A regional agent with 11 branches has announced that it is dropping OnTheMarket to return to Zoopla.
Yesterday, Howard Cundey, with offices in Kent, Surrey and Sussex, was showing the Rightmove and Zoopla logos on its site, but not OTM’s.
It was still listing on OTM as well as Rightmove but only its commercial properties on Zoopla.
Howard Cundey said its return to Zoopla “later this week” follows a review of its portal relationships and performance.
Holder of the award for the Sunday Times and Times Best Medium Estate Agency in the UK, the firm left ZPG in 2015 as a result of the restrictions of OTM’s one other portal rule.
However, said the firm, “recognising that its customers are at the heart of its business and listening to feedback, Howard Cundey will be returning all its property listings to Zoopla and PrimeLocation and will be withdrawing from OTM”.
Tim Foulkes, business owner and director of Howard Cundey, said: “We are delighted to be rejoining ZPG and realised that it was time for us to act in the best interests of our customers and our business.
“Whilst we understand the motivation of OnTheMarket, it just simply has not worked, whereas ZPG owns several household brands with an impressive audience and delivers us and our customers the results they need.”
It is not known whether there are any contractual issues involved, as neither OTM nor Howard Cundey would say.
A spokesperson for OTM said: “We are disappointed to see that this individual agent has been dissatisfied with OnTheMarket.com but we do not comment on contractual relations with members.”
According to Zoopla, almost 600 agents have returned and the portal claims to be in discussions with “many more”.
Today, Howard Cundey was apparently listing on all three portals – Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket.
Comments (67)
Just want to say a quick, genuine “thank you” to LocalAgent201625.
You’ve made me unearth a GREAT old thread today – I can’t wait to start cuting’n’pasting when the fellow in question raises his head above the parapet once again!
Cheers, matey! I owe you a pint!
You owe me the cost of a strong jug of coffee!
Back to the story with property-guru51 who didn’t answer my question but clearly was bought by Z. If you do not promote your advertising with your customers and just sit back and wait for the web site to do the leg work for you (as many do) you are not going to get much of a return. Customers don’t give a halfpenny for any particular web site, and go to the one used by their local estate agents if they are web orientated but as we all know not everyone uses the web or when they do they trot off to the local agent who’s property they saw on XY web site. If they see the same properties on multiple web sites it will be of no surprise to see them steer towards only one of the web sites …. which one, it is invariably the one the local agent steers them to. OTM is a catch-up and if you want it to work it is down to Malcolm and Sandra the negs etc to promote it and not as I recently heard “were on Rightmove” when all the promotions in that agents office was OTM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There is an underlying trend to be fearful of not mentioning RM and I expect the same applies to those in bed with Z but all you are doing is switching people off other portals including your own web site. If your not getting leads from OTM look in the mirror! If you want OTM to work (which is in your best interest) you have to do what you do for RM or Z and speak to people. I wonder how many agents have actually sat down with their staff and explained the virtues of needing OTM to succeed and how to go about it and overcome objections with naïve vendors who often dictate to you how to run your business (buyers are not bothered)…… like having a job in the future normally makes them wake up! You are at war with property portals supporting on-line only agents who are publicly trying to put you out of business. Stop surrendering, take control of the situation for if they have their way you will not be around long. Congratulations to those thousands of agents who have seen the light.
When I acted as executor of an estate, I insisted the property was not to be listed on Rightmove, I had a legal obligation to get the best price for the property not just a buyer. I chose an agent not phased by hard work or doing the job properly. I paid 0.25% more than they quoted to get the job done properly.
I’m almost gagging on the stench of ******** today.
…which, by the way, started just after midnight with the scribblings on the bog door down the other pub in relation to this.
They went further – stating that the Zoopla quote was delivered by Mr Mark Goddard, reporting that he is to have said/typed/dictated/agreed or otherwise to put his name to (delete where applicable) among other things
“We are delighted to welcome Howard Cundey’s 11 branch network back to ZPG.”
and
“Nearly 600 agents have returned so far and we are in discussions with many more.”
