easyProperty, the online agency launched by easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou and property entrepreneur Rob Ellice, has confirmed its expansion plans for this year - with its sales wing now launching in the third quarter.
easyProperty, which launched in the lettings sector last September, has now started a property management service, which will provide rent-handling and tenant-finding services to residential landlords.
Now Ellice has told Property Week that his company will within the next six weeks launch a commercial arm, initially concentrating on serviced office and office lettings as well as high street retail.
In the second quarter of the year it intends to expand into short-term rentals (a growing sector which some existing High Street letting agents have started to cover) while its residential sales operation will start some time between the start of July and the end of September.
It will also move into the online sale of overseas residential property by mid-2016. Property Week says this will concentrate chiefly on Europe although easyProperty's chief marketing officer Chris Welch is quoted as saying the firm had received approaches from businesses in the Middle East, Far East and Scandinavia to partner with it.
Rightmove's head of overseas Robin Wilson will be joining later this year to help drive growth.
Comments
If by their you mean Stellios's holding company, then they are not. This is a brand name licensed in the same way you can licence Winkworths, Belvior, Hunters or any of those. Easyjet one might argue is successful but easypizza, easycar, easycinema, easydvd I think you worry necessarily. easyProperty have not made money yet and I doubt they ever will.
If their full attention is turned to the property sector we all have good reason to be fearful. This company dont seem to fail at much they do.
** Last comment should have read reported 1,000 agents having left rightmove (let alone 4,000 reported leaving zoopla).
VERY CLEVER. They recruit a rightmove bod who'll know the in's and outs of rightmove to optimize their presence there having just raised millions pre the launch of OTM. OTM has little p[ublic awareness which its reported around 1,000 agents have left. leaving big opportunities for a new rich kid on the block to take what many agents have helped build.
OTM is going to do more damage than good. FSBO I predict witll rise from a 5% share to 6%-8% in the next 2 years.
However their budget fees and fines for incorrect property information and omissions leaves a budget model at greater risk. I predict big budget models with carve a little new business, but take out many of the existing operatives.
BUDGET isn't the way forward come 4-5 years though. They'll have their day, but won't be the future.
They aren't close to their 67m valuation so I suppose drastic action is needed. How many properties do they have now And what's their average fee
Yes I reckon so. There has been a distinct lack of tv advertising on my box from Easy whereas I keep seeing Beeny's '[i]masterpiece[/i]'... Maybe it's just the channels I watch!
Going down the commercial route before sales - is that a sign that EP's lettings business hasn't been quite as successful as expected
For all this, easyProperty seems to have very much done things on the quiet. They don't seem to have the desired impact on the lettings market. I don't know, compared to some of the noise being made by the other new kids on the block - cough, OnTheMarket and Tepilo, cough - they've been remarkably restrained. Maybe that's a good thing, but I expected a brand of their size to have done more.