A firm which describes itself on Twitter as an “online agent” is advertising on OnTheMarket: https://twitter.com/admoveonline
Admove, based in the north of England, offer three sales packages to vendors, telling them they will save thousands.
We asked OTM – which bans online agents – about Admove.
A spokesperson said: “We have a set of criteria which agents need to meet in order to list their properties with us.
“Admove is not an online-only agent. It has an office in Lymm, where the firm can meet clients and applicants face-to-face and display our logo in the window.”
OTM sent us the picture of Admove’s office, below.
The other two images are screengrabs from Admove’s Twitter page, taken yesterday afternoon.
Comments (50)
Pee, you seem to be fighting a losing battle here. Everyone can see OTM is flagging badly bar from you. Why are you so PRO OTM?
You wouldn’t understand – and I ain’t going to bother trying.
* Founder members buying Online agencies despite pretending that the whole project was aimed at protecting high street agents from the rise of the online agent
* OTM giving membership away breaking terms & conditions of early adopters and investors
* AM taking customers to court, litigation cases everywhere
* Now accepting membership from ‘bedroom’ agents
* Online agency market growing exponentially since the launch of OTM.
* RM & Z share prices at record highs
* RM & Z traffic at record highs
What a mess. What an unmitigated & embarrassing disaster the whole On The Market project has been.
Tell me, Digital Expert –
Was it a tactical decision to wait a day to post?
Or did you need to get ‘upstairs’ approval of the wording before pressing the button?
Nope, was working. Only saw the article this morning.
OnTheMarket say: Every property you see at OnTheMarket.com is on the market with full-service, office-based estate or letting agents who are experts in their local area.
Admove say: We have taken away the expensive high street shop fronts and the rest of the unnecessary baggage. We live and breathe new technology, it keeps our costs low and we pass the savings on to you.
I assume OTM will claim the “Office” is a base the shop front is an option! Therefore everyone with an “Office” counts!
Shocking if they are what they appear to be……..
Next PB and alike will pop a sticker in one of their LPE’s bedsit windows and bing bang bosh they qualify as an HSA.
WOW
When i wrote my comment this morning i tongue in cheek said it was above a pub, i have just googled their address 18 Bridgewater Street looked on street view
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.3814587,-2.4791279,3a,75y,163.82h,81.66t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sxrnD-2KIeMKXatpvR1P0vw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
And it is actually above a pub!!!!!!!
Jesus wept!
Ros, please do not let OTM off the ropes on this one. a complete p155 take.
Any doubters can also match the ridge tiles from the picture to the street view.
Really breaking my silence today ….
On twitter they have a very poor quality banner that says they are gold winners of the British property awards 2016 (in warrington) – As far as i am aware these awards are not even held until the 9th of this month.
Looks like yet another ‘Buy Yourself an Award’ job.
Love this – straight from the BPA website:
‘DISCLAIMER:
The British Property Awards do not endorse any of the companies beyond their qualification as an award winner.
Any person wishing to make further enquiries about a winning agent should do so directly.
The British Property Awards will not enter into any correspondence about a winning company.’
OTM remind me of the small 1 man band agent where they have such little to offer the only way to generate business is to drop their pants on fee and promise the world.
OTM is becoming a bit of a laughing stock.
Becoming?
OK I have really got the bit between my teeth on this story. adMove are a limited company operating out of a residential semi-detached house in a residential area of Lymm. I can find no trace of any estate agents office in Lymm trading under that name. They have to my knowledge no office for the public to have access. They hide their actual whereabouts’ on their web site which in itself is against regulations as a limited company. I would also like to know what awards this company has won! Where did AM get that photo from? Whoever the AM rep was, I don’t think they will be getting any sleep tonight.
Come on EYE get your teeth into this story. AM need to be seen to be doing something.
With respect OTM this doesn’t make a bit of sense. By ‘with respect’ I mean are you sh*tting me dude! First the new Star Trek movie is complete garbage and now an agent with online in their Twitter profile isn’t an online agent. This sucks.
SORRY??
You’re saying the new Star Trek movie is garbage?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!
I’m gutted… demoralised…devastated, in fact.
What’s the point anymore.
Beam me up, Scotty.
Clingons came to mind dude.
If it looks like an online estate agent and it sounds like an online estate agent it’s an online estate agent!
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/estate-agents/agent/Admove/Lymm-130063.html#ram
Best quote from their page:-
Located in Lymm, Cheshire in the North West of England, we offer a nationwide service giving all vendors and landlords the opportunity to experience a quality service with a company that cares no matter where they are situated.
Also from the RM bluff’n’bluster:
‘We advertise all of our listed properties on the biggest and most popular portals, including Rightmove, Zoopla and Primelocation…’
Says pretty much the same thing somewhere on their website.
‘…due to our experience, knowledge and background working within one of the largest estate agency groups in the UK for several years.’
