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TODAY'S OTHER NEWS

Major announcements from Rightmove, Zoopla and Boomin

Three of the leading portals have made major announcements as the fierce rivalry between the big players continues apace. 

Firstly Zoopla claims its latest marketing drive and PropTech features have driven increased business to agents.

A month ago the portal announced the launch of its My Home feature and its biggest ever marketing campaign.

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Now it says valuation leads are up 42 per cent in just a month. There has also been a 12 per cent uplift in visitors tracking a home and home values sessions are up 370 per cent.

Andy Marshall, the portal’s chief commercial officer, says: “We’re delighted to see the strong results My Home is already driving for our customers, particularly when it comes to valuation leads, which we know are gold dust for any agent. 

“Our multi-million pound investment is all about supporting agents to capitalise on the buoyant market and the initial results show we’re off to a great start with agents already reaping the benefits.” 

The portal says the aim of My Home and its marketing campaign is to turn the 42 per cent of UK households who are starting to think about selling, into active sellers. 

During the campaign, Zoopla says it highlights the crucial role agents have to play in nudging homeowners to sell, with its inaugural Hidden Equity survey finding that the average homeowner undervalues their property by an average of £46,305. 

“By educating homeowners on the true value of their property by providing an expert market valuation and personalised guidance, agents can support homeowners on how best to sell their home” the portal says.

Next up is Rightmove, which is set to grow its team of account managers by a quarter to - in its words - “further increase the level of service for agents.”

The recruitment drive comes alongside what the portal calls ongoing innovation for agents to help them win more instructions, prioritise the hottest leads and help with efficiencies in the current busy market.

Rightmove says it’s seen the number of valuation leads sent to agents jump by 20 per cent over the past week, with demand from prospective buyers up by 80 per cent on the same week in 2019, while rental demand is up by 53 per cent.

The portal’s agency director Dave Anderson says: “We want to increase the level of help and support for agents to make sure they’re making the most of all of the tools that are included in their membership, to take advantage of the current market conditions. 

“As well as our most popular tools like the Best Price Guide and market share reports, a number of agents are also using more recent innovations such as Viewings Manager, an appointment booking tool which is also included in their membership, to cut down on tenant no-shows. 

“Other agents are demonstrating their SSTC successes by using our Sold by Me product to target prospective sellers within property search. 

“We need to make sure agents are getting more of our time so they’re aware of everything available to them that could help them grow their market share further in their local area, and also see if we can help their teams cut down on admin so they can focus more on building up their pipeline.”

The portal says the aim of My Home and its marketing campaign is to turn the 42 per cent of UK households who are starting to think about selling, into active sellers. 

Finally there’s news from Boomin too.

The new challenger portal has announced that Richard Pennycook - a major supermarket Industry figure - has been appointed to the board as a non-executive director.

A former chief financial officer of Morrison Supermarkets, he’s most recently been chief executive of The Co-operative Group, where he was widely recognised as saving and rebuilding the business in recent years. 

Boomin chief executive Michael Bruce says: “We are building out a powerful team of the highest calibre, reflecting the size of the opportunity, our ambitions and the desire to be the number one choice for our agent partners. 

“Richard’s exceptional career at the forefront of British retail makes him ideally suited to help us execute on our strategy to always pursue the best interests of estate agents, generate them maximum revenue and bolster the development of Property Playground, one of the key and unique features of the Boomin platform, which sets it apart from the other listings focused portals. 

“Playground is already growing in momentum, with new architects, designers and other home service providers joining the platform, alongside an increasing number of homeware and furniture retail partners.”

  • icon
    • 19 May 2021 09:56 AM

    Let's see if the portals can live up to the hype of all these "new & exciting" announcements or whether they're just trying to detract from their increasing prices

  • Hit Man

    Since When have Boomin been one of the leading portals? what nonsense just another advertisement.

  • Glenn Taylor

    what a load of old nonsense, estate agency has lost all of its feel and professionalism and is governed by who spends the most money on exposure and pointless claims.
    valuations up by 42%, yes, maybe, to those paying the dosh for them.
    They have us by the nuts and they will break our industry.
    Bring back the papers through the letterbox.

  • Mike Riley

    More valuation leads from portals = fewer valuations coming to agents directly from their marketing and relationship building efforts.

    This simply gives the portals more power.

    *This is not a good thing for agencies.*

    If you think its bad that portals control the search part of the mover journey, wait until they control more of the valuations flow.

    The organisation who controls that has incredible power.

    Agencies should push back hard on this development, more valuations sounds good, but it is a highly deceptive trojan horse. It might not seem like much at the moment, but this is the thin end of a VERY important wedge.

  • Andrew Stanton PROPTECH-PR A Consultancy for Proptech Founders

    The old model was, inventory from agents generated visits to property portals. These visitors or leads are then passed back to the agents either as enquiries to buy or let, or list or rent. Technology is now washing through all verticals of real estate, which means the digital natives who utilise portals want much more than just a list of properties, and agencies themselves need to realise that their 'customers' expect a very different UX journey.

    We are now seeing, powered on by lockdown, the need to have a more Amazon and responsive model for the public who wants to 'do property' on the customer's terms. ZPG are going down a progressive proptech route, enabling agents to digitally transform their businesses, Boomin is putting the consumer at the heart of their proposition and at the same time monitising all the opportunities that agents fail to monetise, and sharing the cash nexus with the partner agents - as many agents do not understand that agents are digital companies - whether they like it or not, and

    Rightmove is adding a new division of account managers to 'manage' its agents - I am unsure what this will look like on the ground, is it containment or a policy of listening and nurturing agents? What is clear, and I speak due to my day job at Proptech-PR to probably 20 Founders, CEO's, CCO's and CTO's a week in the space, is that there is a collective move to actually help agencies be more efficient, by giving them joined up solutions.

    We are now seeing the start of a period of maturity in the real estate tech sector that really only began in 2017, by 2027 the whole landscape will be very different, much of it pushed on by the increasing demands of the digital natives and the minds of proptech founders coding better solutions.

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