A new property portal has launched, taking its stock from agents’ own websites.
However, its founders say that TheHomeBoard is unlike controversial Houser.
Igor Popov, one of the co-founders, said: “Our property search engine redirects the leads to the original site – we always show the original link in the property’s page.
“We are also trying to work alongside the agents in order to offer a better service to all users of property portals.
“We come from a tech background, and we believe that good technology is the key to making things efficient and cost-effective.
“Our service is free to agents and will remain so. There are no hidden costs – we offer our service free, forever. There are plenty of other opportunities to monetise if you reach a certain scale.
“The agents are totally in control of their listings, and we will remove – and not crawl again in future – the sites of those agents that don’t want their properties displayed. No questions asked.”
The site, which only covers London at the moment, is here
Comments (73)
Hi Guys
I reached this thread through a search and landed in your debate about RM and Z and alternatives. I have always been of the opinion that RM and Z charge extortionately for what they provide but am surprised at the number of responses that resent any site that may offer agents to list free. Does this emanate from the fact that any new competitor may end being another RM even if it offers free listings initially or is the issue just about agents not liking their data scraped?
I would have thought that if a new site offers a free listing at the expense of agents data and becomes popular and helps agents sell properties then is that not a win win. Even if they end up charging a nominal fee and get good results, isn’t that better than the current monopoly sites? If not then the BIG question for me is what would agents want to see in a site as the ideal scenario?
On a side note, (igor) i’ve had a scan over the HB site and i think the design is pretty “untidy”
Scraping agents web data is for no other reason but to make a web site get started. Once that web site is established what is there then to switch to a vendor direct portal ….. leaving the high street agents who thought they were getting such a good free deal out in the cold. No High Street agent should put themselves in this position, get real.
We really don't need these scraper sites anymore and why would we now that we have OTM. Currently everything (inc recruitment figures) is pretty much on schedule. 150 new branches signed up last week, only a few have had their listings put 'on hold' due to not fully abiding by the one other portal rule (but they will eventually come in line) and more importantly many agents that have already signed to OTM cannot list yet as their contracts do not expire with Rightmove until mid March. The only place that I see any major negativity is on twitter where most agents rely heavily on telling people on a valuation that there socially the 'bees knees' because there on the Z100 list.
Sorry Smile Please, sorry to drop this reply down the bottom if I posted it above Ros and Nick's system of grouped replies would hide it…….Under my desk is the specification for the first generation of Property Advertising web sites, it was written when a Robotics 56k modem was 'the business', AOL was the only workable access to the world wide web and Ian Wright was still wearing a number 8 shirt. Despite the introduction of draw a map and applicant notifications nothing much has changed, Rightmove and Zoopla are still Find it yourself advertisement sites which rely on criteria matching that was past it's prime when Windows 95 was being used.
The only thing that has really changed in 20 years is that the service suppliers now have more knowledge & understanding of and ACCESS to your clients and applicants than you do as agents. What is worse and the primary driver in facilitating fee erosion, increased competition and FSBO the service suppliers are dishing out quite sensitive information to anyone with internet access.
The update to Rightmove and Zoopla won’t necessarily be more technically advanced but it should have some quite strict limitations on what is put into the public domain without the express authority of the Agent, their clients or purchasers.
Okay i'm genuinely interested in what you say and i might be dumbing it down and simplifying it but in essence what you are saying is the system is fit for purpose but is creating lazy agents? What changes could the portals make? again genuinely interested. The portals want access to our clients and applicants as they earn money from it, why would they want to change it? – I know why we as agents would want this but thats never going to happen.
The system is fit for Rightmove, Zoopla and their partner firms purposes but is far from fit for purpose for Agents. It isn't creating lazy agents it is creating too many agents.
As agents it is your goodwill, your reputation, your experience, your knowledge and your data that differentiates you from your competitors and your suppliers. As expressed on this thread Agents are happy to protect their copyright data from data scraping for free but rather perversely have got themselves in a position where not only are they happy to pay to have their data shared they are happy for the data sharers to earn revenue from the shared data and for their own data to be used against them to power their competitors (madness). This thread isn't the place to discuss how things should and could change poor old Igor and Chelsea haven't been able to do much promoting of their solution. On that subject they need to buy Agency domain knowledge- sooner rather than later.
