A number of estate and letting agents who advertise at OnTheMarket and have now been off Rightmove for some months have spoken to OTM about their experiences.
According to the testimonials released by OTM, some agents say they are now getting more in terms of quality leads for less money, while others suggest the lettings fee ban will force more agents to quit Rightmove.
Julia Dajani from Elizabeth Scott, a sales and lettings firm in Surrey, said: “It was a no-brainer, why pay Rightmove more and get fewer leads?
“The quality and number of leads from OTM are much better than we were getting from Rightmove. We’ve signed up for three years and removed our properties from Rightmove in February.
“As a small business, I was apprehensive about leaving but it hasn’t made any difference to us.
“Our customers are satisfied as we are still securing viewings and completing transactions – where the lead comes from is of no consequence to them.”
Marcus Parkinson, director of Lime Tree Lettings and Sales in Kettering, said: “Six months ago we decided to come away from Rightmove.
“This has so far saved us around £8,500. I wasn’t happy with the way we had been treated so we did it on principle but nothing has changed – we are still selling and letting properties.
“In June, out of our total portal leads, OTM supplied us with 56% and Zoopla gave us 44%.
“OTM is the industry’s response against rising portal fees. If an agent wants to do something about the annual increases they receive then they should support it.
“As the fee ban begins to bite, I think more agents will move away from Rightmove.”
Dylan Williams from Rees Richards, a sales-only office in Swansea, said: “We have been using OTM for nearly two years and dropped Rightmove around a year ago.
“It was clear to us early on that OTM was outperforming Rightmove in terms of sales leads by three to one, resulting in a substantial increase in revenue for us.
“We have since signed up with OTM for five years and we are in a better position now than we were while we listed with Rightmove. We have not only made a cost saving but we are getting more enquiries.
“Currently, OnTheMarket is dwarfing Zoopla by three to one.”
Sarah Hayes from Hayes Residential Lettings in Doncaster, said: “We have been off Rightmove for around six months and also used to advertise on Zoopla but have found we no longer need either. We back OTM 100% and have listed with it since 2015.
“We haven’t seen any difference since we cancelled our contract with Rightmove and we’ve saved a fortune in membership fees.
“Ten years ago, an agent had to be on Rightmove to be taken seriously but my attitude has entirely changed now.
“Many agents are thinking seriously about their next steps because of the tenancy fee ban, everyone is looking to reduce their costs.”
Junaid Ishfaq, from Rentigo in Essex, said: “We’ve signed up to OTM for five years and came off Rightmove in September last year which is long enough to know we made the right decision.
“Our business is now more efficient because the leads from OTM are of a far better quality than those we received from Rightmove.
“We are now dealing with quality tenants who actually want to move and so we are delivering a better service for our customers. We also receive more leads now too.”
Rob Sargent, CEO of The Acorn Group, which has 36 offices across south-east London and Kent, said OTM’s leads had nearly trebled over the last year.
The group still lists with Rightmove but Sargent said: “We are constantly reviewing our portal mix and assessing whether we need to be on more than one.
“If OTM’s success and momentum continues, which I have every reason to believe in, I can absolutely see it becoming the only portal we need.
“The leads supply from OTM is high in number. Overall it gives us around 70% of Rightmove’s volume across sales and lettings, but the quality from OTM is better so the conversion rate is consequently excellent.
“It’s also crucial to point out that each Rightmove lead is double the cost of one from OTM.”
OTM boss Ian Springett said: “It’s pleasing to see the tide is turning within the portals market as we see more agents not only migrating away from Rightmove but also feeling they’re not missing out.
“Until very recently, this would have been considered impossible by many agents.
“We are committed to increasing the value we provide to agents in terms of leads and brand visibility and to deliver a market-leading, genuine alternative to Rightmove and Zoopla.”
Comments (30)
Difference of opinion, you should believe in yourself and your business, Rightmove don’t sell property you do, if your relying on RM to get instructions then you clearly need help, you need to lead the way not follow the pied piper.
Smile please, you must be a RM rep or someone who’s ffffrightened to leave them, if you’re a high street agent then before long you will be the only one subsiding the online agents. So are you trying to tell me you back RM over OTM, you must be deluded or have bags of money to throw away.
As you see from previous posts i am as critical if not more of Rightmove.
The rep comment comes from the fact the MANY sales calls a day i receive is so easy to spend MY money (the business owner).
I do have bags of money, Not afraid to spend it on good services, products or tech. OTM is none of that. Its a waste of money and even if they do become a viable alternative (a big IF) they will just become another RM.
Yes i am frightened to leave RM along with 99% of the rest of the estate agency world. I am not worried about leads from rightmove, i am worried other agents will use it against me and steal my market share. My average fee is a little over 4k at the moment, if i lose just one instruction in a month per branch i am worse off.
Again i don’t need the business (or lack of it) any portals give me, its the other agents that’s the issue and RM know this.
Spot on.
So a 5 year tie in with over 2K worth of share at £21000 is a no brainier when most are paying Rightmove more than that in 1 year and get nothing in return part from the fear of leaving. If everyone did this then it would be bye bye Rightmove and hello shares.
Spoken like a true rep.
Easy to spend other peoples money and make wild claims.
Ha ha.
We’re all reps, aren’t we?!
OTM does actually work for some of us.
What’s the alternative? OTM go bust and RM increase fees even more?
Well done doomsters.
My 1 year FREE subscription with OTM ends in August .
The local OTM rep came to see me today to try and convince me to continue with a paid subscription.
There were 3 options .
