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Primelocation and FindaProperty both set new records for monthly visitors in August, the Digital Property Group has reported.

FindaProperty attracted four million unique visitors in August  – a 25% year-on-year increase – building on the record of 3.8m set only the month before.

Primelocation also achieved a new monthly record with 444,000 more unique visitors, 21% up on August 2009.

Leads from the Digital portals increased month-on-month from 3.37m to 3.43m in August, a rise of 2%.

This includes telephone and email enquiries as well as click-throughs to agent websites.
 
The Digital Property Group portfolio of portals also includes Globrix and FindaNewHome.

Comments

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    Other than the post deleted by admin (I assume got out of hand, which seems to the norm this year!!!), isn't everyone saying the same. The internet is there as a window, only a peice of the cake. How you use it is down to you but RM (not internet advertising) is not the sole answer, there is another negative side of big web sites, not just RM, which we have proved many times. We move around as the market changes and accordingly our strategy is trying to keep ahead, sometimes it works (mostly) sometimes it doesn't, when it doesn't we change, like returning to RM every so now and then. But when we were away it never hurt us and now RM provides the stats on our competitors we can see we were ahead when not on that particular site. Currently we use 12 web sites, back in the 90's we were on 27!

    • 10 September 2010 11:12 AM
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    ...and thereby establish a point of contact with the buyer which may - just may - lead to viewings on properties (which may or may not include the original property they had "assessed" online...) which would lead to sales for that company.

    Would your vendors be happy that you had this attitude?

    Sorry - if you don't want contact with potential buyers just because they waste an ickle bit of your pwecious time then I wespectfully suggest you are in the wrong industry...

    • 09 September 2010 14:08 PM
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    Perhaps you would like to enlighten me - how long is long enough? Is there a period of your career in property whereby you can confidently state 'I've been doing this job just long enough'.

    Would you get more instructions if you said it? Would there be a call for regulators to check your claim was valid? Would it be a PMA matter if you misled to a material degree? Or is this putting more workstrain on the poor old TPOS?

    • 09 September 2010 13:49 PM
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    I'm still waiting...

    Don't you just hate it, peoples, when a smartypants has the answer to all our problems but keeps it to themselves?

    • 09 September 2010 13:41 PM
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    One thing the web does is to allow buyers to assess a property and explore its history without contacting the agent. Although, many of these 'hits' do not result in further enquiries or a viewing, they are not useless. Indeed, I would argue that they save an enormous amount of time for the agent, who would otherwise have to provide the information for each individual customer.

    • 09 September 2010 13:08 PM
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    This post has been removed by site admin

    • 09 September 2010 13:01 PM
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    AceofSpades – god no mate, what im saying, and apologies for not be clearer is that if the net didn’t exist at all buyers / sellers will (and did for hundreds of years) find the agent / houses they want – the web is just another advertising / promotional tool in a wide range of such things.

    I am not surprised by your claims on sellers finding agents they haven’t heard of online but sceptical of the percentage as so many factors influence a vendors decision and I don’t believe any independent – ie, not by a portal, research has been done on this.

    You sound like a big, big web fan but its not the only area that we should be investing in, staff, Premises, service, marketing etc, etc are equally as important, if it was just a case of great web marketing then there would be a lot more millionaires in the estate agency world.

    The other key issue and one that’s been brought out in the posts below is that no matter how many hits a site gets, no matter how well known and high profile it is if the stuff on there isn’t the right money its just a big window shopping event.

    • 09 September 2010 12:47 PM
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    Jonnie - Are you saying that all 7 sellers and 7 buyers that Dabber has successfully dealt with, would have gone through him regardless of him marketing on the internet or not?

    I agree with you that the number of overall sales would not necessarily fall if the proeprty world stopped using the net.

    However, while it is hear and available, the overall transaction levels remain. By marketing effectively online, you can increase your own slice of the pie.

    I think you will be surprised to learn that many buyers and (especially) sellers opt for an agent they have never heard of after finding them online.