Have to go, acceptable offer and a 2nd viewing to attend to.
I'm not promoting any one here just stated my opinion purely based on the interface and usability. Would like to know what the cost of this site compared to OTM.
Says in article its free OTM between £280ish – £380ish dependant on sign up, location or office numbers. all on their site or call the reps, One thing OTM do well is tell you the cost unlike Z and RM who pluck a number and double it to new agents!
Sorry Chelsea11 we tend to be a bit suspicious when new poster pop up and only make positive comment on the latest product or troll dissenters of the product. Smile Please was lucky enough, last week, to pick up a stalker troll who was monitoring when he was posting. If you are a new and genuine visitor, welcome to EYE.
I agree that it is in RM and Z's interest and we were foolish to get to this situation but even if a portal is launched today protecting agents and not accepting any old Tom, Dick or Harry do you really think agents will switch to it on mass?
I meant cost of developing the site it self.
Ha in that case no idea but an interesting question for the PRO OTM supporters!
Your post actually contains one of the objections of getting Agents to join en-mass. For Every Tom Dick or Harry you don't want to join there is a Tom, Dick and Harry pressurising the site not to let you join. You don't get the luxury of that condition with other service suppliers; gas, water, sewerage and electric so that, with respect, is a business call the property web site administrators should make. It is a fundamental role of your business to control it's competition. As I said this morning about delegating stuff to others, the negs shouldn't delegate informing applicants about properties to the internet, you shouldn't be delegating competition control to anyone else either ( the AM team are and it will not work) That said I can see how showing you how to control Goboff, Gordon & Co with their Bedroom Billies might be of interest and worthy of a subscription if it is done honestly and without artificial manipulation. Whole market data is important but within that whole market data Agents must develop and be allowed to develop next generation internet marketing skills and to do that a property website with whole market presence has to play second fiddle to agents own website.
Before I come back to Smile Please 1. Ringi sit in a quiet room away from the internet and come out when you understand the difference between Retail sales and Service sales. 2. Gump look up the word delegate I didn't use the word lazy, often delegating is the smartest thing to do but in the case of Agency your obviously guilty admission is probably spot on. You said it not me! 3. PaulinIOW the source analysis was wrong. Please bear in mind I have been in where the numbers are collected, calculated and crunched. I asked basic agent KPI questions, the sort of thing UKpropmaster used to justify staying out of AM, off OTM and on RM and Zoopla. "Dunno about that, its that number there" pointing to a number of 'somethings' that exceeded the UK population every 3 months. the people analysing data have no idea how hits, page views and time on site relate to enquiries, viewings or instructions and why that even matters. A big number is a good number? Yeah? No?
Sorry Robert but you lost me at the end of that–are you saying that most firms aren't properly looking at the data available to them and are therefore inferring causality between marketing efforts and available KPIs like page views or inquiries? Or am I completely off base…?
No I was telling Paul the the analysts and statisticians who are pumping out; hits, page views and time on site stats and drawing conclusions from those statistics don't understand the relevance or importance of what they are pumping out. An example, "90% of home search starts on the internet!" Really, where is the evidence for that? Where is the detail that even explains that statement? Phil Spencer suck it in his Zoopla promo vid last week, so perpetuating what is to me an internet industry myth.
Oh, yes that makes much more sense. Yes, agreed entirely and thank you for clarifying.
Not this Paul! Exactly right, its a shop window another tool. Most buyers are local and are aware of who the best agents in the area, for those that don't they can use the internet, but if you are clued up and want to get ahead of the stuff on the internet, you are in touch with the local agent to see what's coming on and to make sure they know what you are after, so when it comes in or is about to be valued, they will let you know. Spinning Phil's words on their head, I would say 90% of those using the internet to buy, already know you!!!
"Are you the owner of the data about this property? If you want to remove or change how we display your data contact us". Oh dear, oh dear I suggest you quickly get hold of a lawyer before lunch. Having said that, nice looking site but is only a mixture of other property web sites ideas, nothing new. Still can't get my head around "fee". I can't find you registered as a charity. Someone must be covering the costs?
