Online agent Doorsteps is having its membership of Rightmove “reviewed”, a spokesperson for the portal confirmed yesterday evening, after rumours reached us as to the reasons.
The spokesperson would not confirm these to EYE, and in its one-sentence statement did not say why Doorsteps is having its membership reviewed.
Doorsteps was yesterday still listing on Rightmove, with 1,301 properties available. Today, it is continuing to list on Rightmove, with more properties added.
The business was founded in 2016 by teenager Akshay Ruparelia and charges from £99, including VAT.
The hype around him is that he sold his first house while still at school doing A-levels, and that he is a millionaire, with his business valued at £12m.
Last year, he raised over £500,000 on Crowdcube.
The Sun has dubbed him the new Alan Sugar, saying he is one of the country’s youngest millionaires.
The business claims to be the UK’s 14th largest estate agent, with ambitions to be the largest. It uses a network of local mums as its local property experts.
Last year it claimed to list 3,075 properties, with projections this year for 11,500.
We have invited Ruparelia, who will be 20 in July, to comment.
Comments (29)
Look UK online estate agency http://houzeq.co.uk
Only 3,075 properties a year nationwide at £99 yet the company is valued at £12 million?
Agreed smile please.
PB listed 5,293 properties in the last 30 days and it is anticipated they spend at least £1m a month on TV adverting. This not taking in considering online like ppc and radio etc.
£1m/5293 properties is £189 cost per acquisition. In reality likely to be far higher cost per acquisition when you throw in total new customer acquisition costs e.g. ppc, radio etc.
If we applied this £189 to each listing for Doorstep. 3,312 listing per year would cost £625,968.
Doesn’t add up does it!
You don’t include training and head office costs in your maths
Anyone want to bet that he will/won’t be around this time next year?
Not without re-raising capital or increasing fees.
How can he possibly be a multi millionaire, if he sold every property on his books for a fee off £99 inc VAT that would only bring in about £129,000 less Vat and fees to his army of mums and other running costs it would take a couple of lifetimes to show 1 million let alone multi, this is absolute tosh.
In February 2018 he claimed to be listing 10-12 properties a day = 4380 per annum , yet 2 months later he is projecting 11,500 properties for the year – are these figures plucked from the air to try & appease investors ?
Last year in my local town 4 doorsteps.co.uk “Sold” signs appeared at 4 flat developments when according to their website & live chat they didn’t have any flats for sale at any of them ,a clear breach of planning.
Both Doorsteps and 99homes.co.uk offer entry level options at £99 with a wide range of optional extra’s to include as standard listings on Rightmove, Zoopla and PrimeLocation, clearly with their £99 option they are technically contravening the terms and conditions by listing properties on Rightmove etc. without visiting the home owner so they are acting as a private sale portal and not an estate agent.
Rightmove will continue to take their money and everything will be brushed under the carpet.
With all these complaints about RM why does no one contributing to this site start a crowd fund to take RM to court. They are in breach of their Terms & Conditions and all you need to do is to seek a specific performance judgement against them.
For £99 you get sweet FA. The full package cost is £500. Check it out.
https://doorsteps.co.uk/pricing.php
Much as predicted back in February.
http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/online-agent-founded-by-19-year-old-aims-to-sell-1bn-of-homes-this-year/
Let’s do the maths……11,000 properties this year is 343 virtual branches on rightmove’s non-geographic pricing structure (at 32 available properties per branch)…..unless of course they are put on and off availability wise, to save money.
343 branches at say £1,000 per month each is £343,000 per month…..over £4 million a year.
11,000 at £99 is just over £1 million….and that’s not taking into account how all the mums get paid.
Even if average availability of stock is 50%, due to 50% being sold, that is still over 170 virtual branches costing over £2,000,000 per year!
If only Rightmove had a level playing field where these companies had to pay a subscription for ever area they operated in, just like a proper estate agent…but they dont. Say most companies pay £1000 per office, Doorstops are probably paying a fraction of that, if they are paying more than 100K in total i would be amazed.
So as a small agent with never more than 15 unsold available properties at any one time, we are paying over £800 per year per ‘available property’.
Yet you believe they are paying less than £100 per ‘available property’!
I was willing to accept we were being charged over double what the Call Centre Listers paid on average….but eight times as much?
If RM charge properly it’s dead tomorrow.
That could be a likely reason too.
The introduction rate is now coming to an end.
Rightmove is going through a wobble too. As agents are handing in their notices.
