Zoomf Blog - UK Property Blog

According to new figures from the Bank of England, in some parts of the country as many as four in ten homebuyers pull out before they complete. I’m seriously resisting a sexual innuendo here, even if theRatandMouse couldn’t on a different story a month ago. The Bank said…

“‘In the market for established homes, more transactions were falling through, with some estate agents reporting a cancellation rate of up to 40 per cent recently. That was partly due to the unwillingness of many sellers to accept a lower offer.”

But, understandably, many are resisiting buying now in the hope for a better bargain later down the line, which in turn is screwing up housing chains left, right and centre. All this coupled with record low mortgage approvals paints a pretty gloomy picture, unless you’re a landlord of course.

After all my whining that I wasn’t at Connect yesterday, I almost felt as though I was there thanks to the marvels of Twitter. Anyone that also wants to stay on top of the action should track the tag ‘#icsf‘ over at Summize, that way you won’t miss a tweet.

Zillow’s Drew Meyers has already written up a great post summarizing what went down at one of the morning panel sessions yesterday, the best gem to come from it seems to be from Linda Davis who (quite rightly) chimed…

“If you have a crappy business, a blog isn’t going to help.”

And whilst everyone is playing with real estate trading cards and getting excited about blogging at Connect, Trulia seem to be releasing their very own blogging platform. As reported by our gorgeous friends at AgentGenius, Trulia are (very quietly at this point) releasing their own blogging platform for agents that’s not a million miles away from what we’re used to seeing at ActiveRain. Is this going to crazily shake things up over in the US? We’ll have to wait and see. The usual concerns surrounding SEO and ownership of content are being aired in the comments sections of various posts covering the story but one thing is for sure, Trulia’s got consumer traffic…and tonnes of it.

Ever since starting Zoomf, I’ve known the major weakness in the UK subscription portal-model and I know how it can be undone. Below is my rant on how it would work and how you can help to make it happen.

The Assumptions

1. Assume that the main reason for an estate agent to list with a Rightmove (portal) is to generate leads in the form of phone calls and emails. I think this is a fair assumption. Rightmove’s got great tools for doing valuations and other things but the only reason I would advertise is to have access to the big property audience to generate leads. I’m pretty sure most agents would agree.
2. A portal receives all it’s property list content from estate agents. This is true.
3. Free-to-list search engines exist in the UK market. This is true. (in case you’ve forgotten, Zoomf, Nestoria, Oodle, Globrix, and yes, DotHomes.)

Under the above assumptions, here is how the whole thing can be undone by you, the estate agent.

The Undoing

1. Everyone de-lists. We know that a lot of agents are defecting from portals in order to save money during the crunch but what would happen if the majority (or all) of the customers de-list? The answer? No property content.
2. No more content. Now that agents have de-listed from property portals, they have no product. What use is Rightmove.com if there are zero properties to look at? It becomes completely un-useful. No content equals no audience. That is fact.
3. Stop doing the portals promotion. If you stop promoting the portals, they will lose viewership. That means stickers and print advertising! It’s amazing how many agents despise portals yet continue to do their advertising for them. Doh! Ever heard the phrase ‘dig your own grave‘ ?
4. Everyone list with the free-to-list engines. Hopefully you’ll also buy some of our efficient ad products as well
5. Everyone promotes the search engines. (stickers, print, etc) We’re already inside Google, the entry point to the property web, so don’t worry, your property/agency will still be found!

The results.

1. No more property portals in the UK. Let me hear you say amen!
2. Consumers still have places to search for all the property. (search engines)
3. Estate agents get calls and emails from their own websites thanks to the traffic search engines provide. (this is what we do, send you relevant traffic direct) As long as you’ve got your contact information on your website, you’re all set.

A lot to swallow I’m sure… but not when you think about it. Estate agents have the power to undo the portal grip. It’s just a matter of getting the momentum to do it and trust in the above scenario.

I wonder if Miles Shipside agrees with me? I’m sure he doesn’t mind, he’s already made his £1.7 million. Not a bad pay-day if I might say so myself.

Our friends at Starberry have just recently launched a ‘beta’ website for London agent Marsh & Parsons. It’s a great site with lots of features to be proud of. We know Rus and Ben over at Starberry are very tuned into online marketing for estate agents but one thing surprised us about the website; no blog.

Of course, I’m sure they ran into the typical rants of many agents…

1. What’s a blog?
2. Why is that useful?
3. We don’t have time to blog.

Fair enough. But here’s an idea. Every property details page has a nice handy little link called ‘Area Information.’ This links to a page that is describing to Chelsea. An excerpt of this is below:

Chris Lloyd the Sales Manager of Marsh & Parsons says that the popularity of Chelsea is because of its “wonderful choice of size, style and period properties”. The transport links are fantastic with access to both the M3 and M4 and a short taxi ride to the City.

What a great place to insert blog content powered by you know who… the agents who cover Chelsea. Chelsea is not a static place. Estate agents are experts on areas to live. Unlock that knowledge to your potential customers. Blogging on Chelsea (for example) is such an easy way to build content and don’t forget all the benefits that would be unleashed from having up to date user friendly information based on location. Things like:

• More traffic from Google to Marsh & Parsons (keywords like property Chelsea)
• A website that has up to date content (search engines love that)
• Transparency in your area expertise with vendors and applicants (consumers love that)

Half the battle of researching what agent to select is getting a feel for their local expertise. Why not blog about it?

As Poppy just blogged, one of the best online property conferences is taking place today in San Francisco called Real Estate Connect, but need something closer to home? How about London Ad-tech? Registration is free and there are loads of free seminars related to online advertising like Google University where you can learn how Google can help your property business.

Need to learn more about the internet, using it as a marketing and lead generation vehicle or just need some basic knowledge of what’s out there? Ad-tech is a good place to start.

Ad-tech is taking place in London’s Olympia Sept 24-25.

It seems impossible to tweet, blog or flickr without being constantly reminded that we’re NOT at Connect this year. Real Estate Connect is a 3 day knowledgefest where the great and good from the world of property come together to learn, network and drink beer. And it’s taking place right now over in sunny San Francisco. A quick look at the conference programme shows how useful an event like this is to attend to anyone working in property. Who knows, maybe we should start a British version?

Anyway, we couldn’t get there this time around but we’ll be reading all the coverage with green eyes and we’ll link to the best Connect stories over the next couple of days.

I can list a number of reasons why I wish I was there right now, aside from meeting all my RE pals in the flesh, how about meeting the Trulia Marker Men? They’re too cute for words

MARKER MEN Welcome You to San Francisco from trulia real estate on Vimeo.

As a sure sign that the property sector is finally waking up to the internet, the biggest property trade magazine in the UK, the Negotiator, is online. Now you can read all their latest trade news online.

Interesting areas of the website include -

1. An Email Newsletter
2. Negotiator TV (upload those YouTube vid’s today!)
3. A jobs directory

You can also download their rate-card for advertising in the magazine…. if you think that print still works for your marketing needs. Let’s hope they start digitizing their archive of useful articles. In time they could become a New Media Age for property. Baby steps!