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Graham Awards

TODAY'S OTHER NEWS

OnTheMarket has helped online agencies thrive, says Russell Quirk

Russell Quirk - whose online agency eMoov is banned from OnTheMarket - says the new portal has indirectly helped onliners rather than hindered them.

“OTM has actually been a godsend for businesses like eMoov and our competitors like Purplebricks, both in terms of our story with investors, ability to raise capital and our story with consumers and the ability to win instructions” says Quirk. 

“We now charge less and offer more than many traditional agents, thanks to OTM” he insists.

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eMoov, citing Hitwise data, claims that in April (which he admits has been OTM’s most successful month to date), Rightmove had a portal market share of 67 per cent versus 31 per cent for Zoopla and two per cent for OTM. 

He also says that on a 12-month average Rightmove gets 87 million visits per month versus 39 million for Zoopla and three million for OTM.

“Marketing on Rightmove and Zoopla, as we do, gives 98 per cent market coverage. This fact seems quite at odds with some of the promises made by OTM as to where they’d be by now” he says. Quirk adds that on the basis on the Hitwise visit data and what he calls “publicly stated marketing spends” it costs Rightmove around 1p for each visit versus 2p for Zoopla and 30p per visit for OTM. 

“Assuming the same conversion rate of five per cent for all portals and using publicly stated branch numbers, the cost to an agent for every lead is £2.81 on Rightmove versus £2.33 for Zoopla and £15.27 for OTM” he says.

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    “We now charge less and offer more than many traditional agents, thanks to OTM” - By what measure Russell? Remember, you have form at the ASA.

    “OTM has actually been a godsend for businesses like eMoov and our competitors like Purplebricks, both in terms of our story with investors, ability to raise capital and our story with consumers and the ability to win instructions” - An interesting interpretation of the current market share of call-centre agents when market share is sub 3.5%, falling and eMoovs' own new customer numbers are only being bolstered by a huge 30%+ price slashing sale for the past two months.

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    I think he's expressed his measure above Chris, any agent who uses rm and z can quite confidently say they offer more than an OTM agent . It's fairly black and white

  • Terence Dicks

    Nice to hear the usual drivel from Russell. I was a bit worried he had got some common sense and stopped making ridiculously stupid comments, but here he is again. ALL the online agencies make the same assinine statements. Love Your Postcode has the comment "and got us a higher price" in their radio ad. Higher than what?? Obviously the online agencies have their own secret pricing system in their fortunately virtual world.

  • Terence Dicks

    With regards to OTM, I have noticed that London-based Kinleigh Folkard Hayward are listing again on Rightmove. Perhaps another one a bit let down by them??

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