How to kill off all the UK property portals including Rightmove.
Written by Mike Carter on July 23, 2008Ever 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
- 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.
- A portal receives all it’s property list content from estate agents. This is true.
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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‘ ?
- Everyone list with the free-to-list engines. Hopefully you’ll also buy some of our efficient ad products as well
- 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.
- No more property portals in the UK. Let me hear you say amen!
- Consumers still have places to search for all the property. (search engines)
- 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.
Posted in Uncategorized |
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Could not agree more!!! £500 per month plus is outrageous per Agent but will it happen.??? Fuel is a stupid price so why not apply the same theory. Everyone don’t fill up & the price will come down. People power. Never going to happen is it.???
July 24th, 2008 at 8:06 am
The problem with this is that if you look at it as a normal property punter, say my in-laws.
They know about this thing called “The internets”.
The also have seen the T.V. adverts or seen all the branding done over the last 5+ years for something called “Rightmove” where “All the agents are”
Search for rightmove, bosh…
Estate agents can’t afford to loose out on any lead at the moment.
There is an argument during a boom for this, where the agents could afford to cut off the portals.
The true “Portal” killer is if Google decided to add a “Property” tab to their home page and let all the agents list for free…but don’t think about that as it would only keep you up at night
July 24th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Never say never! RM is already under pressure, lots of agents are leaving and the internet has moved on from their model. Before Google there was Alta Vista(AV) and no one then thought AV would ever be dethroned. Then Sergey and Larry took over 45% of global online advertising.
Ever heard of another ‘out of no where’ internet startup called Facebook? Again, smart online applications winning huge audiences in very small amounts of time. It is what happens online….
July 24th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Couldn’t agree anymore. The point is why do estate agents display all the window stickers etc and still have to pay to list their properties on portals. Estate agents have been mugs, it is they who have played into the hands of Rightmove and other portals. I welcome the google idea - await the day the day property tab appears on Google.
July 24th, 2008 at 11:40 am
One issue that is both “downside” and “upside” that I can see with search engines rather than portals is that traffic is directed outwards towards agents’ sites. That means that one enquiry on Globrix can become a marathon of struggling through 12 agents’ different (often appallingly put together) websites, figuring out how they list properties. Rightmove, for example, allow a smoother user experience.
Also, there’s a question of where the search engines (such as zoomf, nestoria, globrix etc.) direct the click traffic. Globrix I know, directs interested users straight to an agent website. Not sure if all the search engines do this. I wonder if there’s a risk that the search engines just become the new portals, refusing to send traffic out, and attempting to keep it in once they’ve won the business.
July 25th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Mike,
The main reason agents list on RIghtmove is because SELLERS want their property to appear there, because they’ve seen Rightmove on TV. That’s what BRAND power is. What agents want is listings, even more than leads ( in the sellers market that we’ve experienced in the past few years ).
Moreover, portals and search engines are not much different. One is selling leads (hence more integrated experience) the other is selling traffic. Sure a lead from Zoomf may turn out to be cheaper than Rightmove’s, but not over the long term. What’s to stop Rightmove from lowering its prices if it sees competition getting anywhere?
Its just a media business. And as with newspapers, its all about circulation and marketing monies - something that the Rightmove model will always have more of.
July 25th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Great comments and glad to have sparked some debate on it. A couple things to add:
Google is not putting a tab called property on it’s homepage. Google is already making revenue from the property market. Putting a tab and trying to do ‘property vertical search’ is not on their radar. They’ve got much bigger fish to fry(Microsft / Yahoo / Video Ads) than the small online UK property market. Google Base was it’s attempt to help penetrate the ‘listings market’ but this failed. I don’t lose any sleep over Google, in fact we promote their model all the time.
Regarding the media comment, I agree completely. That is why Globrix has a partnership with News International. However, marketing decisions shouldn’t be made by your ’seller’. Just because they think it is a good idea, you should know what is better value for money. You spend and judge. Circulation in the online world is ‘traffic’. Traffic is definitely impacted by brand. I agree. But never forget, Facebook never spent any money on TV ads. Don’t have to. Neither did the mighty giants eBay, Google, Yahoo, etc. They all grow organically from a great online product. So the ‘old media’ way of doing this is being changed by the dynamics of the online environment. Why do you think every newspaper these days is bleeding cash?
And regarding user experience, this is constantly changing to make the experience more ‘fluid’ with lots of tools. All the search engines are only showing you initial versions of the products. These are not mature products by any sense of the word.
July 28th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Comparing the property market to new areas like search engines and social networks is a flawed comparison.
The property market has existed for a touch longer than search engines etc
As pointed out above estate agents are looking for leads, I wouldn’t use an estate agent to sell my house if they didn’t use rightmove, and probably all the other main portals as well.
This is not a slur on zoomf, but I wouldn’t blink and eye if they didn’t list on here.
Looking for property my first point of call is rightmove, my second is the weekly property pull out in the paper. I may sign up for some email alerts from the other portals but after a week or two of searching I will notice that I am getting the same properties from rightmove as I do else where so I will ignore those emails.
I am a tech head, I also know a little about the online property market as I have been running my own little property search engine for 3-4 years now but its rubbish compared to yours so I’ll not link to it
The internet is a great tool for searching for property from the users point of view and from the agents they can’t afford not to use rightmove.
If the association of agents got all their members to cancel their accounts with rightmove at once then you might get somewhere.
But in the climate when leads are rare this is not going to happen.