Now – I know that when you read the written word you put your own interpretation on it, and hear it in a ‘voice’ inside your head that can be completely wrong in reality – but I ‘heard’ that in my mind in a very, very smarmy tone – and not what I would consider to be professionally measured.
Like the competitor (we all know and love one…) who belittles the best rather than trying to upsell themselves…
I’m also a tad confusted why, as ‘Managing Director of ZPG Property Services‘, he is commenting on something that another – more ‘relevant’ – departmental head would surely normally be tasked with?
With that in mind, I will simply cut’n’paste what I said earlier in the week in relation to Mr Goddard’s apparent position as the appointed bad-mouthpiece for Zoopla:
JEEZ – must be a real bu99er when you get a flashy new title which means nothing other than you have to spout the same b011ocks as those before you…
Since joining OTM last year i have recived 16 enquiries from a stock level off more than 50 properties so not making me any money from OTM, i rejoined Z back last month and since rejoining i have recived 236 enquires.
Leads = lets simple as OTM is useless and will never be as big as RM or Z
Of the 236 enquiries received how many viewings sales and instructions have you done? What is the cost? What is the revenue?
they wher just leads for lettings, and i have worked it out that from those lead they coverted to 80 lets and our agency fee is £500 so £500x 80 and then the mangament fee from the landlords is 10%+vat
so its very profitable.
Are you now listing on all 3 or have you come off OTM? If the rules allowed would you continue to support OTM as well as being on Zoopla?
if its 236 Z val requests then they will all say – ‘this request has been sent to 17 other agents’ – 1/2 aren’t even interested in selling their houses they are just nosey – that’s after they have already had Z price estimate (which is always wrong I might add)
they wher leads for lettings from tenants sorry for the confusion, we dont really get M/A leads from RM or Z i take them on the old fashioned way which i get around 10-15 new instructions a week.
“we dont really get M/A leads from RM or Z i take them on the old fashioned way which i get around 10-15 new instructions a week.”
Interesting you say that, is the area you cover prominently older people? I find the valuation leads from Zoopla better quality than rightmove, saying that 10% of the MA leads this year were people trying to do the online valuation got confused and ended up emailing 12 agents.
You say you get 10-15 instructions per week, that’s an impressive number if true but i’m sceptical this is actually the truth. On that basis you’d have to be going out to 15-30 Ma’s a week and converting at a minimum of 50% – everyone all over the country are saying how stock levels are so low so I’d be intrigued to know how you’re generating such an impressive number of MA’s and instructions.
A quick analysis of the figures above:
50+/- units on the books
which attracted
236 ‘leads’
leading to
80 ‘Lets’
@ £500 a pop
ALL from Zoopla
IN A MONTH?
…40-60 new instructions to replace them – every one coming from non-internet sources?
Doesn’t that mean the register is now 10 to 30 units tops?
Am I missing something here…?
Why aren’t these people finding your properties on RM property-guru51? Why did you need to go back to Z?
Let’s play devils advocate for a moment:
236 Z enquiries in a month. Could it just be that as all your properties/lettings etc that have just been loaded onto Z came up as NEW listings. all those with alerts the public set up got all your properties blasted at them on day 1? and these are the enquiries that this created. (if you have 50 properties that’s less than 5 each)
How many enquiries are ‘good leads’ and how many are just a waste of time?
Did your RM enquiries drop when you rejoined Z? – although its probably too early to tell (you can probably see what I’m getting at)
Before you left OTM did they just find you through RM? You have a situation where you HAVE to pay for 2 portals now because you BELIEVE Z enquiries won’t come through RM or any other way.
I agree with shedding dead weight in a business but is adding another bill to the pile helped? – genuine question
They where finding them on RM we get around 400-500 leads a month from them.
i was just seperating the portals for a comparision and OTM i only got 16 leads in well over a year.
