Rightmove has this morning announced what looks like an extraordinary tactical give-away as the portals war hots up.
In a surprise move, it will offer the technical specifications for its Real-time Data Feed (RTDF) free of charge to rival portals.
Development of Rightmove’s RTDF has been very costly, both in terms of research hours and financial investment.
It means the Rightmove version– which allows a property to be launched within minutes – looks now to become the industry standard.
The offer could be interpreted as sheer generosity to Zoopla or, more especially, Agents’ Mutual.
However, it is thought that both have been developing their own RTDFs at great expense, but could now have to walk away from their redundant investments.
The money spent by Agents’ Mutual, and possibly Zoopla, may now have to be thrown away, as none of the software suppliers will now want to adopt a different industry standard from the one Rightmove has said.
However, a Rightmove spokesperson said yesterday evening that there was no catch in the free offer. She insisted it was a move that Rightmove hoped would help agents and data-feed providers.
Rightmove is currently the only property portal that offers sales and lettings agents RTDF, which enables properties to be live to home-hunters within minutes.
Other data-feed uploads can take several hours or overnight for properties to appear.
On Rightmove, the feed works alongside new instant property alerts that home-hunters can sign up to so they can find out about new properties first.
Recent research shows that two-thirds of sellers (63%) would be more likely to choose an agent who could upload their property on to Rightmove immediately after property details are prepared, rather than wait several hours or longer.
James Micklethwait, Rightmove’s head of product development, said: “It took us 6,500 man hours to develop, test and implement RTDF.
“Other portals will save some of that effort by taking up this offer, but will still have several months to get their own systems ready, so it’s important they get cracking.
“This also means that the data-feed providers won’t have to find additional budget to develop a solution for another real-time format.
“It’s a helping hand from Rightmove as it means there is just one spec to deal with for the whole industry.”
Rightmove’s commercial director, Miles Shipside, said: “We are here to help agents and the industry improve service standards for home-movers, so if any property portal wants to approach us for our RTDF specification so they can copy and implement it into their own data feed, then give us a call.”
Rightmove said that research and experience of the thousands of branches which now benefit from real-time Rightmove feeds show that many landlords with a void looming, and many sellers, want to get full property exposure quickly.
It said RTDF can get their property launched immediately within minutes. Floor plans, photography and brochure sign-off can often delay marketing, so Rightmove’s goal is to help agents remove further inefficiency in the industry by allowing everyone access to RTDF, to provide an enhanced experience for home-hunters.
Ian Springett of Agents’ Mutual said: “I am pleased that Rightmove has reached this conclusion.
“The simple transfer of data between businesses which work for agents – software houses and portals – needs to be kept simple so unnecessary costs are avoided.”
Comments (57)
Costly to develop? Yeh right, the whole thing should take no more than a week to conceptualise and 3 weeks to implement – for people who know what they're doing of course.
The rest of us in the real world have been building (Real time) systems like this for years and Rightmove want some kind of medal for it?. Jokers, Inept I.T skill-less jokers at that
PP – yup, its me your favourite idiot again… but let's see whether the Christmas spirit is having any success in burrowing itself through
our so far inpenetrable skins and we can trade views rather than cheap insults in a scrabble to be Alpha Male, shall we? You, like Robert May, have an understanding of portal technology that probably outweighs the cumulative nous of most of us mere Estate Agents, and then multiplied by the number of sub atomic particles in the Crab Nebula – so basically you're lecturing to an audience of sub Neanderthals here about the Theory of Relativity. But of course, the same goes for the vast majority of people who use property portals – or any other search engine for that matter – they simply want to get from start to result in as few clicks as possible with as little clutter/distraction as possible. So far, the super portals have given people the best of a ridiculously bad bunch and they nor we have given much of a shizzle as to what code is used or which technology they have implemented – it has been reasonably fit for purpose I guess. The next generation of portals, with all the whizz-bang gizmo technology implemented will no doubt make the current look like a Speccy 64 up against an XBox 360 – and if I read Robert correctly, at least some of the technology that will power it has been sitting on ice for a decade already. Now you see that as no great deal – and you're probably right in that respect – but the point that I'm trying to make, PP, is that so far the public have not only warmed to what you consider the archaic technology that RM etc are using – they are positively HOT for it and lap up every little "new" widget that they 'gift' them with like ambrosia from the Gods… even if it is simply drip-feeding them with something that should have been rolled out for Yuppies.
