An agent who is struggling to keep his smallest branch going and took it off Rightmove has been told that he must either shut it or make it a paying member again in order to list its properties.
The agent’s neighbouring office, some eight miles away, is currently listing the small branch’s properties, but he has now been told that this cannot list properties within four miles of the village office – no matter which office is instructed.
The agent, who has asked not to be named, does not dispute that he is in breach of Rightmove’s terms and conditions, but feels they are being brought to bear in a way which is benefiting his competitors.
He has been given until the end of the month to comply or face having his Rightmove membership terminated.
He has been given a map showing postcodes where the larger office cannot advertise properties.
The agent said: “We are still hoping to keep the small office open, but this restrictive response will make it difficult to justify.
“It costs more for this small branch to subscribe to Rightmove than we pay in rent.
“If we do have to end up closing the office, then we may have to make three highly-valued members of staff redundant – is this really in accord with Rightmove’s terms and conditions?
“Not only that, but other local agents who do not have branches where our smallest one is situated are perfectly able to market properties in the area, giving them an unfair advantage as we are being banned.
“The market is extremely tough, and I think we are in for another very difficult six months, so it would be good to see Rightmove support its members.”
The agent has been trying to negotiate with Rightmove, including asking for a temporary exemption for the small office while he tries to keep it open.
Rightmove at one point gave the agent a further option, which was to keep the small office open but shut it to the public.
A spokesperson for Rightmove said: “Agents are charged per branch, or if they advertise a higher than average number of properties (more than 50% of their available stock) outside a 100,000 property radius around their branch location then they are additionally charged for virtual branches.”
Comments (42)
Does anyone know the name of the agency? I’d like to make contact
My advice… get off RM and get onto OnTheMarket.com this level of exploitation needs to end it will only end if we make the move.
I get nearly as many leads from OTM, Zoopla is totally useless. Dump RM now.
Time agents club together for a change and close RM.
It’s not about leads, who needs em buyers go where the houses are, it’s about instructions and the perceived negative of not being on there from a sellers point of view at the point of instruction and the way competitors will use that, break that somehow and we break rightmove, I’m up for it but too busy earning a living, EA is the most day to day competitive industry I know of or have been exposed to.
Read this daily and agree with almost every comment. As a single office independent doing sales and Lettings I pay almost £1600 a month for rightmove and just need to have confidence we can do without it. In the last month I have had three times more leads in both sales and Lettings from OTM but since the start of the year I’ve had far more from rightmove. If every agent, independent that is cancelled their direct debit for 3 months at the same time, how could they police it or manage it. A bit like the Area 51 suggestion! All those agents not paying for 3 months would hurt massively I’d hope? Would it get us anywhere? In the meantime do what we do best, moan and get raped by them!
Increasing number of posters reporting leaving RM on here, not seen a single one yet that has gone back. This might have happened and, if that is the case, they would probably be too embarrassed to admit it on here.
Analyse how many duplicate applicants you get from other sites Look at where your business actually comes from. You may be surprised! Why not try marketing one property elsewhere but not on rightmove – see the response level
Terminated our Rightmove account at the end of March and haven’t noticed any dip in viewing activity nor negative feedback from potential sellers regarding not listing on the RM portal.
The general public really do need educating about just how much RM charges agencies (for a website!), how big & regular their price increases are and just how massive their profit margin is. Without RM charges, agencies can offer a more varied & effective marketing package which is, ultimately, better for the client.
Left 18 months ago and very pleased I did. Don’t have to put up with their crazy fees and attitude problem.
The momentum is growing, the trickle CAN turn in to a deluge and pretty soon too. Fear is no way to hold a customer base together as RM will find out.
How about National Leave Rightmove Day being set for October 31st as it is unlikely that anything else will be happening that day!
Yes in total agreement but try and organise it, i attempted a few years back. Got from memory 100 branches but i think you need at least 1000 to get press coverage and dent share price which is all they will listen to.
Stick to herding cats its easier!
It’s amazing how many local highstreet estate agents will have 5 offices and only one RM account, spread out over a 30 mile radius. Breaching their terms left, right and centre.
Examples?
Simple report them. We do it all the time.
I dont agree with RM but bu**ered if i will let my competitiors have a competative advantage.
What a blessing in disguise!
You don’t need rightmove. Save your money and your business!
What i find very distasteful from Rightmove is the massive discounts they offer franchises.
circa £100 a branch per month. Why can the NAEA (or whatever it calls itself this week), Local associations etc not approach Rightmove and ask for a block price.
