Zoomf Blog - UK Property Blog.

In a constant effort to become more efficient with resources and cash, we’ve been looking at opportunities where estate agents can save money in this market downturn.

Tip #34 -

combine the GoHello product with Skype service from the 3 network

The 3 network is one of the major mobile carriers in the UK. They currently have a deal with Skype to have Skype enabled mobile handsets. A couple weeks ago, we reviewed the GoHello service which is essentially a way in which you can cut the costs of having landlines installed and maintained for your agents who are constantly on the go.

So imagine the cost savings by doing both systems in tandem. Enable your office(s) with GoHello then couple that with the Skype service from 3. If your finance director is busy scrutinizing fixed costs for ways to become more efficient, why not have a look at the costs before and after.

old way - landlines + mobiles

new way - mobiles + skype

Would love to hear from you on your typical telephony costs per month if you fall into the ‘old way’ of doing telephony.

We had to wait an extra week to finally see the NAEA website go live, but was it worth it? Well there’s good news and there’s bad news. Rather than review the entire service, we’ll be having a look at the website product itself, focusing on the user experience and functionality. By the end of the first quarter of 2009 we’ll be able to review the ‘commercial success’ of the site to date.

PROS

• Search box. The user is immediately focused to begin searching. No distractions other than the “bird-like” woman standing under the search box.
• Results page has a list and map view.
• Registration for users.
• Fairly simple website with only 3-4 core pages; homepage, listing page, details page and other.

CONS

• No street search. Most of the search engines allow street search. Why not? It is a more targeted lead than a postal code or area search.
• Big picture of ‘friendly agents.’ Why is this massive picture taking up so much homepage space?
• Overseas Property is coming soon. If you cannot search for it, don’t put it on your website.
• 13,000 agents but only 50,000 properties. This doesn’t make sense. 50k worth of property to search is 1/6 the number of listings of most property portals. Not good.
• Guides are coming soon. Same as above, web design 101 - don’t disappoint users with a teaser to unavailable content.
• Homepage pop-up. Why isn’t the cookie recognizing that I’ve seen the pop-up window already. Every visit to the homepage shows me the ‘please come back’ pop-up. Begging for users to return doesn’t work
• Map is does not drag and populate with properties.
• Cannot click-thru to agent website. You get to see the link but you are not able click and go. This is a BIG problem for most estate agents who invest in their own websites. Not to mention the SEO ramifications for both parties.
• Cannot search by keywords like gardens, mews, georgians etc. A basic filter that most sites can provide.

Overall, the current product is not that exciting and in many ways disappointing. There isn’t a lot of innovation that we can find (if any). Of course the bigger issue is that we have no idea how many users are actually finding this website. We’ll see if over the next 6 months if the NAEA is able to compete for online eyeballs in a crowded space.

As I always say….

You can have the prettiest website in the world, but it’s completely pointless if no one uses it. Look at GumTree and Craigslist, ugly websites, massive consumer impact.

This past week has had some big announcements from the various players in space. Below is a recap for your reading pleasure.

• Rightmove is slashing staff by 20%. Is this a reaction to the recession or is it the mounting pressure from agents to leave? Some agents have begun to apply pressure using an online petition against the mighty Rightmove.

• Globrix is going to the USA. A UK-based search engine, in a similar move to DotHomes earlier this year, is shouting about it’s US ambitions.

• Propertylive from the NAEA (national association of estate agents) finally went live. We’ve been told with 50k property listings with 200k on hold. Not sure why you’d put listings on hold, unless of course your technology infrastructure is not up to scratch. We won’t talk about the delays in the launch Full review of the newly birthed website coming soon to this blog.

• Thinkproperty is rumored to be going to free-to-list. I prefer the freemium label, but whichever label you want use, it looks like the days of subscription models is well and truly numbered.

That’s the big news here in the UK online property market.

Below is a picture of a stack of yellow pages books in the halls outside my front door. These books have been sitting there for months.

Makes you think about the future of ‘advertising’ in the yellow pages. Of course, advertising on the internet version of Yell is a lot better place for my media pound as I can track how many people are really using it to find me.

Tracking Hint - I track the clicks to my website and the calls made from the address info that sits inside the Yell website.

It also speaks volumes about the eco-waste being created for a quaint 20th century mechanism that no longer works.