Portal wars look to be back on the agenda with Zoopla yesterday hitting out at ‘new and exclusive’ listings – as seen at OnTheMarket for the first 24 hours.
Zoopla claimed in a press release, which did not mention or refer to OTM by name, that there is very little appetite for exclusive previews.
OTM labels such previews as ‘new and exclusive’ and has built its latest TV advertising around exactly that feature.
But Zoopla said that its research among over 2,000 vendors showed that just 19% are happy to have their property listed “on a single portal, with a smaller audience, for the first 24 hours”.
The press release said that 2,000 branches have recently joined Zoopla – specifically picking out big names KFH, Carter Jonas and Humberts, all of which have returned to Zoopla, although still listing at OTM.
The press release went further than saying that there was simply a lack of interest in ‘new and exclusive’ marketing. It said: “Vendors are overwhelmingly against restrictive clauses that specify exclusivity periods when marketing their properties for sale.”
Zoopla said 65% of vendors want their home to be listed on multiple property portals from day one, to ensure the largest possible audience.
Zoopla says its own listings have risen by 9% year on year, while traffic was 58m last month – a swipe at OTM’s latest announcement to the stock exchange, which said it had record traffic in May of 25.4m visits.
Charlie Bryant, managing director of Zoopla, said: “These findings are loud and clear.
“On the whole, vendors simply do not want to limit the number of eyeballs that see their properties.
“Strategies that seek at the start to limit a property’s marketing will prolong the time a property is on the market and limit actual numbers of all-important leads upfront.
“Properties that languish on the market are also at risk of selling at lower prices. In the current market, sellers cannot afford to miss the boat.”
The wording of the questions is below, as supplied by Zoopla:
When selling your home would you like your agent to market your property to
| Answer | Responses | Percentage |
| The largest possible audience, from day one, on multiple property portals | 1,305 | 65% |
| A smaller audience, getting a preview of “new and exclusive” properties for the first 24 hours, on a single portal | 384 | 19% |
| I don’t care | 314 | 16% |
A spokesperson for OTM said: “Our new and exclusive property listings are given extra prominence at the top of the search results and in property alerts.
“Each one has a special presentation with extra pictures to showcase the property and to flag the fact that it has just come on to the market.
“OnTheMarket displays thousands of new properties each month 24 hours or more before Rightmove or Zoopla.
Comments (36)
New and exclusive does not help sellers. It doesn’t help buyers either by having to search on an extra website.
Doesn’t make any sense to hold off zoopla for your clients. Unfortunately its the ONLY USP cON The Market has.
Stick to Tech.
Otherwise you don’t know what you are talking about.
Surely the best thing for the vendor is to create competitive tension if possible by putting a property in front of the largest audience?
If my Agent said to me they weren’t putting me on Rightmove I’d ask them to explain why.
The only answer I can think of is that they want to promote OTM because they are a shareholder or because they are hoping people will stop using Rightmove and are not acting in their client’s best interests?
Why are you not on rightmove?
Well its expensive and I’d prefer to save money and spend it on other avenues of advertising!
How is the new top of the range Audi?
Great, but we all know it doesn’t run on fresh air
cyberduck46…
You comment…..
”The only answer I can think of is that they want to promote OTM because they are a shareholder or because they are hoping people will stop using Rightmove and are not acting in their client’s best interests?”
You have no idea how to best serve a clients best interests so save us from your bystander opinion.
When you start or actively work in an Estate Agency, develop your career, understand the business ….then by all means offer up your view, otherwise trolling around with antagonistic comments only serves to reaffirm the view that you have nothing worthwhile to contribute.
GPL I was basing my opinion on your advert “Our properties are marketed across Scotland and the UK with local and online advertising to attract buyers both locally and nationally to give your home maximum coverage”
So you agree you should give a property maximum coverage to best serve a client but you repeatedly state that you are going to drop Rightmove which I think from memory goes back as far as 4 years ago?
You seem a bit torn over the matter. Maximum exposure or not, what is it to be? If you don’t agree it’s the best way to serve your clients then take it off your advert.
Putting a property on a website with a maximum ever number of views of approx £25m views when Rightmove has an average of 132 million per month in 2018 doesn’t give maximum coverage. I have a background in marketing and I don’t need to have been an Estate Agent to know that.
I see you’ve now removed your property from rummage4. The one that was advertised as a 3-bed bungalow and then went on to describe itself as 5 well proportioned Apartments over 2 levels. You must be right and I really must be missing something if that’s the way to best serve clients.
John/cybertruth46,
This is a LEGAL WARNING, take note before you make any further comments regarding myself & r4.
Your comment regarding any removal of property by me from r4 is completely & utterly wrong.
You are making assumptions and comments that bear no relation to the facts.
This is a FINAL WARNING!
This is what the advertisement has been replaced with “This property has been removed by the agent and is no longer available to view. To view other properties by Black Hay Solicitors & Estate Agents please click here”
I’ve removed the link from the “here”.