£100 per branch is not that massive of a discount as a percentage of the costs based on our subscription. I’m teetering on the brink of dumping RM, it’s a bit nerve wracking, but when I’m paying Right Move the equivalent of a full time staff member’s salary – it’s past time to look at affordability and returns on the investment
No, its not a £100 discount per branch. It is a £100 subscription per branch.
Blimey!!! I’m a franchisee and that certainly not anywhere in the ballpark, district or even same country as the offer that’s open to us. I’m not doubting your word – but I can’t see why RM would do that – they’re totally inflexible with everyone as far as I’m aware.
If i am right certainly F&C and Hunters are in that region.
Posh houses that make the site look good obviously command a discount 🙂
I can assure you that you are way off there!
Tell me where i get this £100 per month cost, as a franchise owner I can tell you that is nowhere near the truth by a country mile at least!
F&C tried flogging me a franchise / lisence within the last year. Additional RM account to set up an F&C was £75 plus vat per month.
Hunters was some 18 months, 2 years ago were circa £100 per month cant remember exact figures.
Obviously there is the standing charge / success fee which may go part way to subsidise the monthly cost.
I was told FIRE STAFF AND SHUT AN OFFICE to free up money to pay them in the last recession as they wouldn’t contemplate a short term reduction to help see us through ….
Portal mafia. Just leave.
We took over a 2 branch agent last year. It was clear that with our existing branch combined with the two new acquired branches we did not have the need for all three in such a small geographic area.
It didn’t make sense when you added up portal costs, staff costs and building costs.
And management time overhead.
Ultimately we took the decision to close one of the branches.
We then increased our marketing spend at the other two branches and this meant over all Rightmove are getting more money from us.
We are now on the road to better profitability.
Sure Rightmove have lost a branch
And yes for the time being we are providing one less job.
But overall we have have a better and more profitable business which is better positioned to grow and employ more people in the future.
If the business can’t support a basic Rightmove license you have to really look if that branch is critical to the overall business.
‘We then increased our marketing spend at the other two branches and this meant over all Rightmove are getting more money from us‘
Why would you do this?
To invest and grow my business. The free capital has gone into numerous aspects designed to grow our overall market share.
Anybody remember a local newspaper telling an agency to close an office? Nope, me neither.
‘so it would be good to see Rightmove support its members.’
Got to love the optimism here.
argh please don’t.
I mentioned this “advice” from RM in posts 6 months ago!
Mine argument was how RM allow “FAVOUR” single account Brands to work against multi branch brands in tight areas like ours.
We have 4 offices, in a tight space. Most have 1, the odd agent has 2.
The particular report used against us, includes 3 post codes which can be covered by one branch, but we choose to have 2 covering it.
Include all these post codes in a report and all agents are all fighting for the top spot. What annoys me is, add both my accounts shown in the results together and we almost always add an extra 50 or so SOLDS and pull away as clear market leaders in the post codes covered.
Problem is RM censoring the other Agents names in favour of which account made the report. I have asked if they should really be leaving the names on, if it factual info why not! as calling them “Agent 3 etc” allows the agent giving the report to make all kinds of rubbish up and none of them will be saying “Agent 2 and Agent 4 are actually one company so together are a clear Agent 1 outselling us all locally”
For us the extra branches bring in enough to counter the RM spend, but RM need to stop saying, they chose to have 1 account so it favours them, RM should allow for the truth in stats to be shown, hence I now just take out the “Internal Use Only Report” so homeowners can add up the multi branch agents results and get a truer picture of who’s doing what.
Ros… I can show you what I mean, if you want to see how Single Account Agents are favoured by RM and RM will do nothing about it.
What about the online call centres who have no offices? Time rm sorted these out before victimising genuine businesses!
Yet until recently RM have allowed a branch in my patch to list properties from their head office account over 100 miles away. I think this went on for nearly 12 months. Double standards!
This is exactly the practice going on in my patch. The extremely posh international known estate agent which makes enormous profits is not paying for listing from each office. We questioned two portals about it and were told to mind our own business!
tell us more…. name and shame
How about Rightmove also crack down on agents sharing accounts or the company’s that allow the public (or agents) list properties for £25 a time.
Just pull listings from Rightmove. Simples.
Time agents paid by listings and not by office.
Rightmove can get tough, but it’s their support of pay any way, that has killed their main income.
Rats