A one year tie in ( no free shares)
A 3 year tie in 1665 shares that can be sold at the end of the 3 years.
A 5 year tie in 2500 shares that can be sold at the end of 5 years.
The thing is , the public aren’t that aware of OTM in my area ( Fife, Scotland).
Any advice or opinions would be welcome.
Look carefully what the shares are worth.
I believe they will say the shares have a value of circa £1.65 (IPO price) when in fact today they are trading at less than a pound.
Also what evidence is there they will go up in value. 5 years with OTM at £350 per month is a tie in of £21,000 !!!! at today’s value 2500 shares are worth just £2,412.50 meaning you will have paid OTM a little under £19,000 for the privilege of marketing with them.
Given a large number of agents have not paid them, question why that is (no value for money?).
Go with your gut, if the public don’t know about it why gamble 19k of your hard earned money?
Go the middle route and hedge your bets!!
Share price could start to increase by end of the year.
I completely understand the ill feeling towards OTM by those who signed up for something very different to what they ended up with.
However, I wouldn’t confuse it with RM and their continued draining of our industry. RM will seek to take as money from you as they can and once the corpse of your business has been drained they will just move onto their next victim. It must,in my opinion be getting near to the point where someone in one of the chains has the guts to pull the plug as the discount they get seems to be disappearing. After nearly 18 months without RM I will never go back. The truth is you don’t need it.
OTM are not to be trusted. The way they’ve treated V1 members is worse than shabby, given the opportunity, they’ll be as bad as RM. it’s time that we agents started to use traditional methods for prospecting/marketing etc and try to avoid being taken for mugs by the likes of OTM, RM, ZPG etc.
As someone who feels that OTM has been shown to be as self-serving as RM by experience as a V1 supporter tied in with no deals and the heavy handed approach they took regarding enforcement of the terms for initial supporters against those who were offered freebies and short tie in’s when they aren’t really producing the quality leads at this time I have no more respect or loyalty to OTM than I did RM.
That being said, I left RM 4 months ago and won’t be going back, after all we won’t see any change whilst we all list with them and if you list with them and moan then that just silly, because clearly you see it as integral to your business which justifies any cost… We re-directed spend to social media marketing, prospecting and a new member of staff and the results speak for themselves!
One very happy and far more profitable agent right here….
‘We re-directed spend to social media marketing, prospecting and a new member of staff and the results speak for themselves! One very happy and far more profitable agent right here….’
Hallelujah!! More of this please.
This is simply an advertorial for OTM who shafted a lot of us first time round and who will be the Rightmove of the future. Don’t touch!
Presume you don’t use portals then?
Last time they were reported, the cash burn rate and level of reserves didn’t look like taking OTM beyond the end of this year.
Would be good to see “without RM” testimonials from some proper agents with material sales stock?
I’m sure the impact of coming off RM has been limited for these guys because they’re pretty small.
our OTM lettings leads are a load of tripe (we’re not big in lettings, only 5 or so available at any time). Mostly about properties no longer available or benefit tenants, I suspect as a result of Facebook marketplace.
OTM sales leads are much more scarce and we unfortunately couldn’t do without RM in our part of the world (Bristol).
This is completely echoed by my office. OTM leads are pretty much exclusively lettings, but for whatever reason the Farcebook marketplace adverts are constantly weeks out of date, meaning the “benefit” of having our properties advertised there is pointless. Does this break the government law regarding properties with an application on needing marketing to cease?
Yes we have the same issue! We just left OTM as for 3 months 65% of all leads were on properties no longer available.
A very ironic name “ On The Market” as normally they aren’t!!!
National leave right move day would sort all this out. I suggest Christmas Eve. That should bring some focus to their pricing and treatment of their customers over the next three months….
Rightmove will probably then report us all to the CMA claiming we are operating a cartel!!!!
Plenty of agents regret locking themselves into long contracts with OTM so much so many stopped paying them and OTM are owed millions .
Surely this article is written by a OTM rep?!?!
Great news guys. With RM cost at over £1000 now, will be more to follow.
Highly surprised not to see your testimonial there?
I’m gutted.
Thankfully I’m on the OTM website review page.
I thought I might have heard from you this week? My name and firm woz in PIE on Tuesday…? Still waiting for your call.
How odd!? Just looked and no testimonials from York based agents? It’s like you made it up.
Woz!?!?! Seriously
We finally bit the bullet and handed in our notice to Rightmove yesterday. Looking forward to not receiving all those ridiculous calls from RM account managers trying to show us how to get ‘better value’ from our membership before throwing in the 10% annual price increase comment. We have been with them from the start…£30 per month back then, £1500 per month now! Ludicrous when you consider that is more than our rent and the other portals costs added together. We feel LIBERATED of the scourge of Rightmove!
Good for you. More of this please.
Some positive Rightmove Leaver Feedback.
The relevance of the 3/5 year or however long “Lock-in” remains troubling for me. I got shafted with the OTM V1 Lock-in and I see little evidence to suggest that the OTM V2 contractual arrangements won’t end up being another millstone around those agents who signed up under those conditions.
I’m all for DUMPING RIGHTMOVE however if OTM V2 is truly going to serve Our Industry then it should DUMP ITS LOCK-IN and focus on providing consistent value/quality in which case agents will freely stay.
Our Vendors don’t sign-up for 2/3/5 years, why should we lock-in to a service provider?
Let OTM V2 earn our loyalty in contrast to Rightmove who have shamefully abused our loyalty in pursuit of unjustifiable profit margins.