Have a great Christmas, PP. I look forward to 2015 and further trading with you – whether it be insults or serious debate – you know I'll always be there! ;o)
Hello Peebee, I feel that post could be more aimed at me than PP, as yet it is unclear why PP is posting here, he knows about web stuff but I haven't quite worked out if he is bringing anything new to the property party.
Joe Public can only use and enjoy what is available to them and if that means frustrating DIY, machine gun data searching for property on a Daily basis all I can say is they are far too easily pleased. You are an agent who over the years who has clearly established he knows how to sell property. Other than the at best lazy neg, daily notifications from RM can you identify a single 'service' provided by the portals that comes anywhere near being a service? (rhetorical question- answer, Nope) The Generation 3 portals are weak criteria driven matching systems that act as a partially indexed library of what is available, (sometimes repeated multiple times) intermixed with stuff that is no longer available. Sure there are people who enjoy the jumble sale experience of shopping at TK Max but really the job of finding a home ought to be up at the John Lewis end of the shopping experience where Agents are recognised for the service they offer rather than as just another agency listing alongside passive intermediaries.
I'm a marketing guy. Builder, property developer and landlord. But my background is marketing… and yes, I do own an estate agency (back seat passenger).
I know that people buy property as opposed to some silver tongued salesman schmoozing them into a deal they might otherwise have "overlooked".
My take is to make it easier / better for buyers to search… and for sellers to represent their property better and to more relevant people. That costs.
Fair enough. My Ea brand can charge for it. My observation is that a brand spanking (no chuffer has heard of) new portal is a risk. To tell me you are removing my properties from a platform I know & trust to add them to a new one, then my question is . . . . . W H Y ?
As a marketer I see an opportunity, same as Rm. Website amended, brochures printed, press statements out, advertorials booked, leaflets done. All in the bag.
Not too long ago, on these very pages (well EAT) agents were ****-a-hoop at the arrival of Google property search. "We are saved" "fu rm" etc… if Google failed I'm not putting my shirt on estate agents (who I & the public wouldn't trust to run a bath) to succeed.
RM will have a marketing campaign cocked, loaded, cross hairs between the eyes, and a spare pile of ammo. I have.
Thank you for the reply Blue, there is one sentence in there that possibly gives game set and match to OTM but that depends on whether they have built, as has been reported to back to me from a client, a Rightmove lite.
As a marketer you will know the least effective form of advertising was spam/junk mailing which is considered good if it hits 4%, how do you reconcile the performance figures of Portals? with a cumulative claimed 22,000,000 individuals apparently looking for property each month resulting in no more than 106,000 sales each month at best portals are performing at a fraction of the effectiveness of junk mail.
In respect of the general Public not trusting Estate Agents to sell property, the figures support exactly the opposing view, despite nearly 20 year of internet influence over all selling activity Estate Agency is the one sector least affected by the influence of the internet; 98% of sales still transact through traditional Agents so rhetoric about Joe Public not trusting Estate Agents might be well founded but those with property to sell or rent on the whole do trust Agents.
Robert, I personally think, that for most sellers, it is not a case of picking the clear winner but more a case of picking the best loser. Hence, as I often hear from agents, "It's a people business"… as in… we are all the same, pick the one you dislike the least because our product is identical.
Portals are the way buyers now search. They won't ever go back. The smart money to me… is to grasp and further that, not to praise how great the old system was and how it worked perfectly well for all those years. So did horses. We have cars now.
Come on Blue you are side stepping the point that Portal KPI's are about 1/9th as effective at identifying buyers or tenants as junk mailing.
You haven't quite grasped the meaning of Estate Agency is a people business, it isn't a case of vendors buying the nicest Estate Agent, very often the best in a town is…….Not; The best Agent in a town is one who undertstands buyers and is able to sort the serious and motivated from all the tall stories, over ambitious, un- qualified and un-motivated applicants.
Portals might be the way applicants perform DIY search aright now but for every 1 buyer looking on the internet there are over 200 non buyers supposedly looking. It isn't smart to back a system that inefficient.
Robert May – above, you say "26th January will show if AM have built a solution to the problem or have built enough of a solution to be the base of a solution" Isn't this something that, rather than 4000+ Agents sit for the next 6 weeks hoping and praying for, the questions are asked and the answers given NOW – while there's still time to deal with any potential holes or shortcomings in the offering?
Hello Peebee
The version 1 spec is what it is and other than dropping stuff out such as featured listings nothing can be added in. The next phase of OTM will be decided by what has been built and how the sales team approaches a polarised industry.