It looks like a great site. much more advanced than OTM with some useful information.
Actually i must say its not a bad offering for a start up! – The dislike on this post are from people who have not taken the trouble to look at it or are just dead against another portal.
People do not sell houses…..people buy them. No Agent in the world would sell me a property I did not want……remember 80% of house sales are purchased by locals and I do not need anyone to tell me how many sockets are in the house, the garden faces south and there is an Aga Cooker. Agents assume buyers are thick and therein lies the problem within the marketplace. All a buyer wants is the knowledge of what properties are on the market!!
See above my response to Gump who said a similar thing……our whole economy and social structure is based on people selling things to us and you think there is no place for it. So tell me Neilw, you've seen the features, a south facing garden, the aga, now what are the benefits of having those things? sun in the garden all day, cooking that is taken to a new level in an aga, those cold winter days, you come back from a walk to the warmth of the aga, the slow roast cooking in the bottom over, the thoughts and feel of country living…..that Neilw is called selling. You take the features and you then sell the benefits! A buyer may not feel they need it, of course they don't, but our seller, who is paying us, does expect and pays us to do it!
I do not need an Agent to tell me the garden is facing south….I just need to look at which direction the SKY Dish faces. You have just confirmed my comments by that Agents try to sell by making a patronising sales pitch.
That did make me laugh, "which direction the sky dish faces" …how classy.
As an applicant you don't need an agent at all. However most vendors are happy to shell out good money so they don't have to talk or negotiate with potential purchasers, to sniff out lies and tall stories and bear the brunt of rudeness, arrogance and often quite ridiculous expectations. I agree that isn’t selling it is a service. Experience tells me those who complain most about agents are those who necessitate vendors needing to employ an agent; the liars, the malcontents, the jealous and the know it alls who run up against Agents who are simply being paid to work around and put up with all of that .
It's a good debate, but I would say this…. How many people buy what was put on the applicant card? All those buyers that ended up in a different post code, in a new build home instead of a period house, dropped the idea of a having a garden for a top floor flat with views, they all knew their mind and they knew what they wanted. I'm am sure they wouldn't not buy a house they did not want, that's common sense and a very hard thing to do. But if like RM etc you just list properties and leave it up to the seller to pick one, they may not get their perfect home. Too much choice leads to indecision and mistakes (ever been in a restaurant with 5 pages of food to choose from?!!!!!), so that's where the good agent comes in. Selling the idea, the dream, the potential, the upside of an area or the new hot spot, that is the skill. The most successful agents can do this, the less successful don't do as well, because they are looking for what is on the applicant card or what the buyer asked for, or just say look on the website! Not all buyers are the same and some need guidance, some don't want ideas and some only know their own mind, but if you shut out all possibilities because you believe that your opinion is the only opinion that counts, you might just miss out on a few nice things in life. One last point, saying all agents think buyers are thick is a bit disingenuous and isn't the case for the majority of the industry. I think some people who have high opinions of themselves can mistake friendly helpful advice from an agent as thinking they are thick, but therein lies the problem, some people just can't be helped.
Hi all. Igor here, one of the co-founders. First thank you all for your comments, its all positive for us, even though sometimes some comments sometimes sting. Nevertheless, I would like to reassure you that if you don't want to see your properties on our site, you can find a complaint form on our site, and request that these be removed. We usually remove them in 24-48h and will notify you. On the other hand if you want to be on our site, a simple email request with your website is all that's needed.
Regardless of what your position about portals is, I think it would be nice to have a bit of a background into why we built HomeBoard. As founders and saw a lot of opportunity to innovate and contribute to this space. We just wanted to build a portal that we would like ourselves and our friends to use and then see the feedback from a wider community. Obviously the first step is getting listings on our site. Besides innovations on the site, on of the things that surprised us most as newcomers coming into this industry was the level of monopoly held by certain portals, for something that can be arguably made better and in a more cost effective way. That being said we're not in for a free ride on agents data. We believe that these will eventually be offered to anyone as Open Data when the time is right (see our article on this – http://estateagentnetworking.co.uk/why-the-uk-estate-agency-market-needs-an-open-data-revolution/). We know that sometimes such proposals are met with skepticism or discomfort, but it is our belief that it is the right thing to do eventually.