Someone care to define “several years”, please? – as from what I can see the pair between them racked up less than 3-and-a-half-years collectively.
I’m all for new talent… innovation… competition and all the malarkey – BRING IT ON, I say.
Just do it truthfully, fairly and professionally, please.
Well that should be the icing on the cake as far as NOT being a traditional high street estate agent. That is one who services his/hers own geographical area. Anyone who is operating as a single office but advertising national service = ….. a call centre. I would like to see how these people manage to pay the National Rate for RM, while we are at it.
I shall expect AM to take control of this debacle and expel them forwith. They do not match the membership criteria.
Testimonials from Sellers has anyone had a look … those are not testimonials from customers, that’s estate agent writing, it is so obvious, clients don’t write that way for starters. Sounds very much like a couple of ex-countrywide or LSL agency staff.
Mr Chung & Mr Green
Doesn’t look like a High Street agent and more like how do I get around the rules to be just within? AM done themselves no favours with this one and someone at AM should have turned round at the vetting stage and taken the judgement of no its not a traditional high street model. But then that would open a can of worms …. when is a High Street Agent not a High Street Agent?
As for banning, no they don’t ban anyone. They have a set of rules to be a member of an organisation, if your hat doesn’t fit your application should be rejected. So is this one of those that is borderline?
Personally I would not be happy with them in the club by the outward appearance as a traditional High Street agent which is one with business operations at street level, door into immediate shop with window frontage onto the pavement and people can walk into minimum 8 hours a day at least 5 days a week during normal working hours and manned by staff with properties on display etc. It would seem on face value that everyone is unhappy it isn’t on street level (haven’t a clue about their hours etc), by the above definition but is that definition correct? I can think of many agents who do not have properties on display and are not on street level in a number of cities and particularly in London. And before anyone says a minimum number of years trading etc, what about someone who is a start-up wanting to join.
So it might just be a case of shooting from the hip, because they are not on ground level? Appearances are everything but may be deceptive!
In terms of adherence to the original goals of OTM (to break the duopoly & keep the fees we agents must pay down) I don’t see the problem in doing anything that needs to be done, to keep OTM afloat.
As a genuine licensed traditional high street agent with a proper office I don’t like OTM using smoke & mirrors to go back on their rule that they would only advertise for trad agents (which AdMove clearly is not). However, whether portals allow non traditional agents to advertise or not is I think a rather pathetic, head in sand concern which we traditional agents need to work with because online & hybrid is here to stay … get over it. Personally I think it more honest for a quality portal to only allow fully licensed agents to advertise, regardless of whether they are trad or online. Our industry needs to be licensed and audited for quality, and the public need to become more aware of the difference between licensed and unlicensed whether online or not. The public could then choose to use a portal that offers the reassurance of an accountable estate agent or an unaccountable one …. great way to lift the game. My comments apply as much or more to lettings agents too. So a cheapskate portal for DIY and unlicensed sales and a good portal for a quality transaction. Why not let OTM do the latter, online or not? Terrific USP. From their website there is no indication that AdMove is licensed but they do use logos for NLA and the ombudsman. I’d rather ban them until they became NAEA licensed.
NAEA! is no longer worth the paper it is written on and I’m guessing you are “licensed” otherwise you wouldn’t be shouting about that whilst speedily back peddling on otm’s new recruitment policy, however if you check with TPO (or you would know this if you were an Owner/Director) there is a certain amount of knowledge and insurances that have to be in place to join TPO which has more backbone and power to hand out a warning and or fine etc than naea have ever done for fear of losing members but hey, you bury your head in the sand over that oh licensed one
You don’t advertise the fact you only allow office based agents to market on the website then completely go against it and allow an internet based agent to start marketing on it.
Makes a mockery of one of few OSP’s OTM has.
Hypocritical and outrageous. A director who also runs an online viewing service is surely a conflict of interests? Savills as a major shareholder invest in online agents, surely a conflict of interest? OTM criteria is no more than grab anyone who’s cheque clears – Surely a conflict of interest?
The whole thing is a disaster, surely a few board members should be disgracefully dismissed, having taken agents money and then sold out. Was this always just a scam? A change at the top is surely required if OTM stands any chance. I’m happy with paying RM for results rather than OTM for scandal – have the Labour party for that.
There is a lot of dissatisfaction with how AM and OTM is being operated but that’s because for the umpteenth time Agents aren’t learning lessons they aren’t well placed to lean. Affinity groups are something that have been part of my whole life in Agency starting in 1986 when I apprenticed into agency with a Team agent in East Devon. Being lower than a snakes belly on the hierarchy I was well placed to watch the good bits and the bad bits of competitive entrepreneurs trying to collaborate for a common goal.
As has been proven by various affinity groups over the years, much as ego insists it will be different this time around, it doesn’t work while agents are in charge of what is actually a service industry that ought to be serving them rather than being run by them. It is a flawed dynamic that is crippled by group-think.