Point is, there is no reason for a vendors' property NOT to be released to the WHOLE of the market straight away. Cozy little cliques of agents pals, and in the know buyers… yeh right ! the media (with whom RM already have the most substantial clout) won't be all over that one.
C'mon RM have even given away for free what cost them oodles to produce.
You have no idea Blue! – Why would I fuel a portal and rank them higher in google when I can do that to my own site? I as an agent have the property and buyers. If I list on my website first I get more buyers, more properties more money! it allows me to increase market share. If not sold in 48 hours we pop it on Z and RM the seller is not disadvantaged. I am a proactive agent and have built my business as such, they can instruct a lazy agent in the same high street which will list on portal the same day but guess what ….. they have very little stock and the stock they have does not sell!
@smile please… if you think you can rank your site higher than Rm, I would like to meet you. I have some magic beans I think you would be interested in.
If you sold it within 48 hours without exposing it to the whole of the market… do you know what, I cann't be ***** explaining it. Read cliques of favoured buyers, understand the public mistrust estate agents, get your head around the public (buyers & sellers) dig RM. They consider them the go to place for property & estate agents lower than traffic wardens. So when the RM PR machine fires up you're ######.
and no I don't work for Rm, or any portal.
Just a pric* then I guess!
Last post shows what a small minded idiot you really are. At no point did I say I can rank higher than RM. Go back flogging portal sign ups Blue, guessing you once dabble in agency but realised you where no good at it so went on to sell an easier product.
"Why would I fuel a portal and rank them higher in google when I can do that to my own site?"…pants on fire !
Do you under anything how website rankings work?! Unique relevant content increases you website. I.e. Higher I rank in a town / city and a possible vendor types "estate agent in …." I rank higher than other agents in that area. If you know anything about agency it's about getting stock as without it you have nothing to sell. If you want anymore tips I am happy to act as your consultant for £500 per day!
Yeh, I know some about Seo.
I also know about how buyers search for property for sale. It aint in the main via Google and it isn't by registering with every agent in town (&/or online). Hence the mega traffic figures for the portals (& the big fees) .
Most buyers have apps, bookmarks or cookies pointing them where THEY want to go. Portals. Everything they want in one place.
Ranking sites higher than RM is not difficult provided you're trying to rank in viable areas. Anyone who knows anything about SEO and keyword optimisation and is worth their fee will get you page 1 and above RM with little hassle. The property industry as a whole is full of BAD agent websites that do themselves more harm than good so it's not surprising people feel they can't outrank the big two in their NICHE area.
It hasn't cost them oodles to develop, it has cost them oodles to catch up. Both Rightmove and Zoopla are legacy, generation 3 systems that are having extras bolted on to keep them current. With luck OTM will be a generation 5 system. If not it is the one most likely and easily adapted to G5.
There is every reason why a vendor chooses to use an Agent and it is an agent's knowledge and understanding of a sustainable business model that dictates a distribution protocol that was in operation long before the internet was a day to day part of Estate Agency.
Market it best, to the biggest, most relevant, audience.
" There is every reason why a vendor chooses to use an Agent and it is an agent's knowledge and understanding of a sustainable business model that dictates a distribution protocol that was in operation long before the internet was a day to day part of Estate Agency." sorry to pick on you Robert, and I honestly mean no disrespect, but those days are gone.
Blue I have stood as a lone voice, prepared to post under my own name and say things which many on here disagree with. You aren't picking on me and are showing me no disrespect but I think I might have very good reason for saying those days aren't gone. Stuff that is being delivered to Agency as new and cutting edge right now is stuff I spec'd out in 2001, this whiz bang real time upload stuff is a fractional part of code that was discarded 16 years ago. If you can not say why those days are gone and substantiate your point with fact then I might be right for reasons you can't even begin to imagine.
"…I honestly mean no disrespect, but those days are gone." WHERE do you believe they have gone, 'Blue' – and WHAT do you think has replaced them?
Sorry, Robert – I hadn't read your question to 'Blue' before posting mine.
What job do you do Blue? You might not understand why that question asnwers your point but it does. Please answer honestly.
Does nobody send draft details to vendors to be approved before marketing nowadays?
