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The nine agencies represented on the board of Agents' Mutual are remaining tight-lipped about how they are going to fulfil the 'only one other portal' rule when On The Market launches in just two months' time.

The large chains on the board - Strutt & Parker, Chestertons, Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward, Spicerhaart, Savills and Knight Frank - have told Estate Agent Today they have yet to make a decision whether to drop Rightmove or Zoopla to fulfil the On The Market rule.

The three small agencies on the board - Glentree, Rook Matthew Sayer and Douglas & Gordon - declined to answer.

Robert Bartlett, group chief executive of Chestertons, says: "We are currently in discussions with the two major portals and undertaking careful analysis of the real benefits to our business that each of them deliver [sic] to us. We have become increasingly less reliant upon the portals over the course of the past 18 months.

"Our final decision will be made entirely upon our perception of the best commercial outcome for Chestertons and Humberts and without any influence from other agents. We have not held any discussions with other agents and have no current knowledge of their respective plans."

There is a risk that if all agencies on the board make the same choice - to all drop Rightmove or all drop Zoopla - they may open themselves to a complaint to the Competitions and Markets Authority, the successor body to the Office of Fair Trading, on the grounds of alleged anti-competitiveness.

There is already one complaint against AM lodged with the CMA, from online agent eMoov complaining about the new portal's exclusion of online agencies.

Agents' Mutual introduced a rule saying agents advertising on its portal should promote properties on either Rightmove or Zoopla as well, but not on both. However, it has already made a sweetheart deal providing as exception to the one other portal' principle in saying that Scottish agencies can promote lettings property on Citylets, which calls itself an independent specialist lettings website for Scotland.

Comments

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    More greed from the agents.......they just want a one sided market place..... nothing good for the buyer here..... hopefully the buyers will see through it for what it is

    • 22 December 2014 14:49 PM
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    Interesting comment, rich. Care to state just [b]how much[/b] less you think you could charge - and how

    • 18 November 2014 23:31 PM
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    At last,,if rightmove are like the big supermarkets squashing the small producers. No respect, just profits....without rm and zoopla i coulsd charge a lot less to sell a house...RIP portals... respect agents mutual for showing some balls.

    • 18 November 2014 22:02 PM
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    @Guest (Commonsense)
    I take your point about an AM 'mothership' - but AM is more democratic than RM so it would take much more for them to eventually bring about 'franchising'.
    I was really referring to RM who could do it right now if they were so inclined

    • 17 November 2014 15:23 PM
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    @RayEvans
    You're not wrong! Ha yeah that could be the case where one giant AM mothership rules and the agents become franchises of this. He will have fathered modern day agency!

    • 17 November 2014 14:57 PM
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    Worried about eventual 'domination' and 'control' by AM/OTM
    Think RM!. They do an excellent job in providing an advertising platform for agents but it is not without danger. If they decided to use their domination and control they could, at any time, become an on-line agent using the high street agents as their human resourses. Or are they in the process of doing that already

    • 17 November 2014 14:33 PM
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    @james said "If it doesn't succeed we can only blame ourselves, the agents."

    This is the risk - if it does succeed then this could actually be very bad for you because this will be controlled (the PR and the Board composition by your very competition who already dominate you (unless you work for them)).

    Lets not be naieve here.

    • 17 November 2014 14:19 PM
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    Presumably if most AM / OTM agents drop Zoopla, then RM will have a green light to increase their fees again

    Who is going to police this 1 other portal rule. The portals certainly wont and I doubt that AM / OTM will for fear of losing clients. Will they actually eject members who continue to use ZPG, RM + any other of the myriad of other portals

    What about local paper advertising that also puts the properties on to a property portal

    • 17 November 2014 14:02 PM
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    How about some comments from all the agents that are going with OTM I am and so are many other agents i speak to. We should be encouraging other agents to join us - the more that do the more it will work for us and we will save big time. Of course punters have a favourite portal but ultimately they will look where they the market is. We agents have more power to influence buyers in this than the portals' big budgets - we speak directly to the buyers all day, everyday, and we after all have the properties. If the better brands list on OTM then that's where the better punters will look. If it doesn't succeed we can only blame ourselves, the agents.

    • 17 November 2014 13:25 PM
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    I can completely understand why Russell Quirk is in complete denial about any Agents Mutual agents actually following through with their obligation to drop one of the duopoly, especially if I had an online business where I was 100% reliant on leads from Rightmove or Zoopla.
    Of course we know that this is not the case for High Street agents who also get leads from other ways. In fact many High Street agencies up and down the country currently only use on portal.

    • 17 November 2014 12:58 PM
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    My biggest fear is that OTM will actually be the rocket that helps online agents really take off.

    The negative press that OTM will generate once the media (and sellers) realise that EA's are dumping hugely popular, established and effective advertising platforms purely (which is true) to save a hundred pounds or two per office and, simultaneously barring online agents, will lead to EA's fees in general being put under the media microscope. Plus, online EA's will end up getting more positive national media exposure than they could have prayed for.

    Instead of stamping on online EA's AM could end up shoving their model and fees right into the public spotlight. THAT'S what I fear about OTM.

    • 17 November 2014 12:53 PM
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    Shocking that Agents Mutual's members haven't yet decided which portal to drop so close to its launch! Surely these members will suffer from dropping either of the big two, but its clearly a risk they're willing to take!