OTM as a product would not survive and would not be viable without the compulsory support of AM. OTM is a good solid property portal just as Primelocation was but it is the wrong product for the digital evolution of the industry.
AM is coming up to it’s half way point in a 5 year project, it is time to assess what is going on and wonder whether a different approach is needed
Can someone find any reference… anywhere… to their “office” having been granted an A2 User Classification?
I chuffin’ can’t.
I wonder if they are on a £50 deal? Gold members paying £500 must be furious.
Now this!?
Completely destroys any integrity OTM have.
As someone above said,we may as well go back to Zoopla. At least they gave us leads. I am discussed with OTM. Gamekeeper turned poacher.
We were going to go with OTM but they advised we were an online agent, however we have a proper office with logos etc, we do not advertise for online but they said we were online. To be fair I wouldn’t go with them now anyway as we only use a Rightmove and I see no need to use anyone else. Is there a slight desperation that they are clearly changing their policy!
It was always going to happen. One by one the principles of OTM fall. It is a project doomed to failure, propped up only by the already invested or those resisting reality.
I remember in 2000 when RM came knocking and we all thought that websites would never take off…! The rest as they say is history however so is the fact that assurances were made that on-‘line only agents would never form part of the site. Goal posts seem to be forever moving as large organisations move them to suit their plans. Its interesting that OTM, despite all the promises to the contrary, now does exactly what it clamed was virtually abhorrent.
With regards to this firm OTM claim that ‘“We have a set of criteria which agents need to meet in order to list their properties with us. Admove is not an online-only agent. It has an office in Lymm, where the firm can meet clients and applicants face-to-face and display our logo in the window.” Its like de javu and I wish I had £1 for every time RM said something similar offer the years. Quite what this says about OTM’s due diligence I have no idea as the most cursory glance clearly illustrates that this firm is about as far from traditional estate agency (whatever that now is) as it can be.
I believe OTM has lost the plot.
As an OTM member I am not happy!
Why aren’t the OTM board pressing home the fact that ‘the most successful’ On line only call centre agent that is PB lost £12 million pounds in 2015 at an actual cost of around £2.700 per listing costing their backers around £1800 per listing rather than allowing similar model style competition on to the traditional agents own platform?
This may well put paid to ‘investment’ in the likes of YOPA and Ewe Move as even PB appear to acknowledge that traditional agency fees in the average market in the UK are hard to undercut to make a profit which is why they are off to OZ?
‘Investors’ shall then soon realize that the On line call centre model is a flavour of the moment type ‘investment’ similar to the Dot Com bubble that spectacularly bust in 2000!
Your ask why the board members of OTM arent pressing home the facts about online agents to curtail the investment in firms like YOPA . Your aware that the invesment of £16 million was made by Savills ….an OTM board member ?
I love that someone disliked a factual statement ” I dislike the fact that this happened” … is that you Pee-Bee ? <Insert winky face>
No, danny – it’s not.
I can categorically and truthfully state that I have only ever posted under one name, both here and on EAT previously.
Can you? (winky face right back at ya)
I can also truthfully state that I ahve only ever posted as one person , for me being girl88 or whatever it is , firstly Im a man and secondly im so old that anyone with 1988 on their CV my brain automatically thinks they are about 12 years old
In fairness, danny, asking if you and ‘femaleagent88’ shared a body was more of a jokey pop at your post than whether you had donned twinset & pearls for the weekend!
But hey, man – we’re entering a world where First Floor panes of glass big enough to (just) display an OTM logo and nothing else makes you a “High Street full-service Estate Agent”… so you have to admit strange things can happen!
You couldn’t make it up.
Erm… on second thoughts…
Is it time for I told you so …. I dealt with Ian Springett first time around… snake oil salesman
danny – you’ve been saying “I told you so” since your first post…
I am aware of that danny.
I feel so sorry for all those agents who have ploughed money into OTM on the premise it would not allow the rise of on-line agents.
This example of a firm circumventing the criteria is just a joke.
A total heads gone from OTM.
OTM clearly very desperate for agent numbers. First they lower / remove fees for late joiners and now this. Trouble at mill…
From their website:
“We’ve taken the traditional high street estate agent business model, stripped it down, and built it back up making an easy and affordable process to selling and letting property. We have taken away the expensive high street shop fronts and the rest of the unnecessary baggage.”
I wonder how much of their hype meets OTM’s ‘set of criteria’?
surely every online only agent has an office/ call centre somewhere.
Difference between high street office and a bedroom.
Well that makes a mockery of the whole situation!
I guess as long as you can rent a room above a pub and stick a logo in the window it fine …..
Yesterday a director of OTM start a viewing guide company for online agents and today this.
Maybe somebody need’s to remind OTM of their purpose.
May as well go back to zoopla!
I have to agree with smile.
This isn’t in the spirit of the membership’s values.
Poor form.