It is fair to assume that if it is "the right thing to do eventually" that 100's(maybe 1,000s) of other new portals with the same business model will throw their hat in the ring as well…….what happens then?
Imagine that all the data on all the listings were open. Sure, some would build better products and become more popular and some would build bad products that would die. Would the more popular then start to charge money? Sure they might. But the issue is this: If someone comes along and would want to make a better product they should be stopped because there is a monopoly on the data. Let them compete for the quality of the product and attracting users, not for the data. I think that would already be a sea change.
Correction. It should be 'shouldn't be stop …'
As a business how does it make any money?
There are many ways. One is doing advertising, one is charging for optional premium services. The point being that paying just for the option to be on a site seams bad for everyone (except RightMove and Zoopla of course).
Dear Igor, I have no wish to take the time to fill in yet another complaint form in order to get my clients properties removed from an unauthorised website. Please familiarise yourself with copyright symbol which appears on the majority of our websites. Please do not scrape my copyright material.
I don't think anyone has commented on your site Igor after the 1st post, it seems to have all gone in a different subject.
"as newcomers coming into this industry". You really should have done your homework first. You appear to have assumed what your doing is OK … err very very wrong and very costly if any agent should object. There is clear legislation that prohibits you from doing what you have done.
Igor, i take i different view from some of the posters. I am all for innovation and offering something different as long as it is truly better. What ideas do you have that you can better that what is already available? why would i want my stock advertised with you? Truth is majority of my "Leads" come from RM (as do probably most agents) i am on Z and get nowhere near as many leads. Now Z is a massive brand with some equally massive backers, Daily Mail, telegraph etc and they spend millions on advertising. What i am trying to get at is, what is the point of your site? even if you scrap every single property off every single website and have the most comprehensive stock available you will not get the public to use it unless you have an incredible USP or such as OTM you have the agents themselves promoting it. And on a side note will you take private listings?
Thank you for your honest comments. I think everything you mentioned is spot on. We have a few things that we’re working on currently and some that are for later in the pipeline. Some of the current ones is the ability to let private listings on our site. We think that both agents and private individuals should have an equal chance to compete in the same arena. Agents will always be around and will be preferred for most people, however we don’t think we should not penalize people that want do it alone. One of the other things we’re working on is making things more social and transparent by allowing people to share their experiences. Are these feature enough of a USP? Who knows, right? The best we can do is to try to build the product that we want to see in the world and are proud of, and then tell as much people as possible and hope that it catches on.
Unfortunately saying you allow private listings is what will cost you at least my listings. I think any agent that gives away their stock to help promote the death of our industry would be mad. I think your heart is in the right place and on paper you would think your proposal makes sense but this is the issue with people coming into the property industry expecting agents to embrace new ideas when they are flawed. Honestly if you want your portal to take off you need to either embrace agents or private listings / online agents. If you were in my shoes why would you want your stock on a portal that accepts private listings which in turn means you do not get a chance to sell them?
Sorry Igor, in this post you took out a shotgun, pointed it at your foot and pulled the trigger! You just alienated not only Smile Please but 98% of your potential, long term, repeat customers. I said earlier in the thread that you needed Agency domain knowledge and you just proved it.
They keep on coming, one after the other, seen loads now over the years, to be honest if OnTheMarket fails then I cannot see another property portal ever succeed in breaking Rightmove/Zoopla duopoly.
I can! Rightmove and Zoopla are now legacy (out dated) systems on a life support machine, only being kept alive by Agents too reliant on them to switch the darn things off. As an Industry you have allowed the lowest rung of the ladder, the negotiators, to delegate their work load to Rightmove and Zoopla and become reliant on allowing applicants to buy property rather than selling property. If you know where to look and understand the economics of the industry there is clear evidence to demonstrate how reducing service levels to a bare minimum is faciltating increased low grade competition and reducing fees. By failing to recognise what they needed to produce to break the duopoly OTM in it current format has already failed in its stated aim and only if it is changed will it succeed in hitting it's membership targets.
That is probably the most accurate assessment of a situation I have read for a while.
