On The Move – Is It Worth The Move?
Monday 26th January will see the official launch of new property portal OnTheMarket.com. Founded by Savills, Knight Frank, Strutt & Parker, Chestertons, Douglas & Gordon and Glenntree Estates, OnTheMove is an attempt to break up the current power that Zoopla and Rightmove hold over estate agents – however, their controversial terms mean that estate agents who sign up will need to drop all but one other property portal.
Is this worth the risk?
Gavin Brazg of house selling advice site, TheAdvisory.co.uk, is unsure…
As our diagram (viewed here) shows, all properties for sale can be found by visiting Rightmove & Zoopla. OnTheMarket will only have less of what is already available to browse on the established portals, so it’s hard to see how they will attract much needed visitors.
Fundamentally I think agents choosing to use the new contender will be perceived to project a very negative set of values to potential clients with an inference that says, “I care more about my bottom line than I do about your house sale”.
No matter how much an agency saves on portal fees, if they don’t have any clients, they’re dead in the water. Simply, in the war to win hearts and minds of potential vendor clients, OnTheMarket agents have just given their competitors a massive gift.
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