We are still getting loads off Z leads. Out off those leads we done 80 lets which is great
Did you feel like you had to go back to Z for the business or do you think you could have just kept your properties on 1 portal?
i could have just kept RM as the only portal but i like duel portals to get double the leads and get my negs to jump on them and get the most out off them. its has made my company more money and that the way i look at it. i got a good deal with Z for £100 for the first 6 months and the for the other 6 months £300 so from those 80 lets Z is paid off for the next few years.
You mean you were bought.
400-500 leads A MONTH?
I assume this is lettings and sales combined?
Tell me, what are your stock levels like at the moment (those that are for sale).
So why did you get business from Z and not OTM? Just think about the question a bit more deeply before replying. The public don’t make the decision to stop using you to buy a property because you are on any XY web site. They go to that web site because of what?
The question should be why didn’t you get these leads from rm and if in fact you got 236 and a 34% conversion rate then perhaps you got rid of the wrong site as rm obviously hasn’t done it for you since you left Z but I think your figs are wrong and deliberately so to get a reaction, well done it worked.
What a bunch of complete Cundeys.
MASSIVE blow to OTM.
They need a new strategy, quick.
Or at least do some kind of advertising!?
‘Yesterday… It was still listing on OTM as well as Rightmove but only its commercial properties on Zoopla.’
As can be seen – today is a very different day…
http://www.zoopla.co.uk/find-agents/company/howard-cundey-1839/
I think an awful lot of people are missing the real point of OTM. Having created the Rightmove monster, ie agents paying them upwards of £1000 pcm per branch, the industry was then busily creating a second monster in Zoopla, whose fees had certainly been much increased in my neck of the woods pre-OTM, up to several hundred pounds pcm and with a declared strategy of pushing them ever-upwards.
OTM was principally designed to stop this enormous dual pressure on fees. Again in my neck of the woods, Rightmove is the undisputed number one – I don’t like the cost, but it certainly does what it says on the tin and although expensive it is factually the first and last port of call for very close to 100% of applicants. Do I honestly need another portal? To sell houses, no. To restrain Rightmove’s charging policy, yes.
OTM took Zoopla out of the game at a stroke, giving agents like us – and Tim Foulkes – a ‘second’ offering to clients at a much lower cost than we were paying to Zoopla. It might be a regional thing, but in the West Mids region Rightmove is without question the only one-stop shop that buyers and sellers are interested in. OTM isn’t going to change that but it does fight off the threat of us being equally reliant and therefore at the mercy of a dominant/aggressive second choice portal like Zoopla.
You don’t like the cost of a website that probably covers it’s costs god knows how many times over?
I don’t LIKE paying it, but I didn’t dispute it’s value.
The value is completely irrelevant. Just like how you probably sell to a potential vendor you can get a higher price than an internet agent, thus making your higher fee irrelevant.
I’m all for having a pop at RM + Z when it’s a valid point – But cost is not an issue when it’s return justified.
“But cost is not an issue when it’s return justified”
At what point does it become UNjustified?
You see – you’ve just highlighted the problem, LA201625.
You genuinely believe that without Rightmove your branch/business would suffer beyond all recognition.
It would happen – because you would expect it to.
So you wouldn’t ever risk what you consider to be a foregone.
It’s the perfect self-fulfilling prophecy – for which RM sowed the seed on Day #1… and have been reaping the benefits daily since.
Take RM away from any business and it’ll perish, even the elder generation 70 plus ask us if we’re on rightmove!
“Take RM away from any business and it’ll perish…”
How many ‘what if?’ can we throw at that one – and what would be your responses?
Here’s your starter for ten:
WHAT IF Rightmove shut down overnight. Or gave you a week/fortnight/month notice?
Oh – and while I’ve got your attention, there are posts awaiting your attention on the Arena (Smile Please’ OTM Analysis), also on the main page story related to the same: http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/dont-miss-this-great-analysis-of-onthemarket/
Look forward to some frenzied replying! ;o)
Why are you talking about something that’s never going to happen, PeeBee?
