Rightmove, which announces its results to the stock market tomorrow, is set to unveil new and updated features this year.
They include a new ‘auto Featured Property’, which will begin trialling in quarter two.
It automatically applies a Featured Property to all of an agent’s property stock at key times, including when the property is in its first week of marketing when interest is highest, when a property has fallen through to let home hunters know it’s available again, and when there has been a price reduction.
The Featured Property will continue to put the property at the top of a home hunter’s search.
Rightmove says that early feedback from agents on the new ‘automation’ has been encouraging, as they will no longer have to manage the application of the product manually.
Rightmove is also launching a new version of its Best Price Guide later this year. It will be available to all agents as part of their membership, and give them access to more local data and insights.
Currently, agents use the tool to help support their own valuation, by building a report of comparable properties in the area, sold price history and properties that have been on the market for longer than the average time.
As well as being faster and easier to use, the new and improved version will give new data sets such as local supply and demand data for similar property types in the area, and more historical information on the property that the agent has been invited out to value.
The new version of the tool has been a year in the making, following extensive research with agents to find out which data is most valuable to them when trying to win an instruction.
Rightmove is also carrying on with testing its Tenant Passport, which pre-qualifies tenants, helping agents to streamline costs when the fees ban comes in.
The Tenant Passport is free for both tenants and agents and is currently in phase one on Rightmove. The information provided to an agent includes the full property requirements for a tenant and basic household details.
Over 11,000 passports have been created by home hunters so far.
The next stage will include testing to find out what information is most crucial for an agent to receive at the stage of a prospective tenant enquiring, with phase two of the concept due to launch later this year.
Rightmove’s head of estate agency David Anderson said: “The tools we provide agents to help support their business are used by 90% of our customers each month, and we continue to evolve these tools to make sure they are valuable to agents in their day-to-day tasks.
“The Best Price Guide is our most widely used tool in Rightmove Plus and was run 10m times by agents in 2018.
“In what agents say is a very price sensitive market, setting accurate asking prices is vital for both sellers and agents.
“We wanted to make sure we kept all the crucial information and graphs that agents say they find most useful, plus enhance it with new data that agents say they currently use other parts of Rightmove to find.”
Comments (19)
“Rightmove to launch new Best Price Guide after being run 10m times last year”
They’re getting ready to make their case about why the subs will be going up in 2020. Look at the investment we’re making to help you on valuation calls….
….please!
I don’t just rely on Rightmove’s little ‘best price guide’. Who hear does?
I use multiple independent sources, always have, always will.
– Property Pundit, “a micro-site within a micro-site” who knows… they’re bereft of any good ideas, apart from one – keep squeezing their clientele…
Rant over!
So innovative, so ‘game-changing’, so embarrassing for a £4billion PLC, what next a micro-site within a micro-site?
Tricky one Thomas, but well put. Though it does seem a tad hypocritical for RM to issue a press release suggesting they “help agents streamline costs”.
So is it anti-competitive to charge many small agents £100’s per listing because they charge by branch whilst charging the large call-centre agents £10’s per listing on average?
Has this unfair charging structure forced many sole traders out of the market or prevented them from entering the market?
Did RM, themselves, describe their platform as a ‘must have’ product as they had circa 90% of agents listing?
Does inflation-busting price rises of 10% plus each year, over many years, suggest a dominant market position that needs to be explored as listing numbers are declining?
Are many agents too scared to leave and suck up the price rises whether or not they can truly afford them because of a dominant market position?
RM have upped their charges with by 22% from April 1st. So we have cancelled our contract with them and gone back to Zoopla at 49% of the cost of RM. Why would anyone continue pour more and more money into RM bottomless purse?
That’s ludicrous – 22%! Am I reading that right, Zoopla half the price of RM?
Your agenda is breaking surface, 1TB…
DIVE… DIVE… DIVE!
Bless!
I’m sure RM think its worth every penny they’ve invested in this, well – both pennies. Obviously pre-occupied by their return on investment, hence such game changing innovations they feel we should be so delighted to pay for.
Not sure why they might think their customers aren’t concerned, in these days, on their own annual return on their investment in RM. Falling leads………….pah. “We don’t care”.
Here’s an idea they could charge for – reduce subs to £100 per branch and pay per lead ! Fair and equitable (RM will have to look those words up)
I know, having a bit of a fantasy this morning.
You and me both…
Who was it suggested Rightmove would only be charging around £300 per month if their costs had risen in line with inflation?
Our current rate is going up from £850 to £925 (ex vat) as of April, and for what…?!!!
The same old letter keeps coming through year-after-year-after-year….
I spoke to another local agent a couple of months ago – he told me that he had suggested to his RM rep the idea of a fee based on the amount of properties you have on your books. Much fairer I think.
I made the same suggestion during a recent call to my RM rep. Suffice it to say it was roundly rebuffed.
If only OTM was more successful in getting into the public consciousness – those that do know it have told us that they prefer the site to RM, ZPG, PL etc…
Guess I will be ‘coughing up’ more income later this year, but for how much longer…?
CMA Website, the Last Paragraph is noteworthy
Businesses abusing their ‘dominant position’
“This is another major type of anti-competitive activity by businesses that you can report to the CMA.
A business might have a ‘dominant position’ in the market if:
it has more than a 40% market share
it’s not affected by normal competitive restraints
It might be abusing a dominant position if it’s unfair to its customers or other businesses.”
I agree. This has been raised previously on PIE.
Noted Chris.
I’ll make contact with CMA as I would be interested to hear their view/response, noting that Rightmove don’t respond.
Does one approach CMA as a Business or Individual?
Either 🙂
Re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic.
Tenants passport free to both applicants and agents!!! agents who are paying £???? to list at any one time about 4.5% of their register as available stock and sometimes are paying a monthly subscription when they have no available listings at all
Forgive me for being obvious but that is an expensive and funny kind of free.
The average agent lets about 9 properties a month, the referencing fee on those 9 tenancies is ????? err not the cost of a month on Rightmove!
“Extensive research with agents”? I know we are only a small sample here, but did any of us take part in this research?
……and a reduction in your Fees Rightmove?
No …….of course not!
It woud be April Fool’s Day if I had read that.
“Well, sucker, er, I mean Chris, for JUST an 18% or so annual increase to around £1,300 per branch PCM this year, we’ve added a single line of code that automatically rotated a featured property PLUS, PLUS, you get a FREE wobbly desk calendar!” I was writing simple code like that on my ZX Spectrum back in the 80s’. The most accessible and comprehensive data for property appraisals is, without doubt, available (currently for free) from Homesearch and Sprift.
Dressed up as a “Real Game Changer, Differentiator” as a must have for agents.
Or is it as Mrs Brown would grimace and say...”That’s Nice.”
Not even a hint of real assistance where it counts by cutting charges.
Probably going to announce this tomorrow!!