Despite the restructuring of the property portal market into what has been loudly proclaimed as a two-horse race, more portals have continued to launch.
Myhomesunlimited is offering agents a free 12-month trial and no contracts.
Founders Sumanth Yennamaneni and Bipin Bommakanti are both IT specialists and say they have developed websites and software systems for over 500 estate agents.
They say they were prompted to launch their own site by the number of clients who said that Rightmove and FindaProperty were becoming unaffordable.
Bommakanti said: “We contacted 100 independent agents around the UK and the feedback was 95% in favour of an affordable alternative property portal.”
The site currently lists around 165,000 properties from 3,000 agents. It plans to start charging when it receives a million visitors a month, which it reckons will take a year.
www.myhomesunlimited.com
Also newly launched is Need a Property, which is also launching an initial free trial. It will then charge £100 a month.
Scott Green, founder and CEO of Need a Property, said: “Times are tough for a lot of estate agents at the moment and the increasing pressures from rising costs could push more and more smaller firms to breaking point.
“Need a Property understands the financial pressures being faced by not just the independents, but agents of all sizes, and it has been set up to support them in the marketing of their properties at a monthly fee that offers a significant discount to the major portals in the market.”
Agents signing up to Need a Property will have their properties displayed on a total of five sites, including Needaproperty.com, eastwestplc.com and the Daily Express. It currently has around 2,000 agency offices listing their properties.
www.needaproperty.com
Comments
Seems we will be getting a call/visit from Zoopla soon, now they have bought the other portals with a "new pricing" structure. Wonder if the price will be going down ??? haha.
I hope these new portals can make a dent into the big two.
Pleased to say, I have received great service from Anthony and his team since my grievance - and now had the money refunded.
Wish them all the best with taking on Rightmove and if they can prove some figures to me i'd happily consider it. Don't think their marketing campaign has hit the Droitwich yet!
I have had over 170 leads from Need a Property in the first three months of our trial. Will see how the "summer" season pans out before I pay the £100 per month.
I came searching for a feed on this to pass on a warning to check your bank statements...
I signed up to a free trial with needaproperty.com and put a diary note to give notice on the 5th month so as not to be charged after the 6th. I rang and explained with out a single lead I will be exercising my right to cancel and was persuaded to stay with it as the the marketing campaign was about to begin and offered another 3months for free.
So I rang them again on the 2nd month of the 3 month period to again give 30 days notice and was told I was to receive a further extension as I hadn't received a single lead and my login details were actually incorrect.
This morning I have found out I have been charged £120 yesterday by direct debit.
I've rang them this morning and have been told it is being 'looked in to' but best you check so you don't suffer the same.
I'm all for someone taking on Rightmove but without a single lead in 9 months I certainly won't be jumping ship!
I would stick to right move if they lowered their prices ! I like the look of the Need a Property web site. Hope they can make more of a mark than many before them. Good Luck
Hey Donnie
Please be assured that Myhomesunlimited.com is branded as an alternative affordable property portal from day one.
We do not ask for contracts or minimum notice periods.
Myhomesunlimited.com
I have recently taken a trial with Need a Property, and although it is too early for me to say whether I would actually pay for the service, ive been fairly impressed with the flow of leads ive had in the last 4 weeks.
@Glen
I am really puzzled by your suggestion - in that countless free portals have been tried already. Globrix is free is it not? When it launched it scraped everyone's properties (well it definitely had most agents' properties on there) so you didn't have to think about feeds etc.
It relied on advertising for income and attracted some big name investors. It even advertised on the box for a while.
Why did it not succeed? Why aren't you all using it already?
A while ago another relaunch was announced on here of ... I forget which portal but it was owned by one of the big papers - might have been the Mail. Announced with a fanfare - a number of agents on here said it was a good site - easy to upload to etc. Why don't you all use it?
So, what you suggest has already been tried loads of times - not least by the NAEA.
None of them have worked and only you guys know why.
Glen.
You had an opinion which you felt was worthy of sharing. No one is necessarily disagreeing with you - however Hawkeye is, I would suggest, making the point that this is after all a public site and that you are judged by what you say and how you say it. Poorly written responses (and in fairness to your goodself yours wasn't even near the half-way line...) are rife on EAT - and whilst the content may be relevant and correct, they otherwise give the wrong impression of the author (and by association, the Estate Agency profession).
Your point has been discussed many times previously. NAEA could have had the whole thing sewn up with PropertyLive - but the woeful amateurishness (not even sure if that's a word!) of the site until very recently gave the dedicated portals a stronghold which will now be difficult if not impossiblke to break - as it is the public who now have RM, FaP etc in their favourites list. The simple fact is that these household names are where people search - and IF say 50% of Agents deserted the main portals in favour of PL, then there would be a considerable timelag before it joined those others in the minds of the buying (and most importantly,selling...) public. Result - those Agents who stay with the biggies will most likely increase their business share to the detriment of the 'deserters', don't you agree?
Anyway - back to you. You've made a good point back at Hawkeye. Why now threaten to keep your opinions to yourself? It's actually refreshing to get some new posters on here whose intention is not simply to provoke a reaction to their idiiocy. Keep 'em coming, Sir!
Dear Hawk Eye,
I didn't realise you had to suggest ideas on this forum in perfect English.It was in no way intended to be a full business plan.Just a suggestion.
I don't think that I will bother posting on this forum again.
Oh, and I wasn't aware that "@" was used in written English.You perhaps should have used the word "at" in place of it.
Yours Sincerely,
Glen
The pests at 'needaproperty' have been phoning me twice a day for a week now.
I finally agreed to sign up.
They said they needed 2 things from me.
1. Uploaded logo.
2. Direct debit signed.
I suggested I would give them a signed direct debit in 5 months time if I liked the FREE service.
I was told thats not how they 'do it' and they would need to get authorisation from their 'director' to do this !
They have stopped phoning me.
Hawkeye , why pick on Glen, one post, then you ignore idiots like Jonnie etc?
Nothing is ever free! try to get on need a property for their free 6 months without a portal lead from your softwear supplier.......you will find a £££££ is involved
@Glen
How do you stay in business with your abysmal command of written English?
Stick to rightmove.
when will someone like the naea(or an independent group who read this) ask all of us existing agents to pay say £250 an office to build a decent,commercial ,national site.We all list for free from launch day and also agree not to advertise on r/m or zoopla/dpg.The running/promotion costs would be found from advertising revenues from advertisers on the site with the organisers/shareholders of the site take say 10/20% of profits.
Yes.... the corps may decide to stay on their lovechild sites l as they have alot of money tied up in shares and also they pay half the monthly rightmove cost per office as independent(like us) or new start offices have to.
The established sites would decrease in value as they would only be able to display 2 thirds of property available.
I find that the free sites often cost me money each month, in covering the work done by my portal provider to set up & maintain the feed. I have also been trialling one for a few months, better not say which, and started off with endless teething problems many of which have been 'fixed' by deleting the function that has errors. As yet I find no reason to stay with it once the trial is over .... which it is really but they show a marked reluctance to stop my free trial, wonder why.
Yet again 2 new sites for us to list our properties "free" until they are big enough to charge us.
When will our industry finally learn not to build up other folks businesses so they can end up shafting us, and have our own co operative website where ,as shareholders, we can actually list for free and make a share of an advertising revenue (that would be very large.)