“Why are you talking about something that’s never going to happen, PeeBee?”
Because the unthinkable; the unspeakable… the impossible CAN and DOES happen, LA201625.
Read your history. Had a million things that SHOULDN’T/WOULDN’T/COULDN’T happen not happened – you wouldn’t be here to pick up the book or click the mouse.
So – that being the case, your answer would be…?
The answer is , IT WON’T EVER HAPPEN.
There has to be a MAJOR investment into an “alternative” website to challenge RM. It was the first site to propel properties onto the WWW.
Moaning about it’s costs is stupidity.
“The answer is , IT WON’T EVER HAPPEN.”
So – basically, the day it happens is the same day that a chuffin’ big asteroid falls from the vacuum of space and wipes out all life on the planet – yeah?
Stick with that plan if it works for you.
But buy a tin hat… just in case… you can never be too careful.
Tell me… is it supreme confidence; blind faith – or just morbid fear of what could actually happen – that have snapped your defences into place so tightly hat you can’t even play a game of ‘Let’s pretend…’?
You’ve lost the plot, PeeBee.
RM was the first property portal, and is recognised everywhere. Gets more views on a daily basis than BBC.
Explain to me, how you see rightmove being toppled from it’s perch of being the number 1 property website?
I don’t have to explain how – I’m simply asking “what if…?”.
Come on – play the game.
Be a sport.
Humour the old man.
What harm can it possibly be?
;o)
And there it is!!!!! the exact reason onthemarket is a waste of time. Agents think people go to rightmove because it has lots of houses….if we stopped putting our houses on it,,the public would go to the site that did….ffs…
if agents really are this stupid you deserve to pay £1000 per month instead of £300…
£700 would buy an X5, a trip to Australia every year, a staff member (on commission obs) or some food aid for Syrian kids stuck with being bombed by putin and assad.
Agents = Syrians
Rightmove = assad
Zoopla = rebels
Onthemarket…… United nations = watch from sidelines.
“And there it is!!!!! the exact reason onthemarket is a waste of time.”
Remind me, ‘Bless You’ – is that “waste of time” you refer to above the very same one that YOU joined?
And left in 9 months…. you stalker
“And left in 9 months….”
Oh – let’s not use such a phrase as “left in 9 months” – sounds harsh… uncaring.
Let’s say you reneged on your Contract instead.
Has a more… factual… ring to it, don’t you think?
Well said DJV.
DVJ, I can only imagine you need the weekend off, otm took Z out of the game!!
Deluded,and Very Jaded dear dear TFIF!!!
Some more turkeys voting for Christmas.
100% agree with Mark – Step away from OTM, I get that….. but to come out with the dribble Z ask you to come out with for their PR benefits just makes you sound a bit daft when you presumably came away from Z on the basis they really gave you sod all.
Agents dropped the website which gave them the least to support OTM, or turned their back on OTM because both RM and Z performed well…… so what an earth did these lot do….. drop Z when it was their biggest lead generator or equal to RM? if they did the latter, then they were a bit daft from day 1.
Either way – Come on AM – You’ve got to get this sorted, perhaps do share the contractual relationship as not doing so fuels the fire the……. well gets danny all excited and on a Friday we don’t need it.
Agreed, would have sounded better if they said they made a mistake in the first place! But this agent has also just closed 2 of its offices
“Either way – Come on AM – You’ve got to get this sorted…”
Time to smell the coffee, AM – if one of your most staunch supporters from Day #1 posts this then there’s definitely trouble at t’mill.
They got to the first hurdle, jumped over it and then trotted along ……………….. What they should be doing, is being seen to have recognised the jockey can’t get the horse to go change gear. Seems more like waiting for the 5th circuit (year) to arrive when they should be moving ahead of the pack NOW.
