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The most popular moving date is today, September 1, the Post Office has revealed. The two next

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The proportion of buyers expecting to buy for the first time in the next 12 months

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Henry Pryor Blog
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Welcome to a new monthly blog by Henry Pryor, estate agent turned entrepreneur, inventor and expert

Rightmove profits climb 39% as more agents sign up
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A rise in the number of agents and an overall willingness to pay more to Rightmove

Portal creates new 'check out your competition' stats
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Six in ten mortgages are now for house purchase
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The proportion of mortgages being taken out for purchases, as opposed to remortgages, is at its

News Story

Rightmove deny ‘unfair’ re-joining rates

Thursday 14th August 2008

Cash-strapped agents wanting to take a break from Rightmove will be charged new joiners’ rates when they return.

Trevor Kent, of Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, issued the warning after finding out that it would cost him a £220 a month surcharge on re-joining.

He said: “I wonder just how many agents contemplating a brief money-saving holiday from Rightmove know it would cost them this when they re-joined. I certainly did not know, and more importantly the girl at Rightmove was ready to process my 'cancellation' without telling me of the re-join hike.”

Kent called it “disgraceful”.

He said he had called Rightmove to ask what the site could do to help him as a struggling agent.

“The young lady said immediately: ‘We can cancel your membership as soon as you like and send you the unused balance of your sub’.

“But when I pressed her as to rejoining costs when things got better and assuming my business had survived, she said: ‘Rentals alone will be £195 and with sales too, it will be £595 per month’.

A furious Kent asked Rightmove commercial director Miles Shipside if he felt that “hiking re-join costs is conducive to long-term good relations with your customers”.

But Shipside said that Rightmove had spent over £100 million in eight years in establishing a marketplace for agents, which allowed them to cut back on newspaper advertising: “Many agents chose not to do this until a few months ago. This is vital in this tougher market, though I fear some agents have left it too late.”

He added: “Coming off Rightmove at all is a final resort in most agents’ eyes, though from a business point of view we seek to reward loyalty and discourage those that may consider leaving for a couple of months (say July/August or November/December) and then come back.

“To reward those that stay month in and month out, they pay membership at a discounted loyalty rate to the new joiner rate. Those that leave and return at a later date do so at the new joiner rate.

“In terms of building long-term relations with our members, we believe they are best served by rewarding the loyalty of those that stay, which I think is a fair principle. It would not be fair to them to let some members leave for a period of time and re-join at the same rate.”

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Posted By Mike Carter on Friday 15th August 2008 09:30:54

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Is Rightmove justifying price hikes by trying to tell the agents what to do in their markets? (no to newspapers, yes to Rightmove)

Or indeed that they should be loyal due to all the investments Rightmove has made historically. Sounds like they are passing on the 'investment' bill to their customers.

A solution to the problem? Buy direct traffic from search engines. With a cost per click of 23p for example, 595 pounds would send over 2,500 people to his website. There is a reason why advertising with Google has over-taken TV spend. It's the best direct response model online bar none.

And guess what, no setup or loyalty fees.

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Editorial Contact Details - Rosalind Renshaw | rosalind.renshaw@estateagenttoday.co.uk | 01252 843 566.