    • 17 November 2014 12:49 PM
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    Most of the negative posts on here are from people more worried about the affect of OnTheMarket on their business as opposed to being worried about the AM clients.

    As Ray Evans said why not get on with your own business and let others get on with theirs.

    • 17 November 2014 12:19 PM
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    Who else thinks agents will be given a 12 months reprieve from ditching a portal until AM gets up and running.

    A 100% certainty in my mind >>>

    Watch this space.

    • 17 November 2014 12:14 PM
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    The point is that everyone is scared of it appearing a cartel (evidence: the board saying that they are not agreeing who to drop, AM sales people leaving the room) and now people realising that this is going to make agency look greedy

    What's coming out now is that the big posh boys could have a complete strangeehold on this and the entire industry.

    Rather the devil I know.

    • 17 November 2014 11:28 AM
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    What a load of miserable gripers most of the posters are today.
    Why the h*** should any AM agent discuss or advertise what they are going to do with other agents If you are not with AM get on with your own business and let others get on with theirs. 'Guest Taylor' would seem to have it right.

    • 17 November 2014 10:49 AM
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    Are they goal posts that I see shifting in the near distance

    Given that agents will be tied into fixed term contracts or will have to provide notice to Rightmove/Zoopla in order to drop them, how can it be that so many (if not all) Agents Mutual agents have not yet decided which portal to drop Is it a question of their bottle going

    There's more to this I feel...

    The industry deserves to know what the AM agents intend to do and surely these agents' clients do too I'm looking forward to seeing the list of UK estate agents that are about to halve the coverage that they provide to their sellers. If indeed they actually go ahead with their commitment to AM at all. Such formal commitment looks increasingly doubtful.

    • 17 November 2014 10:10 AM
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    "...We have become increasingly less reliant upon the portals over the course of the past 18 months." Says it all really, if they do not really on portal traffic why are they trying to drive the independents onto a new web site when they themselves do not really on one, you are all being fooled into joining this Trojan horse. They are trying to pull you off the only web sites that bring you results so they can control the independents share of the market. Blind leading the blind where the one eyed monster is truly king.

    • 17 November 2014 09:46 AM
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    When are the AM supporters not on the Board going to wake and realise that the 'founders' who incidentally control the Board, are only doing this to start their own 'LocationPrime' This so called 'mutual' is already advertising at its recruitment meetings that, by the way guys, if 90% of you vote to sell, we will sell. Mutual Don't make me laugh.

    • 17 November 2014 08:55 AM
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    Also like to add that Zoopla's handling of the AM launch has been shocking! Trying to undermine AM's position in all sorts of ways! We WILL be submitting a complaint to the Competition & Markets authority and have been told by our solicitors that there is a "good and genuine" case for this.

    • 17 November 2014 08:41 AM
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    We're in discussions with RM & Z at the moment. We're basically going with who ever gives us the most discount and I would encourage ALL agents to do the same. We have also modified our software so that ALL properties first go on AM, THEN onto the 2nd portal 5 days after. We've making ALL our vendors/landlords aware of the duopoly and about AM and are offering them 1% for sales & 6% for rentals for next 6 months during "transitional phase". EVERYONE of our clients who we've spoken to about RM & Z could not believe the costs charged to agents for the work involved.... I can honestly say that all our regular clients are behind us.

    • 17 November 2014 08:36 AM
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    The irony is that OTM may actually drive MORE traffic to RM & Z. At the moment, a huge number of people - over 40% - only visit RM or Z because generally, they get the same results. If agents migrate away, then buyers & tenant will have to visit both. Between them, RM & Z will still have over 90% of UK listings whilst OTM will have less than 20% - so why would a buyer bother to visit it after having already trawled through 2 portals

    • 17 November 2014 08:14 AM
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    AM board members haven't decided which portal they intend to drop They have had 18 months to work that one out and they are just over 2 months from launch. Hardly gives you confidence in their decision making does it.

    And lets face it - any agent who drops RM has thrown all business sense to the wind. In fact, every single agent who supposedly has not decided whether to drop RM or Z should be forewarning all new instructions that they are considering taking their property off the multi-million monthly visitor brand leading portal RM to chuck it on the unknown, untested OTM a site which they haven't even seem yet!! Many sellers will go ballistic if they find their properties have been taken off RM without their prior consent and Z users won't be far behind.

    I attended an AM meeting and the rep said she would have to leave the room if we agents started to discuss which portal to drop because it would conflict with anti-competitive rules. And yet, all of the AM board members including some of the UK's biggest agents are discussing this among themselves! How contradictory is that

    'Big' members of the he board haven't decided which portal to drop yet And the small ones declined to comment What a farce.

    • 17 November 2014 06:34 AM
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    does anyone know what the board will be paying themselves

    • 17 November 2014 05:31 AM
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    "...We have become increasingly less reliant upon the portals over the course of the past 18 months." Is this why then they would bother to undertake to create their own portal

    One vote per branch is rubbish because agents will never get to vote on a fair question set by that monopoly board. The big PR machines of the big 2 will just steam roller everything and have their way and completely control the discussion.

    The whole point of this was a revenge attack on Rightmove but none of them will dare drop it and so no one achieve anything.

    • 17 November 2014 05:29 AM
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