It must be somebody else then if it is not you.
This page is displayed for a few seconds then is replaced with another page which lists your properties.
I’ll post the link below so you can take a look for yourself but it might be removed as I’m not sure whether it’s a breach of the T&C’s or not.
GPL, you may also want to explain why you have a 2 bedroom cottage in KA19 on Rightmove describes as “NEW to Market – Full details to Follow – Available to View Now” when it was added to Rightmove on 29 April 2019.
This advertise the property on rummage4 with postcode KA19 7NF.
When you search on your own site using that postcode you display 0 properties.
GPL, another one of your properties with postcode KA7 4JA.
Search on your website for properties with that postcode and get “Showing 0 properties”. Broaden the search to KA7 and you get “Showing the single result” but it’s not the property at KA7 4JA!
Sounds like you need some help to best serve your clients. That’s a really poor service.
I find it concerning that you have time to “stalk” me personally.
This is your FINAL Warning before I escalate matters legally.
I know you have stalked other Users Online so your behaviour is following a concerning pattern of questionable behaviour
I find your behaviour concerning, bordering on requiring professional attention however that is not my concern.
Final Warning cyberduck46 ….John Lawson.
Desist your “stalking” of me.
What I am doing is not stalking. I am investigating certain matters and am reporting my findings as a member of the public to the Authorities.
This is not about you personally but about Agency & Portals so please don’t try and pretend it is stalking. My comments do not relate to you personally.
>When you start or actively work in an Estate Agency, develop your career, understand the business ….then by all means offer up your view
I am entitled to comment on this website, it is not yours, and if you think I have done anything wrong then contact the site owner. You have no right to tell people whether they can express an opinion or not.
John….
You have no idea what my business arrangement is with r4, nor do I need to explain it to you.
Likewise I have no need to explain my Website to you.
You have been warned re “stalking” me in your well documented creepy manner.
I can’t imagine what you get up to and frankly don’t wish to.
Your opinion is irrelevant to me.
creepyduck46 is a more apt user id for you, based on your behaviour.
I am telling you that I find your actions creepy and able to be categorised as “Online Stalking” ……when someone purposefully “pursues” someone online for sinister reasons.
I could hop into my car, drive down to your house and have a face-to-face chat about your behaviour however as a former Police Officer I would advise myself against doing that unless I have at least 2 witnesses and film/record the entire event ……and then I would be as creepy as you.
Play games with yourself creepyduck46 …..if you keep poking at people, don’t be surprised that their patience with your “behaviour” eventually runs out.
Almost finally, as I have said on PIE before, you do actually contribute to debate here positively at times, however you seem to have a fixation with certain people, and I am know apparently one of your “favourites?”
Take a breath, consider your actions, and if you feel you need to keep poking away, then rock-on.
In the meantime, I have had a busy day working for my clients and I’m home having a well earned rest & relaxation …….and having online intercourse with you tonight, or any night holds zero appeal.
If you have a normal life John, a home, wife or partner, children, pets ……go and enjoy being normal, you might just like it.
If I’m passing your home one day I may pop in and say Hello, assuming that your are real and not virtual.
Have a Nice Evening John!
How do the Zoopla figures work? Considering most of my competitors AREN’T even on Zoopla then I doubt the accuracy.
OTM works for me. I have sold over £3m worth of house this year from N&E. Try it sometime, it works.
Traditional estate agency is still king. Matching people to houses and houses to people is still the core of our industry.
Brilliant! 10 minutes after I said you would be here saying this you arrived! £60k in fees just off new and exclusive.
Have PIE never reached out to you to ask to interview? You strike me as running the best agency in the country, city centre, 2% fees, low marketing costs with OTM and Yorkshire post and they work better for you than anyone else. Its incredible.
I bet we don’t hear from you tomorrow when news hits the city of losses!
£60k in fees, wow. Do you know anyone who has managed that in 6months ?
So if I’m a OTM rep, you must be working for Zoopla?
As I’ve said before, I tell it as I find it. I’m interested in portals and how they work. Not all my business is through the portals.
For clarity I’m not a volume agent selling stuff at £250,000. I’m sure they have a different experience and most won’t have a job this time next year.
What is it you do again AJP? Seem to remember you’re an agent in Middlesbrough or some such? Are you a member of OTM? Do you use Zoopla? We’d all love to know.
Did I get the maths wrong?
£3m x 2% = £60k
‘OTM works for me. I have sold over £3m worth of house this year from N&E. Try it sometime, it works.’
Your words not mine! Please clarify if I’m wrong.
Clearly you’ve never heard of sarcasm… £60,000 isn’t really a massive amount of fees… If you’re in agency? Come on? We are still waiting for the answers to the questions above… Are you going to answer them?
Oh I beg your pardon, sarcastic font didn’t come across, I just found it incredible that it was from N&E solely and you were the only one.
Why the interest in me? I asked to pop in for a cup of tea a while back and you told me to just look at the paper!?
