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Today's Headlines:

House prices fall or rise (take your pick)
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House prices went up slightly – by 0.4% – in July, the Land Registry has reported. It

Knight Frank stay quiet after conman is jailed
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A tenant who faked his identity when renting through Knight Frank has been jailed for three

Rich overseas buyers keep prime London market aloft
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Chinese buyers are expected to replace Russian investors as major players in the prime central London

Moving occasion: today's the day!
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The most popular moving date is today, September 1, the Post Office has revealed. The two next

Prospective first-time buyers sink to new low
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The proportion of buyers expecting to buy for the first time in the next 12 months

Housing market 'edging towards double dip' claim
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Net lending plummeted in July to the second lowest monthly figure since records began in 1993,

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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Property portal Home has created some new statistic pages on its site which we reckon will

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

Agents encouraged to log leads, says Rightmove survey

Monday 17th November 2008

Despite the difficult market, nearly a quarter of agents in Rightmove’s latest member survey had not recorded leads into their database in the last three months because the applicant hadn’t requested an appraisal or viewing.

Further analysis found many agents failing to respond to their share of the over million-plus email and telephone leads Rightmove says it provides a month.

One independent agent in Yorkshire with a high market share was surveyed. It was found that 6 out of 11 recent email applicants did not hear back from the agent, and only 16% (21) of 129 email applicants over a three-week period were registered by the agent.

Patrick McCutcheon, head of residential at Dacre, Son and Hartley, said: “In a difficult market, agencies need to redouble their efforts, and that means chasing buyers hard.

“Whilst at Dacres we take pride in our hands-on applicant management, we found the third-party view taken by Rightmove of our internet lead handling invaluable. It helped us ensure that our sales negotiators were fully primed on what to expect from this unique form of leads and were best placed to make the most of these potential sources of business.”

To help members manage leads, Rightmove has redesigned the format of its email leads to highlight key facts and applicants’ comments.

Rightmove has also been testing 16 different combinations of colours and texts in its call to action to consumers on the property details page and found that orange generates 30% more leads than other colours.

Today, the latest Rightmove survey underlines just how difficult the market is with sellers still over-optimistic about house values. The survey found current asking prices are being slashed 2.9% month on month, or 7.1% over the year – not enough to secure a buyer, with agents reporting achieved prices 20% down over the year.

The portal has also recorded just 80,000 new listings for the month – the lowest since 2002 when it launched its monthly survey.

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Posted By Pete on Thursday 27th November 2008 01:15:25

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Perhaps Rightmove should consider that the quality of their leads has gone through the floor since they allowed unregistered users to send 'leads'. When users had to log in to Rightmove before they could send a lead, the quality of our leads was more or less 100%. Now it is nearer 40%.

There is no excuse for not following up each lead, but the poor quality of the leads generated by the new model is the reason why they don't all make it onto our system. I've raised this issue with Rightmove but have had, as expected, absolutely no response from them.

Rightmove need to pull their finger out and use their market position to start lobbying the government, and making relevant press announcements that will actually serve their and their [paying] customers' interests. Miles needs to publicly name and shame the lenders and the government by the use of facts, rather than deflecting the blame back to agents.

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Posted By Vossy on Tuesday 18th November 2008 09:23:11

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Once again Estate Agent today is quoting from the Gospel according to Rightmove! Rightmove do NOT have a monopoly on opinion but it appears that what they say MUST be true. Why only in the London Evening Standard last night a Rightmove source quoted the number of Agents on their site had gone down "due to them not being ABLE to pay their renewal fee"...maybe it was in reality because they did not WANT to pay their renewal fee!!!
The fact is email enquiries, whilst essential, is an easy option so whilst they are essential they are not always good leads...How many times have we been asked to email or post details of a property when all the sender needed to do was print them of themselves...emails make applicants lazy also. I agree in these hard times you cant afford to ignore a good lead, however the emphasis is on the GOOD!

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Posted By Rebel on Monday 17th November 2008 12:08:20

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Estate Agent & Letting Agent Awards 2008:

Dacre, Son & Hartley’s Baildon office has been named as one of the top five estate agents offices in Yorkshire and The Humber.

Yorkshire’s Finest Property Awards 2007:

Best Marketing Campaign for a single property up to £250,000:
Dacre, Son and Hartley.

Best Estate Agent Website (National or regional agent):
Dacre, Son and Hartley.

Surely shome mishtake?

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Posted By MikeAtZoomf on Monday 17th November 2008 11:52:33

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How about Rightmove tries to integrate their email leads into the agent CRMs. That should help. Not so sure about the orange comments. LOL.

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