One of the founding agents behind Agents' Mutual and its new portal OnTheMarket, Knight Frank, says it is going to drop Zoopla and choose Rightmove as its one other portal.
OnTheMarket, which launches on January 26, is insisting that member agents advertise on one other portal only.
Most of the founding agents - Savills, Strutt & Parker, Knight Frank, Chestertons, Douglas & Gordon and Glentree - have recently declined to say which portal they would keep, but Knight Frank has now broken cover.
Noel Flint, partner at Knight Frank, says: Knight Frank has decided to continue utilising Rightmove in addition to OnTheMarket.com. After consideration of the data available to us, we noted that Rightmove generates considerably more referrals to our website than its sole rival in the existing market, Zoopla.
Feedback from our agents across the country also confirmed that Rightmove was the best choice available to us at this time and, most importantly, the best decision for our clients he says.
The launch of OnTheMarket.com in the New Year is a significant step for the property market as the creation of a new portal will offer consumers more choice and challenge the existing duopoly. It is our belief that a property portal operated on a not-for-profit and existing purely to promote the properties from the best estate agencies can only benefit sellers and landlords while also offering the best entry point to the market for buyers.
A statement from Rightmove says simply: We are pleased to confirm that Knight Frank will be advertising on Rightmove well into 2016. We look forward to continuing to work closely with Knight Frank and assisting in the promotion of its marketing objectives.
.png)
Comments
Good point by Simon Shinerock about the advertising of slots. If AM did become the only portal then the elite slots would go to the highest bidders. I.e. the group of 9 founders would control them.
It is the ethics of this whole thing that worries me and its the ethics of this which will cause so much damage to the estate agency profession. For example the whole premise of AM is to drive Zoopla and RMV out of business (doing so more out of revenge and spite) than anything else. I do fund this disgusting. By breaking up the coverage, they're attempting to ruin any other service which other portals can provide the public and I think this is highly unethical. Other examples of this unscrupulous behaviour can be observed throughout. Examples include how they have kept the promoted properties quiet up until the eleventh hour. Another bad example is how they deliberately hide the date in which a property came to market to protect the sellers. This is outrageous and yet another stain on a group who purport to represent our industry.
The NAEA ought to be very worried because Spriggetts power could grow if left unchecked and they the whole industry will be controlled by a few for the benefit of a few.
You know - part of the problem is the level of aggression displayed by Zoopla reps; some of them are so arrogant and bossy (not all of course)!!!
Rightmove will win in the short term for sure, but if OTM succeeds only the agents will win in the long run. Although there will be some very high basic salaries for the founding staff at OTM too no doubt............which is fine if it all pans out.
Zoopla have only themselves to blame. They came to the market promising that they would be competition to Rightmove and would help bring prices down. Their prices have only gone up! If enough agents do get behind OnTheMarket, who knows, Rightmove might also find it difficult in the future! Unless of course they bring their prices down.
I have one question, what did you pay in the press every week before rm and what do you pay to rm now We spend far less now but have grown as a business significantly so why don't you stop complaining about the fact were not still in the 90's grow a pair and get on with giving your vendors the best audience possible.
It's a great strategy by the elite agents, strenghen Rightmove, recreate PrimeLocation and this time Auction off all the prime ad slots giving them tenancy in their market in perpetuity and all paid for by their poorer brethren, genius, if they get away with it.....
t.dap:
I'm sure msny of the companies who are dropping zoopla will be on rightmove already (Knight Frank and Haarts for example), so they shouldn't see much of an increase in stock levels. Plus the fact that there will still be agents dropping rightmove in favour of zoopla (Newcastle area and south Wales i've heard), which should level their numbers back out to what they were pre-on the market launch.
No real surprise but agree with comments below that RM are going to be some beast come the New Year
What a bunch of chinless wonders! Everyone complains like buggery about Rightmove, but the truth is no-one can run their business without them.
Cowards
We are handing RM a huge competitive advantage - I just don't get it.
The whole point here was to bash (punish) RM for their dirty deeds and produce an advertising median to benefit everyone. This just gives RM a good 5-years to ride roughshod over one and all, until AM gets as strong (which is pretty slim).
locally, the "cartel" of agents is choosing zoopla and dropping RM, mainly because zoopla is cheaper than RM. A decision being driven by the bank balance rather than in the best interests of the vendors. if i was a vendor and i found out that my agent had dropped the biggest portal in the country in favour of an unknown portal i wouldn't be best pleased. remember the vendor doesn't know the mechanics of the industry, they just want their house sold, and perception is reality. i''m still on the fence because I see signing up to an unknown quantity for 5 years as a bad idea.
no surprise here - sold my zoopla shares last week - they are only going one way IMO will drop faster than Tescos in the next few weeks as more and more agents fall in line behind RM in preference to Zoopla