Robert, i keep seeing this comment that RM and Z are outdated, What do you mean by that? ….. with out the tech speak! Are you saying they are outdated just because they need a new back end system or the actual features they posses? If it is the back end tech system why would they bother to update it? no competition, it works its reliable would changing it make any great difference?!
I have a viewing to do at 9:30 so I can't do a reply justice right now, traffic and ice means I have to dash off. I will post again when I get back. It isn't the tech that is out of date but the specific knowledge of how property is sold, an Agency business grown and how competition is controlled that is out of date.
And that is what high street book shops said about Amazon, I glad it was Amazon I invested in not them….
And that ringi is why you are not an estate agent. Books are a commodity, anyone can stock them, you buy them with a single cash transaction and you don't require the bookseller to help you read it afterwards. Well to be fair you might, but the rest of us not. Furthermore when you buy a book it doesn't have pages missing depending on how much you pay for it. Hardly the same thing is it!?!
So you refer to Negotiators as the lowest rung of the ladder and lazy, and there you are off to do a viewing at 9:30, cute. Estate Agents of any level cannot sell properties, we are merely introducers based on wish lists provided to us at registration, you perhaps may think your client might buy it, and, if they do, you have most certainly not "sold" it to them
So if you follow your logic Gump there is no need for sales people in any industry because according to you people don't need to be sold to they just need to be introduced to something. That probably the dumbest most naive comment Ive see anyone make, ever!
@RealAgent If someone walks into a mobile phone shop, they want to buy a mobile phone. The "sales person" shows them 3/4 phone and the customer makes a choice and buys one.
It is the same with our industry. Somebody registers to buy a house, we show them 2/3/4/5 , they make a choice and buy one.
Like the mobile phone "salesman" we too have given them options, they have made a choice.
Please explain to me how/why you think that you have "sold" them a house?
I think Gump I should actually be charging you for selling advice and I'm not sure I have time to teach you basic selling. What I will say is this read my response to the other none sales person that has posted on this article today and you then TELL ME how a sales person could influence your decision to purchase in your little scenario, and indeed why they would.
You don't answer a question with a question. If you genuinely believe that when someone registers to buy a house and they buy one that somehow you have sold it to them you are deluded. You can't sell someone something they already want, you offer options. If you then go on to get the FS, the solicitors, the survey etc, that's selling, opening 2/3/4/5 front doors is not
Oh I'm deluded am I? So tell me this, do we have access to every house that is on the market in an area? Seeing as you don't like answering questions I will answer it for you: no we don't, so are we going to have to SELL a property to a buyer to ensure its one of ours clients properties they buy? YES we are. Then we come to the property, do we tell them about the saleability of the area, do we paint a picture on what they could do to improve the property and what difference to their investment that might make, do we describe the levels of interest with a view to getting OUR CLIENT THE VENDOR the best possible price? Yes we do. That Gump is selling and its whats estate agents do!!!!
So that's what i've been doing wrong! Behave. Ok Mr Salesman, what is your viewings to sales figure? Being the top "seller" you are I can assume it's 1 viewing per sale or maybe 2 viewings per sale? Except it's not anywhere near that low is it, want to know why…….because you are an introducer providing options, not a salesman
Actually Gump I would imagine there are a number of agents reading this that have called an applicant on their mailing list with the exact house they are going to buy and done a deal, if you haven't then do you know what, I don't want to change you because there will be some competitors of yours out there that are wiping the floor with you. They will also continue to do so because you have so much to learn about selling.
"Actually Gump I would imagine there are a number of agents reading this that have called an applicant on their mailing list with the exact house they are going to buy and done a deal"…………..Of course there are, we have all done that at one time or another, but, did we sell it to them? No. We listened and matched their requirements, we then showed them a property we thought/hoped they would buy and they did, but because it was what they wanted, not because we sold it to them
Well make your mind up Gump, you can't change the goal posts. You asked whether my viewing ratio was one viewing to one sale. You went on to say it wouldn't be that low. Ive just told you exactly how you achieve that, now suddenly you want try and find protection in other comments on here by turning it into an argument about whether we sell the viewing or the property!!
