million quid and then we could all of had a much longer and less vomit inducing experience than this one.
Unfortunately, there are always those who prefer the diesel & hot dog soaked smell of a travelling fun fair compared to the quality Alton towers or Busch Gardens experience, so I suspect there will be some equally inept support for this tosh.
From the frankly abysmal website:
Our plans include nationwide coverage on transport routes with a total impact of 51.5 million in London alone. We will also be advertising in popular household magazines, newspapers and radio stations, further increasing nationwide coverage. Also, during the Christmas period we will be advertising on a selection of SKY channels.
So – there’s yer confirmation that it’s DEFINITELY all gorn online, innit.
More from the woeful website – ‘Sellers Guide’ this time:
If the room is irregular shaped measure the longest distance in each direction…
Oh, dear – ‘Guide’ to what, I wonder…
Save the £2m and go on holiday. it ain’t gunna happen.
Lampe !
Yep someone must have Lampe’d ‘im
Clean off his rockers!
yawn
Using Rightmoves current average time to sell and back of a fag packet calculation says that they will need to take on around 3,900 properties just to cover the £2 Million advertising spend. That’s a 50% larger share of the current call-centre market sector than Mr Quirk has managed after years of hot air and millions more pounds of investors money. If you want to chuck £2 Million away, I can think of far better ways to do it.
Using Rightmoves current average time to sell and back of a fag packet calculation says that they will need to take on around 3,900 properties just to cover the £2 Million advertising spend.
I would add ‘and the rest’. Interesting to see how many cancel their agreement after the initial quid period.
The current ‘register’ of FIVE properties won’t get them anywhere fast.
About 15 years too late!
Lol. I always laugh when I read articles like this now, which is more often than not, about some guy or gal that has come up with a way to revolutionise Estate Agency for the consumer. If they do not advertise on Rightmove or Zoopla, a £2Mil budget for brand awareness will dissappear very very quickly. If the majority still don’t know who ‘on the market’ are, then this will flop. I’m sure you’ll see them advertising on the main portals within a year and it’ll be another online agent that nobody cares about. Still…I might be wrong. Good luck.