    • 09 September 2010 12:13 PM
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    It doesn’t seem so long ago that we all winced at the cost of entering the willy waving contests in the local property papers – then, like now the papers didn’t sell houses many of us were in there to promote our businesses and satisfy the expectations of vendors, it’s the have to be in it attitude.

    If the property world stopped advertising on the net no fewer sales would be agreed – your man below who says he sold 7 houses off the web – strictly he’s wrong, he sold those house because the vendors choose him, and he got the price right, the buyers came through the web but not because of the web.

    • 09 September 2010 11:35 AM
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    I agree. But, a top agent will be doing both, and doing them both well.

    There is a difference between listing a property and listing it to a high standard.

    • 09 September 2010 10:36 AM
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    Give it a try and see for yourself. We speak to our clients, we don't wait for them and that is estate agency!

    • 09 September 2010 10:22 AM
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    Wooden Top -

    You say your business rocketed up when you left Rightmove - this makes no sense whatsoever UNLESS you worked harder at maximising all lead sources and mining every lead when you weren't a member.

    Even when the user has contacted the agent there are so many that view the web as lower quality that they don't even respond to the leads they do get. (I'm sure this isn't the case with you, but you get my point).

    • 09 September 2010 10:15 AM
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    Just for those sceptics who do think the internet is the holy grail. Yes we do sell on the net, not saying it dosen't have it's place, otherwise we wouldn't use it. It is just a string to your bow. However the more reliant you become on it, the less control you have. Internet advertising is reactive marketing. You have to wait for the surfer to find the property they like from their impression of your and your competitors listing and then to respond to you. The lead story proves the point?

    Estate agency is get off your backside and speak to your buyers, don't wait for them to find you. While you've been waiting we've been speaking to them and selling. To prove the point we have withdrawn from RM 2 times since they started about 10 years ago (we were the only independent in our area using them for several years). Our latest venture with them was to rejoin 4 months ago, purely because we were getting a pasting from our competitors as we weren't on the No1 portal. Fact we had more enquiries and more importantly our mailing list rocketed up each time when we were off their site and sold properties. Why because people still contact estate agents (many didn't realise we werent on RM!!!!) and we weren't sending them to a site with so much choice. I'm instructed to sell my instructions, not advertise the competition. Oh and we used over 40 web sites in the last 10 years and they have all been the same. We won't leave the internet, but we keep control and that is why were so successful.

    • 09 September 2010 10:05 AM
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    To Sceptical Agent. How long have you been in estate agency? Either far too long or not long enough me thinks?? I think it is safe to say that there are plenty of people out there wanting to buy. Whether they have the means is another questions and for that we need to turn to the banks and mortgage lenders as they are responsible for holding the country back and potentially pushing us into a double dip.

    • 09 September 2010 09:29 AM
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    The market is tough, people will shop around more. Only the keenest priced properties which are marketed well are likely to sell. The rest will still get clicked, sure, but then rejected. That is what we are seeing. Time for agents to really earn their fees. Houses will no longer sell themselves. Accurate pricing and killer marketing are what is needed. Overpricing and cheap marketing (fees) might win instructions but they are unlikely to sell property and earn fees in this, and the coming, market. When the going gets tough as they say.

    • 09 September 2010 07:40 AM
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    The market is tough, people will shop around more.
    Only the keenest priced properties which are marketed well are likely to sell. The rest will still get clicked, sure, but then rejected.
    That is what we are seeing.

    Time for agents to really earn their fees. Houses will no longer sell themselves.

    Accurate pricing and killer marketing are what is needed. Overpricing and cheap marketing (fees) might win instructions but they are unlikely to sell property and earn fees in this, and the coming, market.

    When the going gets tough as they say.

    • 09 September 2010 07:39 AM
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    275 hits and no viewings, I'd be reviewing the content the listing.

    It's easy to blame RM but their job is providing eyeballs, as you say they have sent you plenty. What they see when they get there is down to the agent.

    RM provide the shop window and the traffic. How you dress your window is what makes the difference.