There's plenty of time to do this nowadays, wardy – thanks to the newly implemented 26-week cooling off period regulations! ;o)
Sensible comments Robert May. If this feature was available before, did we have to pay extra for it? Forgive me for being cynical, but I smell a rodent. Why are RM doing this now – haven’t they refused this in the past? Why would any Portal (not just RM) which has spent a bomb on “very costly” R&D just give it away free to a competitor – and that is what Z and OTM are. Will RTDF upload to RM at the exact same time as it uploads to OTM or any other portal of choice? If it will, I can’t help feeling this is just a panic reaction to cancel out any benefit phased uploading will give OTM. If this “free” feature WILL upload to RM at the same time as it uploads to OTM or our own website, then my instant gut reaction would be to say “Thanks, but no thanks”. Is there a danger that we are making a mountain out of a molehill here anyway? I can’t remember a single client ever moaning that the details of their property may not appear till the next day – every single one just accepts it. Why the big rush? “We’re here to help agent” my ****; and the 63% figure quoted isn’t worth a carrot IMO. If the question to RM users was “If it costs you nothing, would you prefer to have the details of your property on a portal within minutes … or wait till the next day?” I’m surprised the figure is as low as 63%. We would need to know WHO was being asked the question and WHAT the question was to be able to glean anything from the 63% quoted.
It wasn't ever going to be a chargeable extra Taff, it was the bi product of affinity group, multiple office agency property sharing to replace data synchronisation; In order for a small or medium size Agencies to compete with corporate competitors with large IT budgets, status change sharing enabled all additions and live changes to be available instantly across the branch/ affinity network. Cutting edge stuff for 1998 and in my opinion still preferable to a cloud system in the hands of an appropriately motivated software supplier.
Why are they doing this now? to restrict the pressure on software suppliers to jump through hoops producing the Zoopla real time data feed. Some of the software houses are currently working on the Zrtdf so this is an attempted strategic move by RM.
"Sensible comments Robert May." Well, Robert – it looks like at long last you're starting to get some recognition!
Just a couple of questions from the previous comments…
Why wouldn't a seller want their property on a portal (of any kind) as soon as possible, and why would they be happy with an agent getting unique exposure to their minimally viewed website before it gets sent to the masses?
Website are only minimally viewed because agents don't push them they have got lazy.
Property portals and newspaper advertising only serve to introduce unknown applicants to the Agents who have property to sell. It is unlikely that any vendor would instruct an agent who didn't have an applicant database and some idea who was going to buy. Invariably todays applicant introductions from advertising go through a qualification process and buy at xyz point in the future. Portals aren't the b all and end all of property sales even though they try to convince everyone they are.
You are living in the past, if you thing that….
Living in the past, I don't know where you are, where you sell, what you sell but I can definitely say that an agency the concentrates on selling to known, qualified applicants will be far more succesful than one that relies on oven ready internet applicants delivered to a negotiator's desktop.
WELL SAID, Robert! Obviously though, on Planet ringi, things are different – unfortunately for the inhabitants…
A portal will hold a property from exposure in preference to an agent who has paid extra to have their property published first, e.g. 24 or 48 hours. Has absolutely nothing to do with what the public want just a money grabbing income for the portal.
I to have been using a data feed company for over 10 years which produce instant update. The only web site that wouldn't except it was ………… RightMove! Have to laugh as RM keep coming out with their new ideas which other have been doing before they event started.
Just to remind you that Resource Techniques has been providing real-time datafeed to our team agents' websites for about a year already which simultaneously launches to teamprop.co.uk a portal not excluded by OTM as it is an agents' owned ML portal. Paul Bonett, chair team Association
Good move rightmove. By agents getting their softwares to adopt it makes the break from RM harder. Its a double edged sword
Any agent should steer clear of these "Instant uploads" – You should upload to your website first to encourage traffic to your site to help with SEO, then upload to other sites. When I say upload first to your site I mean by a sensible time not like a couple of hours. Give people a reason to view your site first, give Google a reason to rank you as well. You all bang on about "Taking control" and this is by far the easiest, most cost efficient and productive way!
100% correct, get a google webmasters account, add the URL of the property and you get the respect from G!!
The best bit of kit I suggest you invest in aswell is majestic – Saves thousands in SEO and makes a massive difference to your business.