Seriously RealAgent? You don't sell either, you are offering somebody something that they have told you they want!!! If you think that is selling then you really are deluded
Ok Gump google defines selling as: 1. to give or hand over something for money ( thats what the vendor does) and 2. To persuade someone the merits of (that is what estate agents do). Now you are getting a tad boring, but for future posts I suggest you change your handle to CHUMP!
A google quote! Brilliant! You keep on thinking you're a good salesperson RealAgent because that's what google says! LOL! I'm out
Thanks, Robert, I agree it is an accurate assessment with one exception. "…allowing negotiators to delegate their workload…" Allowing that to continue possibly would be fair, but a few years ago a source identification showed that of 60 sales only one came from a registered applicant ! If negotiators haven't got access to a prospective buyer they can't DO that job and we have had to evolve around the situation where viewing enquiries from portals are the first contact resulting in a sale. Negotiators still need to do an effective job from that point but whilst I would bring back the roladex in a heartbeat, the Genie cannot be put back in the bottle. (although it would be better if the bottle didn't cost so much to open !)
Haha! Turn off your internet, give them all a 'hot box' of applicants and a telephone – like us 'oldies' used to do! That'll sort out the men (women) from the boys (girls)!
RealAgent
on February 3, 2015 at 9:34 am
And that ringi is why you are not an estate agent.
ringi … you have fallen foul of RealAgent's rule which is 'If I disagree with you or you disagree with me … YOU ARE NOT AN ESTATE AGENT' … the arrogance of RealAgent knows no limits.
Well Harree if you are AGREEING with him then I think you have confirmed your credentials very loudly to all those who have disputed your claim to be an estate agent. I would love to see one single estate agent who would subscribe to the view that all we have to do is put the properties on a site like amazon and dispatch the order!
RealAgent … all you have done is confirm that your arrogance blinds you to understanding anything other than what you want to believe … my point was you accuse almost anyone who disagrees with you (especially if they are anti AM) of not being an estate agent … how infantile.
As for selling houses … whilst I would agree that a good presentation on a viewing can sometimes make the difference to a buyers decision ie., turn them from not being interested initially to making the decision to buy … those situations are in the minority. In the vast majority of cases the good presentation is simply reinforcing the decision that the viewer has already made that they like the house. RealAgent of course will love to delude himself that his flowery prose has turned disinterest in a property into a raging buying inferno. Utter nonsense.
Well do please tell me Harree, do you believe estate agency can be replaced by an Amazon like concept. That was what ringi said and that is what I challenged. Its a simple yes or no question by the way!? Oh and didn't you post yesterday that you WEREN'T anti OTM?!
Seems like 6 of 1 half a dozen of another. Truth is i have never sold a property and nor has any agent on here. The house sells itself. What i and all the good agents on here have done is sold a viewing. And thats just one reason wht high street agents are better than online agents. We dont rely on a pretty picture to sell a property, some houses and out right ugly! what we are able to do is talk a member of our database into viewing a property. We can then allay any fears they may have in the property once there but you cannot talk somebody into buying, encourage offers yes and work damn hard in negging the deal.
The two major issues that I have with AM are the one other portal rule and the 5 year contract. Who knows what may happen in digital and social media in the next 5 years and technical innovations that may impact on how people search for property. Take Facebook who originally were the only highly used social media site, we now have Youtube, Twitter, Flickr and Instagram amongst others. All different in their own way to Facebook but appealing and catering for diverse sectors within social media. Who's to say that a similar innovations or diversity from the standard RM and Z search format may not appeal to large sections of the buying and selling public? EA's will always have an important role to play in the buying and selling process but the way in which buyers and sellers interact between us and technology at their disposal could – and inevitably will – change. AM members could during the next 5 years be faced with a totally different form of challenge to RM and Z where different types digital media portals are driving significant amounts of traffic. The one other portal rule could leave AM agents at a huge disadvantage. IMO it's a risk not worth taking.
Actually you only have a problem with one of those things because as I am aware, anyone joining now under a bronze membership scheme is not subject to a 5 year contract.
The membership would evolve as required. Who on earth thought that they would be signing into concrete. Harree you really have no idea what OTM is.
Just go away already.