The launch of the NAEA’s new portal, Propertylive.co.uk, has been greeted as a success by the professional body, backed by massive goodwill from member agents who are cheerleading for its success.
However, the site was shown to attendees at this week’s Agency Expo event and prompted puzzlement as to whether it was a launch or a just a demo.
One of those who attended contacted Estate Agent Today and said: “Is it propertylive or propertydead? It was just a demonstration. It wasn’t live and showed only two properties, one of which would have breached the PMA. In fact, it was embarrassing. Rightmove must be feeling very relieved.”
Property press had been briefed that the site, promoted as a free portal going head to head with paid-for portals like Rightmove, would go live on Tuesday this week.
But one agent said that it would probably take until Christmas before enough agents had posted sufficient properties to make the site viable for it to be promoted to the public.
Competitors also expressed their bafflement. Nick Leeming, founder of the original property portal, Propertyfinder, said: “Propertylive is not a new concept. It has been around for a number of years. However, it is a new site and we have to see how it will deliver. At Propertyfinder, we are very aware of the enormous sums of investment needed to deliver a site that consumers are aware of.”
Others also told Estate Agent Today that the launch budget of £250,000 was nowhere near enough to get a portal up and running and would not deliver the member benefits promised.
However, the NAEA seems more than happy with the impact it has made so far and project manager Lou Turnball has told members: “We made it! As promised, PropertyLive.co.uk will be delivered on time at the end of this week.
“As no other portal has ever attempted such a challenge to cater for so large a number of agents and properties from the off (2,500 office applications to date), we ask that members remain patient in the early weeks whilst we work quickly to ensure that all of your properties are uploaded to the website.
“We have always maintained there needs to be a separation between the trade launch (now) and the consumer launch, which will come later. We need to allow a period of time for PropertyLive.co.uk to settle and for us to resolve any bugs that may be picked up in the early weeks, as we are sure that members would not wish us to take any unnecessary risks that could damage the integrity of the site.”
The communication makes no mention of the very similarly named site, propertylive.me
Alerted by Estate Agent Today, Knight Frank has succeeded in getting its properties thrown off propertylive.me
But by yesterday (Thursday), the site was still found via Google and appears to have bitten back with a substantial property listing, although Knight Frank properties seem no longer to feature.
Meanwhile, the battle of the portals is hotting up, with an announcement expected next week from Vebra. Mouseprice, the free portal, is also expected to become far higher profile in its bid to attract agents who pay nothing to list their properties.
The Digital Property Group is now also offering its property portals, which include Primelocation, FindaProperty, FindaNewHome and HomesandProperty, to agents as a single package. The pricing is set for each agent using a value-based model which takes into account a wide variety of factors including location, number of properties and average property value to calculate a fair and competitive price. The monthly fee per branch ranges between £169, for an agent listing under 30 properties to let outside of London, to £799 for a central London estate agent listing over 60 properties with an average value of over £1 million.
Agents urged to be patient over NAEA's new portal
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Comments
New portals need to do two things 1) To attract Agents willing to pay to advertise their properties and 2)To make sure buyers are aware their site exists. With the NAEA portal getting instructions is easy as most NAEA agents will subscribe so all they need to do is make sure they publicise their site...and that is where the problem lies. Does anyone know how the NAEA are going to publicise the site TV, Radio, Newspapers, Google etc?
The NAEA have a tough battle ahead. Whilst they will probably do well on getting stock ( no different to the other 80 portals that exist ) - unless they spend millions on marketing the site, like Rightmove, Prime, Propertyfinder, Thinkproperty and Globrix, they are going to get no where
Knight Frank properties are still listed on propertylive.me
Sorry Cambell, my husband oened his own agency until January this year (when he sold it) and if you class £4 a month (approximately) to advertise a property on Rightmove as "fairly significant" I struggle to where you and half the people on this site are coming from.
£4 doesn't even buy a loaf of bread, 2 pints of milk and a jar of coffee....
