A proptech start-up which will allow high street agents to compete against online firms has decided to make its platform free to use.
Hystreet originally planned to launch at around £495 a month.
CEO Awais Ahmad told EYE: “This is in line with what others charge, but we have decided it’s more important for us to be the agent’s friend, to make the offering transparent, and to get it out there.
“It’s a bold move, but it shows our commitment to high street agents.”
The business is now inviting agents to register their interest to join an initial roll-out of the platform.
Those who take part will be set up and trained on how to use the platform free of charge and, says Hystreet, with no contractual obligation.
It describes its features as being “designed to enable traditional agents to leverage the assets which make them stand out – great customer service, local knowledge and unrivalled expertise – while allowing buyers and sellers to self-serve if that’s what they prefer”.
Ahmad said the decision to launch a free offering came at a time “where increasing portal charges and software subscriptions are loading more cost on them while fees are pushed downwards”.
Proptech specialists Eddie Holmes and James Dearsley have recently joined Hystreet’s advisory team.
Comments (16)
As you know i am one of the biggest sceptics on here.
This is an amazing bit of kit, so much so i worry for full service agency. Once you have seen it demo’ed you will sign up. Even if you do not your competition will which in time will make you sign up.
It is the first real “Game Changer” that has been talked about on EYE.
How much did they pay you to say that mate?
Not a penny.
I post regularly on here, and i am very sceptical on most offerings. This is a real game changer, i envisage 75% of agents having this offering within the next 3 years.
Maybe not from Hystreet, as there are others doing the same at the moment.
From what I can see, this has the potential to become…
…interesting.
Watch this space I guess…
Not another game changer ?
Yes because what we need is more Online Estate Agents… PeeBee, hmmm… that surely doesnt stand for purplebricks 😉
I have to say I thought this was always free. I have looked at it myself for some of the functionality…
However I truly believe that the ultimate defence will only happen when independents rally together under a collective banner to promote the benefits of ‘no sale-no fee’ as opposed to ‘pay whether you sell or not’, the higher personal service level of ‘truly local’ as opposed to ‘call centre’, ‘full service through to completion’ as opposed to ‘do-it-yourself’ and ultimately the better sale prices that can be achieved by a real agent paid to put the time & effort in to achieve them.
This is called ‘Collective Adaptive Intelligent Marketing’ and if anyone is interested in finding out more you can join us at in@agentv.co.uk
As an agent who has used their system, its still developing and isn’t the finished article yet but what it does do it does very well, they need to add more bits which they are doing regularly. I can tell you it isn’t **** and its not dishonest, Facebook is free and they make money, Hystreet is no different they also have decided to operate a freemium model. Brave move and i for one applaud you.
What does it do?
FB makes money by using customer data to advertise them products and charge companies for that a lot of money. Are u suggesting that these guys will use our customer data and sell them products???
That’s been working well then!!!
Well well… Wasn’t this the “most demanded” software in the UK with “huuuuge” amount of interest? Nothing is free unless it is either **** or dishonest…
Estate Agents who charge a fee and have a real service wouldnt use it.
Estate Agents need to talk to buyers to get mortgage leads and valuations from them..
When tech meets sales its a tough one to sell.
Tech is just an admin tool 98% of the time.
Online agents have got amazing tech and websites but if they didnt have misleading adverts they would be nothing .
Agree… well money behind it helps a lot! PB has a single brand with large marketing push so great brand awareness.
Interesting route to go down, they must be really confident in their product to go down this route and have the £££ to back it up as it’s a costly thing to do. In reality I don’t think it will immediately have an affect on derailing the PB train, but in time certainly will take alot of the steam out of it. Interesting times ahead for us independents. I think we need to wake-up to the reality of the tech takeover and embrace it to our advantage rather than ignoring the impact it is having. I’ve been at this for 30 plus years and initially was sceptical of these online agents but as I see them gain momentum and lose business to them I have got to be able to at least try to fight back. As it’s free I guess I might give it a whirl, bar more instructions i’ve got nothing to lose.
Always nice to hear this attitude to change and I complement you for this. However, charging nothing for your product is not exactly a sign of confidence (quite the opposite) and just because something is free do not be fooled into thinking you have nothing too lose! Remember: there is no such thing as a free lunch – we’ve all heard that one before and we know where it ends…