AgentsMutual, OnTheMarket vs Rightmove, Zoopla and others.
Quite a full title with some impressive names, but what exactly will Agents Mutual, soon to be www.OnTheMarket.com offer to estate agents / letting agents and consumers across the UK over what www.Rightmove.com and www.Zoopla.com offer successfully already?
Without taking any position within this debate / topic, let me look at the basics of what a property portal should ideally offer both Estate Agents / Letting Agents and consumers:
- A centralised point to find the latest property listings from across the UK, easily accessible across any internet accessing device and browser. Be accessible 24/7 with at least 99.999% up time.
- An easy to use marketing platform for estate agents to list property either manually or automatically via their software provider.
- Property portals should continue to market their concept to both estate agents / letting agents and consumers to increase the exposure of listings on their website and to keep on top of the latest advancements of the internet , internet accessing devices and marketing trends.
- Propose varied plans for estate agents / lettings at every level and try to keep their prices to a satisfactory level to the amount of enquiries they can generate their users (estate agents / letting agents).
- Provide innovative search solutions for consumers to increase their popularity and usage. Work hard to be at the finger tips and indeed the tip of consumers’ tongues when it comes to the first place they search for property.
- Provide estate agents / letting agents with a detailed back end where they overwview performance and enquiries can be studied.
Please let me know if I have missed any important key points by leaving comments below (I am not an estate agent nor do I work for any property portal).
If Agents Mutual / OnTheMarket come on to the scene, then what are they proposing to offer over and above Rightmove and Zoopla (this is not forgetting or excluding any other property portal such as NeedAProperty, Primelocation etc)?
Let us add to this post Ian Springett’s, chief executive of Agents Mutual, reported comments that online agents are “a bit of a con” and their new property website was being launched to counter the “duopoly” of Rightmove and Zoopla. Are they trying to dictate to estate agents / letting agents across the UK that they need to ditch one of the two, proven to work for many, property portals in order to pay for them? Are their key shareholders some of the larger estate agents who, rightly so, continue to look for growth and expansion in any business activity / investment they get in to?
Maybe OnTheMarket has the right approach, maybe they are a sincere approach to combat the outgoings that many estate agents / letting agents have every month to accommodate both or one of either Rightmove or Zoopla?
As an outsider who has not seen any business plan for Agents Mutual or fully knowledgeable on who has invested and why they have invested, surely if they gain success in what they do, will their shareholders and directors not want to see profits just like any other major property portal or any other business for that matter? They will undoubtedly position their monthly costs to use their services accordingly?
Is Agents Mutual a needed shake up to the industry and they have plans to economise property portal advertising for estate agents / letting agents across the UK and have a market share of consumer interest to compare at least with Zoopla and bring down the market saturation that Rightmove have? Maybe there is another USP? Or is it just another property portal…
Our LinkedIn Group also has a live topic on this subject: Agents Mutual launching in January 2015
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