It was this anguished tweet, above, that caught our eye.
But could this property really have been and come and gone a total of eight times?
Working in reverse order, we can see it was listed on Rightmove on December 7 at £575,000. By yesterday morning, just one day later, it had gone.
It was previously listed by the same agent on Rightmove on October 7 (at £530,000); August 18; June 1 (at £497,000); March 22; December 22, 2015; February 2, 2015; and May 28, 2014 (at £450,000).
As can be seen, the property was initially listed for about four months, and then for over seven months. Since then, however, the property has put in “blink and you’ll miss it” appearances.
We think this is a mystery of our times.
At first sight, it looks as though this property has remained stubbornly on the market for some two and a half years, while the owner – undeterred by its failure to sell – has put up the asking price, and by quite a lot.
Or maybe the vendor kept changing their mind as to whether they really wanted to sell.
On the other hand, perhaps it has changed hands and each buyer has kept the previous owner’s furniture.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-53509708.html – listed 22/3/16 – 27/3/16
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-44740812.html – listed 7/10/16 – 7/10/16
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-55712377.html – listed 18/8/16 – 18/8/16
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-54417076.html – listed 1/6/16 – 1/6/16
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-53509708.html – listed 22/3/16 – 27/3/16
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-56806982.html – listed 22/12/15 – 22/12/15
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-50310110.html – listed 2/2/15 – 22/9/15
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-44539057.html – listed 28/5/14 – 23/9/14
Below is its latest fleeting appearance
Comments (55)
Seems to be a lot of deleted and edited posts on this thread.
On the Purplebricks platform the vendor may withdraw and relist their own property manually as many times as they like as they have direct access to the marketing. It is an instant upload. Can the vendor be warned directly by Rightmove? I do not think so as there is no direct connection to the vendor.
I believe all this suits Rightmove and if the public as a whole are swayed by direct platform marketing like Purplebricks or a Ebay model, then the next logical step will be for Rightmove to move into direct marketing themselves. When the income stream from agents slips enough and public opinion towards direct online marketing improves enough, then Rightmove will pounce.
“On the Purplebricks platform the vendor may withdraw and relist their own property manually as many times as they like as they have direct access to the marketing.”
It is THE ESTATE AGENT’S responsibility to check that ALL marketing information they produce for circulation within the public domain is compliant with Legislation, Stubby26.
If ANY Agent allows their clients to change, amend, manipulate or otherwise falsify information which is then put into the public domain ‘via’ that Estate Agent, then they are liable for any compliance issues with that client-amended information.
‘Progress’ doesn’t always travel in a forward direction… and doesn’t always result in a positive outcome.
When this all comes out in the public domain ….will agents ever be trusted again. My fear is we all get tarnished with the same brush in the end!
I would suggest we need a representative or panel of people to stand up, differentiate and distance independent agents from these practices.
Will the NAEA take up the mantle?
Just wanted to applaud Chris, PeeBee, Robert, Smile and EYE (sorry if I’ve missed anyone) for all their hard work on this. Just goes to show what can be achieved with a bit of know how and stubbornness! Well done guys.
Cheers, wardy – gratefully received. I believe I can speak on behalf of the entire group in that respect.
Cheers Wardy,
I am however more of a “Fan boy” as opposed to any real help on this.
Chris, Robert, PeeBee, Dobby and NTSEAT and others are the real champions.
Am I being thick? What would an agent gain by adding a property after midnight and removing it by 7:00am ie at times when most sane people will be asleep. Surely the only people who would see it in that 6-7 hour window would be bored insomniacs or seriously dedicated prospective buyers.
Taff
How’s about you act as our guinea pig?
Try it yourself – “List” a budgie cage or something similar as a property (as reported here on EYE it’s been done before), and make it ‘Live’ between midnight and 7am – and see how many ‘views’ it gets.
Then have a look on RM+ and see if it has been counted as a “Listing” in your stats – and therefore in the stats of your competitors.
Go on – you know it would be rude not to…
Sobering(ish) thought.
If PB “coc&” about with 1% of their instructions portal juggling or what ever does it have much of an overall impact on their market presence?
Equally is it more than 1%?
Or is 1% of their entire stock enough to cause disruption where they have some market presence?
I mentioned this before; they relisted a house on my patch but when I asked the owner what was up, she said it was sold but they had experienced a little difficulty with the buyer so remarketed it. I asked if the buyer had fallen through, she said no and was asking PB to remove it as for sale. Which they did a couple of hours later.
Wasallthatabout?
Meanwhile all PB’s smoke and mirrors means they’re share price is up to £1.40
Clearly it pays to be vague !
But the latest claim on their website is ‘your own local expert from valuation to completion’ … which suggests they should know categorically how many sales they actually complete. Shouldn’t they? So why do they need to be vague?
My understanding of this is that it must be a deliberate software implementation for a property to be on and then removed so many times in such a relatively short period. The only thing I don’t understand is what advantage it possibly confers to do it to this extent ( rather than once a week for instance)? Or is it just totally incompetent software as well?
Unless of course multiple juggles on the same property automatically create multiple email alerts being fired out, and this is being used as a deliberate ploy to substantially increase ‘brand awareness’?
I’m not quite sure whether anyone has answered as to what the benefits of this are, I am assuming statistics somewhere. As to the question of timing, if it is placed on and taken off t’interweb in the hours of darkness, is this to ensure the owner does not find out?
As a buying agent, to see a propety off the market less than 12 hours after it was placed on simply makes me think (if a valid sale) that it was undervalued. ***Expects a few thumbs down for that comment***
But remember, because it suits them, any portal juggling accusations, can now probably only be considered since the Ombudsman, Rightmove and NTSEAT decided it was important.