I sold 2 flats last year and figures agents used, and supported with evidence, was 70% of our sales are from leads from Find a Property and Right Move.
Dear Melc and Mrs Ashbee-Waugh. Of course portals offer a service - but at a cost and a fairly significant one at that. Just like newspapers (they offer a service too) but at least with newspapers I'm not going to get shafted if I decide not to advertise in it over the quiet months. The idea of a portal site isn't rocket science, so if we can use our "own" website virtually for free, then why not? And rayevans' suggestion of making advertising the site a condition of membership is a cracking idea.
I dont understand what world you people live in.
Portals charging - How dare they charge for providing a service.
I assume that you also feel its wrong that Estate Agents charge for providing a service.
Guess with free portals agency fees will reduce significantly.
Even better property portals that don't rely on agents for funding hopefully when they have some enough traffic driven by agents they will allow us to advertise private sales on there for a small fee.
I have posted this three times.
All that needs to be done to make propertylive an outstanding success if for it to be made a compulsory condition of membership is to advertise it on all of the agents newspaper adverts, letterheads. details etc. Monitored by providing current samples to Warwick every year on renewal.
Simple.
At the risk of being controversial, why is it that so many estate agents consider it reasonable to be able to advertise for FREE? I'm pretty sure you'd get short shrift if you asked your local property paper or magazine for a full page without charge. A property portal that makes a fair charge for exposing agents and their listings, doesn't take every opportunity to raise prices and can, as a consequence of generating an income, promote itself to consumers seems like a pretty sensible arrangement. Those seeking something for nothing are more likely to get nothing for nothing.
Let's hope that the NAEA site does work - and that it genuinely adds value for EA's as well as the free to list portals and paid for portals. Adding your properties to these sites wont make them successful though - their success in attracting consumers; interested buyers and renters, will dictate their success.
Why are yoo so against the site Mr Brian May's Wigpiece? If you've got something useful to say use your real name and don't hide behind a false one. If this works (and there's no reason I can see why it can't) I'm quite happy to have my eggs in 1 "free" basket, rather than spread them around several charging sites. The reason why we don't "support" all the new generation "free" portals instead is simple - it's because I believe that they will try shafting us too once they get their feet under the table. The idea of 1 national portal site for all estate agents (run by our national body) is brilliant and I wish I'd thought of it myself. Do I really want to rely so much on a portal that can't even launch itself successfully? Well, yes I do actually and I for one am quite prepared to give it a fair chance and expect there to be few teething problems on the way.
With respect to Mr May's Wigpiece I believe that PropertyLive has a good chance of becoming successful but only if NAEA members are prepared to ram it down everyone's throats via their marketing. Everyone was happy to do this with Rightmove. It makes more sense to promote a site that, at least in theory, promotes the interests of the estate agency community. It is a shame that the launch has been delayed but, better that than have it fall over when first exposed to the public. We're supporting it as much as we can - our members get free uploads to it and we're not charging the NAEA anything to create or maintain the feeds. The biggest problem, it seems, is the time needed to verify each membership and switch on the PropertyLive subscription at Arbon House.
Agree 100% with Brian. We are on more than 15 different portals, some paid and some free. We therefore spread our net as large as possible to attract the few good leads that are out there. Its the difference between using a fishing rod or a trawler to catch fish. When we eventually get round to cancelling Rightmove I bet we wont even notice the difference.
All the agents who are looking to this shambles of a site to save them from Rightmove need a reality check.
The NAEA is not your saviour and it never will be. By building this portal up so much you are just going to create another Rightmove scenario where one portal dominates and controls you.
Have you not learned from history that putting all of your eggs in one basket only makes you weaker in the future?
Here's an idea for you. Why don't you go out there and support several of the new generation "free" portals instead?
Stimulate the competition between the new guys and you will see fast paced innovation, sector growth and inevitably more leads to your business.
For those that remain unconvinced and want to throw all they have into Propertylive.co.uk, ask yourself. if you really want to rely so much on a portal that can't even launch itself successfully?