Another major group of estate agents today announced its support for OnTheMarket.
Property Sharing Experts, formerly West Country Team, said that a majority of its 80 member offices have signed up, with most keeping Rightmove as its “one other portal” despite hard-hitting criticisms of Rightmove.
The group said that the launch means that neither Rightmove and Zoopla “will be able to continue to dictate their spiralling fees or generate the super-profits they have enjoyed over recent years”.
It said that Rightmove’s annual results statement for 2013 “reveals its total revenue for the year at nearly £140m – more than 17% growth on the previous year, and its profit before tax at £97m, with a similar rate of growth.
“In 2013, Rightmove’s current CEO received a remuneration package totalling almost £2.2m; the three executive directors between them alone received packages worth nearly £4m.
“And the statement proudly quotes average revenue per advertiser at £607 per month, up 15% from £529 in 2012 – an increase reluctantly accepted by its agent clients and one of the factors contributing to the launch of OnTheMarket.”
Steve Moir, pictured, chairman of Property Sharing Experts, said: “Around three-quarters of our offices are backing OnTheMarket and around three-quarters of those will be using Rightmove as their ‘other portal’.
“Many of us find that the leads we receive from Rightmove and Zoopla are duplicated in any case – but we need to subscribe to both, at the cost dictated to us by them, in order to compete with our peers and gain instructions.
“The launch of OnTheMarket will eliminate that duopoly and means we can take back control of our costs and our data too, as data-scraping/sharing from the two sites was also becoming an issue.”
Comments (4)
"A 7% increase on fees. Remind me what level national inflation is again?" The response to that question is another question – 'what has that got to do with the price of eggs?' Because, simply put, the price of eggs (potatoes, bread, electricity, gas, fuel – the list is endless…) has got FAR more to do with national inflation figures than a few quid extra per month paid out by the likes of us to provide our paying clients – THEY pay for the portals, after all – with a source of marketing their property to a wide audience. Vendors don't give a stuff how much we spend to sell their property – in fact, in their view the more it costs per day/week/month the better, as this hopefully will encourage us to do the job faster to 'save' more of our fee as profit!
Our Rightmove annual renewal letter is in. A 7% increase on fees. Remind me what level national inflation is again?
Mine came in last week and was a rise of 8.7%.
Yes, I've no doubt. and if not before, as of today RM know if you dropped Zoopla and joined OTM. I suspect if you have then they will be laughing all the way to their piggybank