    • 09 September 2010 07:09 AM
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    Well with all the reports announcing increasing demand for rental properties and record number of tenants per rental property, you ever thought that this may have contributed towards the increase in traffic? Before you continue to state it's nosey neighbours or 'people bored surfing the net' maybe ponder that. I for one would not be occupying my time pointlessly searching property portals if I was bored!! Is that what you do?!!

    • 08 September 2010 17:07 PM
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    We sold at 7 properties through portal enquires -5 rightmove and 2 Digital - last month so I am happy.
    (FYI Trevor - I pay under £1500 a month to portals - around £3000 less than we spent in the local rag 3 years ago).
    Interested in the ealier comment about 9 out of 10 people not looking at adverts - what levels of people who walk past your shop look in if its higher please let me know where you are as I will be opening next door/or of all the sets of details you send out actually result in a response? Honestly though does anyone with any level of brains really think the internet is not the place to be - you only have to look at the travel industry, bookies even weekly shopping to see the trends - the public decide not us!

    • 08 September 2010 15:50 PM
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    Pray tell, Nick - what exactly DO you expect to buy for your £600k? In today's terms, please - just so we can judge how far prices have to fall to add you to the statistics...

    • 08 September 2010 15:09 PM
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    As Nick Stone says, there are obviously a lot of latent buyers out there just waiting for house prices to drop into the realms of affordability. I don't think this has anything to do with the medium of advertising.

    Its rather rash to say the advertising on the property on Internet doesn't work, especially in a dead market. Any agent (wooden top) who doesn't think it is the best way to reach customers should try taking their website offline and wait and see what happens!

    • 08 September 2010 14:42 PM
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    I can answer sceptical agent's puzzlement concerning why the market is on its knees if so many are househunting. I have £600k cash to spend and I look at RM everyday. The properties in my price bracket are just not good enough. I'm waiting until the market falls before buying anything.

    • 08 September 2010 14:14 PM
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    It just goes to show that web advertising isn't all that it's cracked up to be. For example I had 275 hits on a property two weeks ago on RM. Not a single viewing or request for details. We made 7 unrealated web viewings ourselves. The old adage that newspapers doesn't sell but gets instructions seems to becoming more true about web sites, after all they are only an electronic newspaper and RM themselves say that properties with them are not selling!

    Our expereince is actual buyers still walk into the estate agents office sooner or later. Web advertrising isn't the holy grail to selling and is being proved time and time again.

    • 08 September 2010 12:36 PM
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    Not being funny but we put this down to bored people surfing the internet and pushing up the activity levels and before you all take a pop back at me because even Prime Locations blog www primelocationblog.com/uk/ can see this conundrum - the bottom line is the UK market is now technically in a state of FUBAR and will take a bit more than what is being offered to recover it - PS dont forget the public sector has not even started the slide yet (well connaught have) - todays forecast - more gloom and more repos - thank you Blair, Bush and Brown for this legacy.

    • 08 September 2010 11:10 AM
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    And how many are agent hits , uploading or checking what other agents have? But agree with Wardy - its time for agents to take back control and for things to move full circle. Fab to see an agents forum on who is paying which portal what amount.

    • 08 September 2010 11:08 AM
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    It may get to the stage where internet portals are not main source for leads and estate agency could come full circle. Rightmove and the like have become sites that people just surf regardless of intent to buy and sell. We have the highest click through rates in our area on rightmove, premium listings, floor plans, v tours might get us a 10% click through rate. Sounds good? it means 90% didn’t bother and of them you might be lucky enough to get a couple of leads a month.
    All the good quality leads at the moment walk straight into the office.

    • 08 September 2010 10:15 AM
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    Ridiculous if all these people are househunting why is the market on its knees. We all know there is a massive lack of buyers across the UK, so how can all the portals be reporting increased traffic. I think that a llarger 5 than ever of these hits are nosey neighbours or property internet addicts who just need their fix of homes online. Just like the Halifax and their 0.2% house price increase this is just pointless PR that won't help us agents or the market.

    • 08 September 2010 09:52 AM
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