Also remember they are understaffed, underpaid, and under-give-a-damn
trust me on this when Chris Wood sniffs wrong doing he pursues it like Jack Russell after a rat.
Let me see 1 property juggled 8 times is a portaljuggle score of 512 points. 12 more points than is required to launch an investigation into whether that is portaljuggling or some unfortunate and accidental software glitch.
If a suggested scoring system finds favour with the regulators reaching 1000 points would mean having redress suspended while the firm/ branch is investigated.
An agent reaching 2000 should having redress permanently suspended.
I am not aware of our software ever doing this by accident…except sometimes when we do sales letters it automatically removes the property from the market …and then we have to put it back as marketed but ‘under offer’ or ‘sold’. But isn’t more than once indicative of deliberate juggling?
We are investigating cases where software is double loading properties. It is only right that agents aren’t adversely affected by bad and glitchy software. If software is designed to automate the juggling process that indicates deliberate intent.
There is a common link between several separate firms whose listings are being monitored.
The property has already been removed from Rightmove, be it by them or PB i have no idea.
If anyone is interested the address is Fairfield House, Elham, Canterbury, CT4 6UT
Will do a land registry check on this later today.
It was removed at approximately 0700 on the day it was uploaded, sometime soon after midnight.
I call them #goneinsevenhourjuggles
(Sorry, Eamonn – but you already know my Head’s Gone ;o) )
Our technical term for those is pulse juggles, they come on at about 0010 and get taken down before dawn We have monitored 20 branches of a single firm pulse juggling on a regular basis.
We refer to them as Meatloaf; “Like a bat out of hell they’re gone when the morning comes!”
How about Vampire juggles
pmsl.
Enough.
Enough?
Never!
I’m the pain that just doesn’t go away, mon ami! ;o)
Lol. you said it. But your more than animated today for some reason.
On a different note I do respect the spotting of this offence. But can you see anything truly coming as a result? If you can I would love to know.
MY opinion. I can’t see anything happening expect an informally resolved solution and based on the evidence of previous performance I can’t see this being different. Knowing this will purple bricks and others will always pay this type of shxt lip service and say whoopsy us.
the words “criminal investigation” have been put into print elsewhere
To do it for any advantage it will have to be done on many properties by the same protagonists. I presume Roberts new system will pick this all up…. and then we will have a ‘scoreboard’ system building up.
Hopefully evidence of consistent violations will be taken notice of and acted on? Hopefully?
Eamonn – you say
“MY opinion. I can’t see anything happening expect an informally resolved solution and based on the evidence of previous performance I can’t see this being different. Knowing this will purple bricks and others will always pay this type of shxt lip service and say whoopsy us.”
You may well be right. It may not even amount to that. However, I have faith and confidence that those right always triumphs over wrong – that fighters who abide by the Queensberry rules will eventually win the match, even if they lose a couple of rounds when the ref misses the low blows and rabbit punches.
It is clear that some of the referees not only see those blows and ignore them for what they are – they happily add them to the score. People have to question why a referee would do this – it’s not really up to me to comment but one possible suggestion could be that controversial decisions usually lead to a bigger audience at the next match.
I’m one of the fighters – not a referee. However, for the first time in my working life – spanning five decades – I am seriously considering a change that would allow me to fight from the outside of the ring. Watch this space.
Final point. The legend that is Muhammad Ali is believed to have won most of his fights before the first punch was thrown. The Louisville Lip caused more damage with verbal jabs than his fearsome fists ever did.
Can you imagine how effective his Tw@tter account could have been?
I rest my case.
Tell you what – I’ll try to kid myself that the ‘Dislikes’ are because three (and counting) people don’t want me to change direction.
Those who would suffer the effects if I do should be praying to their Dark Gods of Deception I don’t.
Is it not obvious that it’s a Purplebricks employee……sorry, I mean ‘Local Property Expert’
How do you mean, belly1234?
There is a property in Oswestry that had some obsessive compulsive switching it from sale agreed to sstc and back to sale agreed 22 times in 24 hours! All through the day , all through the night. No-one sits up all night doing that which suggests it is an automated process. Whatever it is it is not normal estate agency which follows very routine patterns.
Anything that falls outside normal patterns of behaviour is digitally easy to spot and because it’s the internet indelible.
Unfortunately for all Rightmove, and TPOs rhetoric about portal juggling, they wont crack down on any of these call centre agents. It will be a traditional estate agent that is the first to suffer, probably a small one or two office company, that they seek to make an example from, whose business Rightmove wont miss.
Correct.
Best case scenario is a vendor it getting poor advice on how to market their property.
Would be interesting if we can work out the full address, run a land registry check and ask the owner what is going on.
Also what is the portal playing at? If an estate agent can see this abuse of the system how come a multi million pound company cannot detect it. Embarrassing.
You may have noticed – but I LOVE QUOTES, I do.
“If an estate agent can see this abuse of the system how come a multi million pound company cannot detect it. Embarrassing.” (Smile Please, 2016)
“You ain’t seen NOTHING yet…” (Bachman-Turner Overdrive, 1974 – and every day since)
“I’ve got GIGS, they’re miltiplyin’… and I’m losing control…” – (anon… just now)
;o)
It’s electrifying.
It certainly will be…
Thank you PeeBee, Chris and Robert for all your efforts.
PeeBee, I love a good quote also:
‘We are now masters of our own fate’ Winston Churchill.
Thank you, Sir – but I must point out that it is the combined efforts of quite a few more than the three you give credit to (some of whom may not welcome the attention of being named so I will refrain).
However, it must be stated that Ros and EYE have consistently followed and reported events almost as soon as they happen – which we are all aware has been a barbed-wire tightrope walk on many occasions.