I’ve not advocated any particular portal, however seemingly I could go become the Z rep as ours has left seemingly, not that anyone cared to inform us.
JB43 I’ve got to pop out, a day full of viewings, let’s pick up tomorrow on the OTM figures story?
I said look in the paper – I’m obviously not going to give you my phone number on property industry eye!!– Please ring the three agents who advertise in the Yorkshire post the most and ask for Johnny banana – any of my team will put you through to me. I think we need something stronger than tea though.
Hope the viewings are successful. If you own your own agency why do you do the viewings?
Agents dont even do this new and exclusive with OTM.
It’s a usp OTM have given themselves which agents ignore and the public are not aware of, in fact they are not even aware of OTM!
We need the OTM rep on here, JB43, he would tell you how hes running his business in a saturated city centre and getting 2% mainly because of new and exclusive on OTM with a mix of newspapers.
Rubbish… New & Exclusive (N&E) to the least visited website by House Hunters… Stop kidding yourselves.
Selling N&E on OTM to a vendor as an advantage should be considered a bigger miss-selling scandal than PPI and investing in PURP.
As Moveaside01 & AgencyInsider rightly questions, the only N&E time should be the sales team, calling buyers before the property hits the internet. But alas the property does need to hit the internet as that folks is the way of the world. (as sad as it is).
Zoopla, your survey questions are horrific lol
I’m not a fan of any of the portals but offering up two questions that have no substance or explanation as to the benefits and negatives for the respondents is laughable;
“The largest possible audience, from day one, on multiple property portals”
OR…
”A smaller audience getting a preview of new and new exclusive properties for the first 24 hours”
Would be nice to see PIE push back on this kind of press release and ask Zoopla why they would word the survey in this way… the response could be more interesting.
#justsayin’
Frankly, as a company we see launching any new instruction straight onto a property portal as abject failure. If your negotiators are doing their jobs properly they will have a buyer lined up before you even go out to value a property!
Sticking properties straight onto portals is just lazy agency? Sell for god’s sake!
Spot on Moveaside01 !
I wonder how many agents actually ring out their new instructions? I suspect that very few do.
It’s a given that a good agent works their own “Mailing System” 1st however your Own Website is YOUR OWN Virtual Window so to neglect the role it plays in your business is folly in my view.
I have ZERO interest in helping to build other portals.
My mailing system continues to deliver Quality Buyers and my website shows “Premium Price” Sales as a result of our OWN efforts, NOT simply uploading to the Usual Suspects!
Quiet please whilst a proper agent speaks, phoning out MAs to buyers in order to help you win the business on the MA. Estate Agency is not difficult unless you choose to make it difficult.
Sorry did i just wake up in 2002? Marketing on the portals is better for your clients to achieve the best price. Your negs shoudl be trying to beat the portals as well.
I dont know why onthemarket continues with this weak USP anyway.
People think rightmove is an agent and purplebricks is a portal so this message is impossible to convey in an advert.
The advert should be ‘ we dont let payanyway agents on the site because we care about service and honesty’
This is incorrect. They don’t allow online agents because agents mutual was built around high street agents trying to beat the future technology.
I both agree and disagree. Yes, any decent neg should know their ideal buyer before the property even becomes an instruction and a ‘one-off’ viewing could easily match the perfect buyer with the perfect property. But the function of an agent is longer binary (sell vs don’t sell). People can achieve that themselves (ebay, PB, Gumtree, local adverts etc). Surely the job of a modern agent using a combination of digital prop-tech & old traditional methods is to secure the best possible price? Only that way can our value (and higher cost) over the other methods be properly justified. Our job is to create and harness an environment where the broadest audience is introduced to the property, creating an impression of popularity and competition. The broadest audience will surely only be reached if all media are exploited.
Ask yourself how the majority of buyers on your database got there in the first place.. Office walk-ins? Perhaps some. Online leads or calls (from seeing online)? Probably the majority.
Ah but imagine the power of a buyer, viewing it prior to it reaching said broadest audience and the leverage that it brings for them to make the strongest offer possible in order to prevent the broadest possible audience ever seeing it.
Yes, agree also.
It’s also worth noting that your online presence can, if used correctly, aid winning business as much (if not more than) it can selling houses.
Spot on Zoopla!
New & Exclusive? I do it on my own Website and I see the benefits as do my clients.
I also see the traffic visiting my “Available Soon” feature on my website, and again it generates quality interest/leads.
It took a while to build the interest however I have ZERO interest in building the larger portals websites, instead I have increased quality interest/traffic to my own website.
My only interests are my clients best interests and they are NOT served by simply shovelling property onto Hoopla, OTM or Blightmove!
Well done Rightmove, dignified silence rather than rise to the bait. We all expect your increase soon
And yet zoopla and rightmove continue to support scammer agents with payanyway contracts.
The city has smelt a rat yet u continue to support them even though buyers hate using them.