So to recoup losses, Rightmove need to charge these FSBO owner sites properly.
Hence subscription under review.
I think RM is pretty bomb proof.
The agents mutual fiasco proved that they were happy to stand there and take the punches and even increase subs in the face of that waste of space (which should not have been allowed to be the disaster it became).
RM do however have to be seen to be dealing with clients in an even handed manner, which is their biggest flaw.
They over-charge the small agents and under charge the larger ones – the discrepancies in fees per office is horrific and if exposed would send shock waves through the smaller agent community – not that they could do much but stay on it though.
Per virtual branch is calculated as an allowance of 32 properties for sale per virtual branch. Pricing is based on average stock level quarterly if we based it on current for sale stock that stands at 1302. I believe membership per branch for agents on geographical advertising is circa £750 per virtual branch.
1302 / 32 = 40.68 branches.
41 virtual branches x £750 = £30,750 + VAT per month. £369,000 + VAT per year.
I believe Zoopla operate a similar way accept work out each virtual branch based on 50 properties on the market including SSTC (not excluding like rightmove) and charge £415+VAT per branch.
1915 available + sstc properties / 50 = 38.3
38 virtual branches x £415 = £15,770 + VAT per month. £189,240 + VAT per year.
According to Zoopla they have listed 276 new properties in the last 30 days. If we assume this continues that is 3,312 new listings per year. Based on £99 inclusive vat that bring in £273,240 + VAT of revenue per year. Based on £199 brings in £549,240 + VAT of revenue.
We know their rightmove/zoopla bill is most likely around £558,240 per year, they are making a loss before you even consider every other cost.
How can they sustain this service?
1. Referral fees. If they sell 50% of their properties and they all used recommended solicitors and for the purpose of this we assume they get £200 per referrals. 3312/2 = 1656 referrals x £200 = £331,200.
2. No surprise they now offering a £499 inclusive vat option that includes extras that do not account for the additional £300 price tag (against the £199 option). £499inc VAT would see revenue increase to £1,377,234 + VAT
Lets assume the run-rate of listing continue, rightmove/zoopla costs stay stagnant and assume every listing pays £499 inc vat and achieve referral fees highlighted above.:
Listing Turnover: £1,377,234
Referral Turnover: £331,200
Total Turnover = £1,708,434
Portal Costs: £558,240
Leaves: £1,150,194 after portals cost – BEST CASE SCENARIO.
Question is what other costs eat at that to manage close to 2,000 properties on the market and sstc. Office, Human Resource, etc.
For example 50 employees at £18,000 a year is £900,000 alone.
Biggest cost no doubt is PPC this most onliners are hemeraging cash at.
Agreed smile please.
PB listed 5,293 properties in the last 30 days and it is anticipated they spend at least £1m a month on TV adverting. This not taking in considering online like ppc and radio etc.
£1m/5293 properties is £189 cost per acquisition. In reality likely to be far higher cost per acquisition when you throw in total new customer acquisition costs e.g. ppc, radio etc.
If we applied this £189 to each listing for Doorstep. 3,312 listing per year would cost £625,968.
Doesn’t add up does it!
It looks rubbish, sounds rubbish, provides a rubbish offering and is a stain on the profession.
If you think he’s a stain on the profession you are looking at the wrong bed sheets.
I did not say he was.
I said it is.
This is a profession where we act in the best interests of the client and you cannot put the required resources into your clients best interests for that price structure.
We had two deals complete last week where we had put over 100 hours into each due to the complexities of the clients’ circumstances. You cannot do that for £100 or even £800.
Another equity Millionaire, rather than someone who actually has any money or whose company makes any money. Not knocking the chap, if he has the personality to get people to pay 500K to invest in his business then good on him, he obviously has something about him. But who in their right mind would think that paying £99 is going to get them a great service selling their home.
He could be being kicked off Rightmove for a load of reasons, Portal juggling, non payment of subscriptions, probably getting up the noses of PB etc. But at £99 he’s never going to pull in enough money to pay the bills once the investor money runs out
They probably haven’t paid the subscription fee.
As these FSBO sites don’t make any money.
Ruparelia will comment today after 3.30pm, once school ends. Lol #littlegiggle
For the love of god,,,make estate agents pay for a licence in every town they operate in..they are devaluing a business where if you do it properly your screwed and if you have a clever fake website you make all the money.
I thought everyone hated estate agents ,,but when they cheat and get paid millions they are heros; #wellConfused
I think you take your own photos as well… love to see how property misdescriptions doesnt affect them.