House Network, which claims to have been Britain’s first online estate agent, has been named in a winding up petition published in the London Gazette.
The petition has been presented by a firm called Reditum SPV 42, of Queen Street Place, London, which claims to be a creditor of the company. Reditum SPV 42 is a company that grants credit.
The petition will be heard at 10.30am on April 10.
The petitioner is represented by Clarion Solicitors in Leeds.
Publication of the winding up petition follows weeks of rumours, with the normally publicity-friendly House Network declining to make any comment.
The firm was co-founded 2004 by Mark Readings and Graham Lock.
Comments (35)
So which one is next?
I think its a race between House Simple and Yopa. Backers will be loathed to put more money into Yopa when their own profitable high street brands are struggling (LSL closing 125 branches).
House Simple seem to be giving listings away which is never a sign of confidence.
Think I will put my tenner on House Simple going pop next, and no i don’t care if its poor taste they spend millions slating us independent full service agents.
Certainly HS and Yopa are likely to need more cash in the next 3 months – but they have backers with deep pockets.
Given that HN was previously trading profitably, before PB started to eat into the online market share – my £10 would be on Express.
PB has taken market share of the FSBO/DIY space.
If someone was paying upfront and had a choice between PB and Housenetwork I am assuming they will choose PB due to the misleading marketing power they have.
it’s a shame that someone has failed, online or not. In life it is healthy to have competition. An a traditional agent, yes I agree, online agents were at first difficult to combat as a new shiny entry into the selling marketplace. As ever, new propositions gain momentum and pique interest and cause a reaction, whether negative or positive. As it goes, traditionals can offer a better face to face, supportive process but even some of our traditional competitors can’t be bothered to do a good job. I constantly sweep up after incompetent agents, online AND traditional!
we shouldn’t laugh at someone’s misfiling’s especially when the traditional estate agency sector is also not perfect. What did you do today to go above and beyond to earn the thousands of pounds you have / will be paid?
What do you do to make sure the integrity and respect for customers comes forth in the way you do business?
Inward reflection people, I don’t think anyone has the right to sneer in our sector, just the challenge of changing the way we are viewed as a sector!
Yes Mrs May
How did your vote go today
christineea68 – “What did you do today to go above and beyond to earn the thousands of pounds you have / will be paid?
What do you do to make sure the integrity and respect for customers comes forth in the way you do business?”
Last time I looked, I run a successful property business and I’m the one with the pointy hat, not you? I have constant positive feedback from my clients and I work damn hard for every pound I earn, likewise my staff, and we enjoy what we do, and have done for decades
If I/we have no sympathy in the demise of an Onliner, noting their documented failings, mistruths and their often quoted sales pitch of “High Street Estate Agency is Dead!”, why does that incur your wrath?
Sneer? It’s a distasteful word to apply however you used it, so for the record, I find your comments have a “sneering” quality to them. However, if you are serving your clients well then good luck to you and may you have continued success
To the vast majority of the Online/Fake Agents, I wish you no luck at all and my only wish is more people recognise that you are a version of some geezer stopping their car in front of you, opening their boot, pointing at the “cheap tv’s” in their boot, taking £250 off you for a 300 inch tv – then as they pocket your money whilst walking back to get your telly, they sprint instead for the driver door, jump in and drive off in a cloud of tyre smoke!!! That’s how one could describe how a Fake Online Agent works, when you bump into an Alien on Planet Reality
Not even just a teeny tiny sneer?
Perhaps time to honour their promise…
“House Network, which claims to be the UK’s first online estate agency, has launched a new advertising campaign in which it promises that its agents will ride naked on a unicycle to the homes of clients it disappoints and give them their money back.”
https://www.propertyindustryeye.com/house-network-pledges-that-its-agents-will-ride-naked-on-a-unicycle-to-the-homes-of-any-clients-it-disappoints/
They were not the first online agent, that’s misleading in itself.
All portals should take the OTM approach and not entertain onliners. NOW I would pay extra for that!
Onliners? A very expensive Funeral Plan, most often paid by their misled investors & clients
Sympathy? Send them a card if you care, I and many others don’t!
Goodriddance? Absolutely, because they and other Onliners are leeches on our industry
Just because a company pretends to be an estate agent, it doesn’t mean they are one
If you want to show your support for onliners go hand them your wages. I and so many other agents work damn hard at “real not fake” estate agency/letting. When an Onliner crumbles into the virtual dust that it always was – a bell rings signalling that a fake agent is just that, fake
cc Lil Bandit and ARC.
For rightmove another paying customer goes to the wall. No doubt they will quickly be making up the shortfall!
PB are cannibals destroying the online sector. 🙂
RM will seek to balance the books by increasing fees to High Street EA. 🙁
House Network appears to have been a good business until something changed in 2015. Perhaps this is just predation within the sector.
Purplebricks changed everything for the on-liners – their bottomless pockets pushed the others into larger and larger advertising bills. In particular PPC went through the roof, never mind TV and Radio etc.
They have all tried to keep up so they could get to the point of floating too – and failed……..
Personally, I think it is a massive shame! it was a good source of cheap property for the portfolio….
The responses to these kind of stories is the encapsulation of why estate agency is so dimly viewed in the wider public and it doesn’t command the fees of the same industries in the rest of the world.
You really need to expand on this here.
In unrelated news, a colleague is currently on the phone arranging a MA with a House Network client who has not sold.
Mwah Hah Hah Haaaaa…….like us dinosaurs have always said (those of us that have been around in this business for a long time), you cannot run this business cheap! I think there will be a tumble of orange and then hopefully purple within the next 18 months!
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Where did it all all go Wrong? See above. Hard to have sympathy for any Onliner. The Staff? they chose who to work for. They would very likely shed no tears for a High St Estate Agent.
Let’s be frank about this, any agent whether online or high street who’s marketing strategy is to continually change the front property photo to avoid “advertising fatigue” and are confident enough to use this as one of their primary marketing drivers deserves to go down in flames. Good bye to another shower of sh*t.
Boom Bang-A-Bang, quoting that well known Industry Queen, Lulu
Let’s spin the Virtual Wheel of Misfortune to see which Onliner the arrow points at next
It’s very sad for the staff involved.
Another one bites the dust. Who’s next?
Perhaps it could be your agency…
It is always sad when someone loses a job, to revel in such things is poor form.
It’s even more of a shame when customers lose their hard earned money which was paid in good faith with no end result. Maybe we should consider them first?
The polishing of halo’s on here is a bit sickly….
I’m not an agent dopey.
If you’re one of the poor people who handed over your hard earned money you should have thought it through. You were thinking you were saving money but we hear this time and time again. A good reputable agent only charges a fee on successful sale, no upfront fees and risks all the costs for you, usually more that the up front fee you pay on-line listing companies, which is why they are losing money. Good established agents should always give a win – win situation which is a proven successful business model. You get what you pay for and you only pay a good agent on results so you can’t lose out. Add to this that a good agent will usually achieve more for your house so you can’t lose either way. It’s about time the home mover woke up and smelt the coffee and I’m not Dopey but my clients are Happy.
Housesimple!
When the only way you can do any business is to give it away for nothing it’s time to pack it in !
Won’t be the last. They are all failing financially, unable to self fund.
Well there’s a surprise!
When isn’t a Wind-Up a Wind-Up ……when it’s a Wind-Up.
…..and it’s not even April 1st yet!