As a landlord, I don’t look on an agents website to see if they have my property listed, I look at RightMove and expect to see it there VERY quickly. It is the DUTY of the agent to keep my voids as short a possible, be getting the listing up as quickly as possible on ALL sites.
ringi – There is no DUTY as you put it to do anything. Its down to how an agent runs their business. Popping it on a portal does not mean a property is sold or let any quicker. Most of our sales come from our database of qualified, motivated buyers! – When instructed on a property we upload to our website, email including a link to all our applicants, text message along with a link and have a good old fashion call out (most agents do not bother with these days) then on top of that we send paper details. If the property is still available after 48 hours we upload to portals. We have a database at any given time of approximately 400 qualified, motivated purchasers who trust us if we say "View this property" – The portals simply cannot do that (or an internet only agent) that's how we achieve THE BEST PRICE and how we sustain and improve our market share. You as a landlord or any tech guy fail to understand their is more to just listing a property on a portal.
I've just had confirmation our software supplier is now developing the "pick a portal" and "when to upload" feature….. which we are delighted with. Hopefully in time for #otm26.1.15
"Recent research shows that two-thirds of sellers (63%) would be more likely to choose an agent who could upload their property on to Rightmove immediately after property details are prepared, rather than wait several hours or longer."……..Is it just me , or is this figure way to high? What was the research Q. to find this 63%?……."When your details are done would you like your property on Rightmove straight after, or are you happy to wait ?" Ridiculous…..More total smoke and mirrors.
I smell a big, stinking green rat.
You are right to be smelling something Wardy but it is more likely to be a pot-pouri of tactical naivety and contempt for agents. Real time feeds were being slipped into the industry almost un-noticed and promoted individually as a good thing. Status Change portal uploading has been available since 1998 but because RM, Findaproperty, Primelocation etc couldn't cope with the data flow it was never implemented. Very sensibly when offered the facility (16 years ago) Agents wanted their own sites to take precedent over the property portals and that is exactly how things should be. The challenge of the internet is how an individual agent site competes with the SEO economies of scale (data) of a portal like RM and Zoopla. 26th January will show if AM have built a solution to the problem or have built enough of a solution to be the base of a solution- It is without criticism that I say that a slim version of existing portal design and functionality will not be enough to bring about change and offer agents the protection they need.
In other news, RM have just sent me a bag of xmas chocolates and a magazine which got filed under 'B' without being opened, so I should take it all back really.
I suspect it's another sign that RM are sitting quite content knowing that they have come out of the OTM wars pretty unscathed for now and are no doubt hoping that the industry settles for the status quo of two dominant portals, whomever their competition happens to be.
Stay well clear, this means in some way RM is still hovering over them, carry on with your own development and then improve it.
This right here is a Trojan horse, do not drag it too quickly through the gates of the industry.
While it is very obvious that a single data feed, universal across all software suppliers has to be beneficial to all, ANY real-time feed removes a vital control over data flow that an agent has.
Paul H talked about USPs for AM, one of the biggest for its members is control over data, with the numbers published to date about 80% of the industry will not have that protection if they are using real time feeds. (More so with cloud based systems) Irrespective of your views on AM, allowing 3rd party portals to have the benefit of first showing of property details is not a good business decision.
An agent's own website should preview any new to market property; so promoting the individual agent and traffic to their website, if an agent is so inclined, next comes the respective affinity group site and follow that by the portals, in an effort to find applicants new to the market or those that for whatever reason are unknown to the agent.
As an extra note of caution I would strongly recommend ALL agents find out the extent of data flow between the third parties that are supposedly serving them. How many of you know what is and is not being passed on to Rightmove or Zoopla in the data feed (real time or not). How many of you know and understand who has what ‘analysis’ access to the data contained on yours systems? How many of you have signed away protection over your data by not reading in detail the service agreements you have signed for the portals or software suppliers.
It is beneficial that Agency comes to rely on a single agreed feed format, there is no reason for it not to be initially based on RM RTDF, but it essential that the detail and content of the data feed is controlled by agents themselves. Ultimately the data feed should become a universal standard that Rightmove accept and work to so they are not calling the shots and 40 or 50 SAAS (software)suppliers are constantly playing catch up on data feeds that change at the whim of their suppliers.
2 more portal stories today. Why not just rename to 'Portal Industry Eye' and be done with it?
Hey Why Not. Why not be constructive and come up with some suggestions, instead of moaning. We'll wait to hear your gems of wisdom.
This isn't a surprise. The old Rightmove v3 upload (you know, the slow one) was a key reason why Rightmove dominated: every other portal and software provider adopted it as the industry standard.
What is interesting is Rightmove have failed to gain an advantage from their technological lead. Could you imagine how useful OTM and Z would have been with rental listings a full day after Rightmove has them live, viewed, and let? In University towns, his would have been a reality with the instant alerts sent to consumers.