Challenger portal, Homesearch, has announced that the company will be pushing back the date of release of the new public platform until July 1st.
It had been due to launch on May 25th.
CEO Giles Ellwood said on the company’s weekly progress webinar:
“It’s a disappointing decision, but it’s the right one.
“We wanted to achieve something radical in two months. Unfortunately it’s going to take us three.
“Pushing the public release back 4-5 weeks will allow us more time to properly onboard agents, more time to integrate further with CRM providers and more time to test.”
Homesearch says it has gathered 6,000 branches to support the public platform and list properties for free.
From the end of May the supporters will be able to become paying subscribers if they choose. Around 500 branches have already committed to do so.
Ellwood also revealed that the portal will support agents’ local marketing with 1,500 prepaid direct mail letters for each of the first 2,500 branches to subscribe to the platform.
He said last night:
“When we read last week that there were companies about to go on the “biggest ever national marketing campaign in a bid to re-ignite the market”, my first thought was that the campaign only serves the company running it.
“There’s no relevancy or meaning, no local flavour or connection to any single agent.
“If we can help just one agent send 1500 letters with their company name, with the right message to the right addresses, I know that’ll genuinely help re-ignite their market and have far more impact at the level we hope to support.”
Agents can join Homesearch from the 26th May to access the Pro system and prospecting letter offer.
Comments (10)
CRM’s charging portals an upload fee has been a barrier to challengers finances for a long long time – charging twice for doing one job for their client – the agent – a nice little earner
Just speculating, if Sam or Giles are reading this …
Would the delay be down to CRM systems owned by ZPG not releasing a feed to you?
If this is the case surely that bring issues regarding competition and markets?
You know me too well, SP! Though my apologies that I’m only checking back here hours later.
We’re delayed down to some of the great CRMs just having people of their own on furlough, so things are slower. We’re delayed down to G and I not willing to release something we’re not completely happy with.
We’ve spoken to James Toogood from ZPG and would hope those chats aren’t at an end. There’s no C&M issue, we could feed from all of ZPGs crms today for a £20 (inc vat) fee per feed, per branch, per month which is either paid by us or the agents but we believe there’s a better solution to be found. With everything the Network offers (you know, you’ve seen it) the more we can work together the better it is for the agent and the stronger their CRM will be for it too. It’s a win, win, win if they want it to be.
Disappointing but rather have it ready to go as opposed to half baked.
I was on the webinar last night. And the guys totally want to get it 100% right, first time.
they don’t come across as someone looking to rush it out to earn a quick £ – some of the nicest, genuine guys in the industry.
im totally on board with it, 1st June, 1st July. Or even 1st jan, I don’t care. When it happens I’ll jump on, I totally trust the Homesearch guys, and if they say they need to so they get it right, nothing but respect, must of been a tough call.
I’ll be the first to moan about a portal, especially their customer service, not a single negative thing to say about this.
#homesearchmovement #makerealestategreatagain #ifyouknowyouknow
It was always ambitious and I think the decision is the correct one. Any launch (public facing) has to be fully tested and “bug free”.
Ultimately those guys have built a platform (not a portal) in a matter of weeks! It’s much crisper, cleaner and fresher than anything else out there (IMHO).
See you on next Thursday’s webinar.
I really hope this doesn’t go the same way as Rummage4.
I’m sure it won’t. Not if you’ve seen the platform.
I’m sure it won’t. I’ve been on every webinar and product demo and I think this is the right decision for both homesearch and agents. Allowing agents to be prepared and take advantage from the 25th of May with a nice clear window before the public launch, seems sensible to me.
I believe the public portal will be huge and allow agents to win/deliver more.
For full disclosure – we provide a service used by homesearch and the new public platform which in turn benefits agents and the public.
rummage4 hasn’t gone anywhere or done anything it hasn’t planned to do.
The fact Homesearch and all the challengers now have the opportunity to compete and innovate is down to the duopoly being broken. I’ve been careful to document what has made that possible along with levelling the playing field and effectively forcing compliance of CPR and BPR
Even down to Andy Overman referring to Homesearch as a platform, not a portal is something I instigated to distinguish the generation 5 platforms from the portals.
You can attempt to be as dismissive and disparaging as you like I am achieving the things I set out to do and that is to force competition and innovation into the industry and that is what I’ve done.
What’s going to be interesting is to see how the G3 Rightmove clones and legacy CRM system fair now G5 is kicking down the doors.