“Transforming the property market for everyone” so says the strap line on the Boomin.com website.

Most are yet to be told what this really means in proposition terms but expect a big data-play, shared ancillary revenue streams and technology that will identify potential sellers early in the funnel as well as a move to maintain the involvement and brand awareness of Boomin and agents post-completion via homeware and financial services affiliates – a version of McDonalds’ famous “would you like fries with that?” principle.

The precursor to the impending Boomin launch has been an ‘Agents Together’ charm offensive that was unveiled to the industry in June as a ‘charity’ that has at its core a smorgasbord of mentoring for industry wannabee big-hitters that are able to grab time with a range of property well-knowns including founders Michael and Kenny Bruce themselves. Like a herd of Yodas schooling a gaggle of excitable Skywalkers in a space swamp somewhere.

The subliminal thread running through this mentoring assault and led by an unassuming Sarah Edmundson as CEO (Chief Encouragement Officer) is one that screams ‘You can trust us now’.

Trust is a hard thing to earn. It takes a while to embed and is generally only achieved as the result of sustained proof that those seeking trust are truly worthy of such a status.

It can’t be bought although it seems that flattery might get you part of the way there in recruiting some troops to do your bidding so that assurance is grabbed in part at least, by proxy.

But, will the industry continue with their current cynicism that the Agents Together effort is merely a façade, a window dressing to suck in the gullible whereas really behind the curtain lays the same inward looking, self-serving emporium as before – just in a different colour?

The question of course is how do the Bruce’s themselves earn sufficient trust from estate agents for them to sign up to their new commercial venture, pay over their hard-fought cash and, importantly, hand the Bruce’s chunks of client data? Maybe the question is not how but if… if they can earn it at all, especially now that Gary Barker is no longer to front things, with Michael Bruce moving from the shadows to take centre stage again instead.

There are a lot of questions here. First on the subject of this trust, the Bruce brothers spent their purple years between 2014 and 2019 positioning their estate agency peers as expensive and inefficient. Actually, not just expensive but a ‘rip-off’. They ploughed about £100million into TV ad messaging that utilised such terms as ‘Commisery’ as a means of reinforcing that 95% of estate agents charge too much and end up making you miserable as a consequence. In fact more humiliated than miserable, arguably.

In addition to the aggressive ‘anti-fee’ messaging many agents, and indeed the Advertising Standards Authority, took issue with PurpleBricks’ integrity in the way that the company framed its own customer payment obligations – ‘pay later’ being a rather ambiguous way to say ‘pay later but you will pay regardless of outcome’. And there’s the issue of all of those proudly published five-star Trust Pilot reviews yet also the many one-star criticisms that seemed to evaporate as quickly as they were posted by disgruntled sellers. The matter of penalty fees attached to a client’s choice of conveyancing firm in certain circumstances was additional salt in the wound.

The upshot? An industry apoplectic at the collateral damage that the purple pound has done to their livelihoods.

But corporate estate agencies will, I think, be unperturbed by recent history and ill-feeling as they are instead enticed by future Boomin share-options in exchange for signing their principles away. This follows a well-worn approach as seen by Rightmove and Zoopla back in the day. You see, dancing with the Devil is acceptable as long as there’s a buffet to gorge on after the dance.

But what of the independents, the long tail of rank and file small estate agency businesses that were more sensitive to the Bruce wrecking-ball?

This 15,000 branch-strong mainstream estate agency fraternity will be less easy to convince that the poacher has transformed into a friendly shepherd that wants to coach, help and provide for the industry little-guy as opposed to eating them. And even if the poacher has transitioned to a right-on vegan rather than a drooling carnivore, won’t the schmoozing of the agency audience turn to disdain once they have been used to piggy-back toward ultimate traction?

After all, that’s been the modus operandi of Boomin’s competitors to date even though those competitors ‘promised’ to play fairly and ‘mutually’ until they smelt the cash on the Stock Exchange floor.

Launching a property portal is the proverbial chicken and egg conundrum – which comes first, stock or consumer traffic? Both are vital to each other. But how do you acquire both? Certainly the answer to part of the enigma is agents. For without agents there is no stock and this is why you people out there are so important to portals – until that is you gift them critical mass and then, ironically, you become individually irrelevant.

Will the Bruces pull off another sleight of hand? Will you be convinced enough at their metamorphosis to gift them your stock to enable them to become all powerful in the portal space?

Transforming the property market for everyone – all for one and one for all?

Or will it transpire to be a case of ‘all for us and none for all’?