Im just excited it Friday Ric….
haha, good man. Enjoy your weekend danny. (Genuinely mean that, beyond OTM, we all need to play nicely)
Were all firends with differing opinions….. enjoy your weekend too , expect youll be saving the industry somehow or other 😉
I will be working fella, hands on business owner….. so no such things as a TGI-Fiday in my world (unless we are talking food)
As for saving the industry……. Only one thing in my industry has to survive and if it does… the rest I’m not overly fussed about……. so as long as my business is surviving… then all is good at RicTowers 😉
I undestand why they may have gone back to Zoopla. However I dont understand why Foulkes has to enthuse like Zooplas PR spokesman. Delighted, impressive audience, delivers. If they are that good then it raises some serious questions over his decision to leave them in the first place. Sweetheart deal?
Indeed a sweetheart deal, I get offered it from a Z rep every ****** month….. I’ve finally had to explain how many months are in 3 and a bit years…..so he can write the next chase for 2020. Every time he calls I think, crikey that 5 years flew by.
Then they say – you do know we own Encore/Vebra don’t you……. sounds like a threat every time they say it so….. now looking at alternative software providers to escape paying anything to them.
If I were Z, I’d stop gloating about owning Encore and Vebra. Encore is a terrible piece of software.
Can’t be any worse than Alto…
Ha, never heard of it!
Trust me – you want to keep it that way!
I can recommend software called etheress – the company that write it personalise it by writing whatever add on’s you might want. Pretty useful if you are trying to stand out from the crowd.
kieron@xenogenic.co.uk
Joining Tom in the shameless hussy stakes, Ric if you do want to review options we’d love to talk please drop us a line at Simon@Reapit.com
In fact in a painfully tortured way to stay relevant with the story about so that Ros doesn’t take the big stick to me its actually a move that Howard Cundey themselves have just made.
Yes pretty sure I got away with that.
I actually really liked reapit. Decent piece of software that.
erm……. Whaley (Hello bye the way)…… but you’re not selling it to me, when you promo Howard Cundey business choices are something I should follow (Based on this story I mean!! – I am sure HC is a fab agency).
Both are welcome to drop me a line on your software packages…… so I will get in contact with you chaps via email later today or Monday…. I will reference it Ric from EYE so you can thank ROS for her free advertising 😉 perhaps pay her a 10% comm fee, of which I want 5% Ros for suggesting the commission. #happydays
“Then they say – you do know we own Encore/Vebra don’t you…”
Thing is, Ric – you now can’t miss or ignore it, as Vebra have recently INTEGRATED ZooplaPro into the Alto dashboard.
It’s there – has its’ own tab to click and everything.
Maybe we should do one of those ‘open letters’ that Iain White’s band of unhappy campers like so much – along these lines:
Dear Vebra
I DON’T WANT ZOOPLA ANYWHERE NEAR MY DATA.
TAKE IT AWAY.
T’would be rude not to try…
Evening PeeBee….
Absolutely – I called MOVEIT(not sure if Alto has this) sometime ago as being a touch suspicious also, when Encore tried switching it on and telling me how wonderful it would be. It is a horrid way to break the local business relations you have with solicitors etc! I hated it, as we need to keep picking up the phone with good old fashioned referrals and support our local businesses, not just sell referrals to the cheapest bidder.
Encore/Alto will very much go down the sell your data route and integrate it with the public in someway soon I am sure, the more Z learn about your fees the worst this will pan out for us. So having Z look at my Encore records every day scares the living daylight out of me.
I also remember suggesting EARLY DOORS that AM could or should look to develop an Alto type solution for its agents so they can attract agents who may also get or want the benefit of software combined with a portal and offer something different (not just another portal)…..Thing is I can’t blame Z for doing this (buying PSG) and now oddly I wish RM would have done it, as the way OTM are going, I am going to be back to just one portal soon and I will need software to compliment RM, which I suspect Z will make Encore work for it more than RM as the months go by.
Pot and kettle mc, likewise when they left Z to join otm, otm would have lauded the fact an “11 branch company” were joining them but now they are leaving they are merely an individual so as I said Pot and Kettle and throughout the arguments of those for and those against you have all used it, talk about hypocracy jees.