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J Blackmore

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The chances of house prices diving far outweigh them rising or even staying the same. Most people will come out of this in a far worse financial position than a they were, lower incomes and less mortgage available, debts, and grimly, probably increase supply from probate and people having to sell etc's. Any price drop will be proportional to the length of even partial lockdown. Those that think the market will just carry on in a a few weeks time are deluded.

From: J Blackmore 26 March 2020 11:07 AM

More a measure of overpricing than discount!

From: J Blackmore 26 March 2020 10:56 AM

The only agents left will be the ones who's owner have the deepest pockets.

From: J Blackmore 24 March 2020 09:59 AM

The first comment you've cited is mine and since then we have decided to leave Rightmove. We've sold one house this week by a miracle and the buyer saw it on some obscure website that came indirectly from someone seeing it on our Facebook. The lead cost ZERO. 40% of our leads come from local calls, apps or other media anyway. Rightmove may never recover from this and in my view has just pressed the self destruct button by feeding off an industry and a population on their knees.

From: J Blackmore 19 March 2020 10:50 AM

Defer for 3 months? when your pipeline is more decimated? Clearly they don't know that what goes in to the pipe today, comes out in about 3 months and if zero goes in, zero comes out in 3 months... do they really think this will be over by then? dear oh dear. Meanwhile even the fee increase stands.

From: J Blackmore 18 March 2020 09:42 AM

I left a comment on another online property magazine who published the report saying "good news , a strong market is back" that its pathetic that they report such news when its obsolete just 10 days later!. This will get much much worse and many agents will go; its inevitable, in part down to portal fees.

From: J Blackmore 17 March 2020 09:40 AM

Who's surprised by Rightmove's response? If needs be, close your account and re-open it later? We get about 30% - 40% of leads off our website anyway and 40% of nothing at the moment is nothing. Or consider merging with another local agent or close and say it's the final straw of what has become a god awful industry.

From: J Blackmore 13 March 2020 10:21 AM

A statement translated to mean "Expect horrible results in 2020 but we did well last year" , which would be a fair summary for most agents I suspect.

From: J Blackmore 12 March 2020 09:17 AM

As soon as this broke in Jan and to immense ridicule, I said that this will be the worst global disaster since WW2 and will change society in general, with businesses going under, working changes etc. The only thing that will be the same will be wet markets in China left to their own devices! The stats are at worldometers. The death rate is vast in resolved cases up to 50%+ in some cases... read it yourself (down to demographic, treatment etc). I bet few western countries manage to achieve better than 3.6%. Resolved cases trend is the main one that matters. Other than virus outbreaks generally form an omega shaped graph, so you know that chaos is soon to upon us. We will soon cease viewings and if needs be close our rightmove account for a while until the omega graph shows a sustained downward trend, then we can all rebuild. Post C-19 there will be fewer agents and a lot fewer people I suspect.

From: J Blackmore 10 March 2020 13:08 PM

Their revenue will fall in the next year due to Covid and Agents throwing in the towel; having been beaten by poor sales market, legislation, RM price rises, tenant fee bans etc; RM branch count will be down in a year. They should scale back costs for efficiency and just concentrate on their core business - listing houses.

From: J Blackmore 10 March 2020 12:23 PM

I'm amazed there isn't an article over Covid-19 and the amount of Agents that will get wiped out by it after suffering from tenant fee bans. The impact on the marked has been vast already.

From: J Blackmore 10 March 2020 12:19 PM

The moment this hit a month back; I said that this will kill the market for the whole year and quite a few agents and other businesses will go to the wall, having already been pounded by letting fees and more regulation costs. The Chaos clock has started ticking......

From: J Blackmore 09 March 2020 11:24 AM

The moment this hit a month back; I said that this will kill the market for the whole year and quite a few agents and other businesses will go to the wall, having already been pounded by letting fees and more regulation costs. The Chaos clock has started ticking......

From: J Blackmore 09 March 2020 11:08 AM

Us too; now left in January after being fed up by nobody listening. For example, I suggested that if they encouraged members to ditch rightmove premium spend it would take 30% off the bottom line of rightmove over night. To me their whole strategy was flawed and the issue was top down. I spoke to one of the Directors who was very keen on my ideas, but was shot down by know-it-all non-estate agent board members.

From: J Blackmore 09 March 2020 10:36 AM

£18m of PURE COMMISERY

From: J Blackmore 02 March 2020 09:41 AM

We get as many enquiries from our own website as rightmove, and rarely mention rightmove etc on a valuation. Cn;t say I'm surprised at this.

From: J Blackmore 17 February 2020 09:47 AM

I think it's a great idea, I give Phil £14.99 for free information and uploads another smug photo of himself.

From: J Blackmore 06 February 2020 09:20 AM

He's a strong believer in the Laffer Curve so I think he will do it, and so he should it stifles the economy.

From: J Blackmore 21 January 2020 09:27 AM

If in doubt, juts blame agents for everything; Hell even Iran is our fault because we sold a house to one of Donald's son' s wife's uncle's, 2nd cousin's friend's cleaner....

From: J Blackmore 21 January 2020 09:24 AM

"Agents relationship with rightmove" ? there is no such thing, impossible, doesn't exist.

From: J Blackmore 09 January 2020 13:05 PM

More BS from companies that keep lobbying the government in order to support their existence. So I become a Chartered Accountant and 17 years as an Estate Agent director and I now need to go back to pass a two bit, trash exam?. How funny. For the first time ever I agree with Simon Shinerock and that 95% won't pass, wouldn't have the time, can't be bothered or their employers won't pay as they can't afford more BS legislation. This industry has turned into a farce.

From: J Blackmore 07 January 2020 10:02 AM

Perhaps it's because of all the non stop regulation, costs, changes that the government keep putting on agents. If anyone asks me (despite having a profitable business) if they should be an agent , i say don't both, the government hates you and blames you for their housing mess, then if you do make a decent profit, they tax your dividends now too. Back to IT Management for me soon.

From: J Blackmore 07 January 2020 09:51 AM

We've increased our sales by double in 2019 as most of our clients realize you get what you pay for and that the online BS ones are basically selling rightmove advertising space. People still like to deal with people face to face and as the population ages, the market for good high street agents will probably increase.

From: J Blackmore 06 January 2020 11:29 AM

More fool any agent that pays rightmove for their bolt on services; if agnets were to ditch them you'd see their profitability plummet. over night, and well deserved it would be. We get 50/50 leads from OTM and rightmove.

From: J Blackmore 09 December 2019 12:08 PM

The usual corporate BS. So rightmove invested heavily in the new best price guide did they? we'll its trash, the old one was better and they know it and were forced to change it...

From: J Blackmore 09 December 2019 12:03 PM

The issues is that Agents are stupid enough to pay for Rightmove "bolt-ons" if all agents ditched the add-ons and just kept the core services their profit would vanish. Wake up. OTM is the only sensible portal at 1/4 of the cost.

From: J Blackmore 19 November 2019 09:17 AM

If agents had any sense, they'd just cancel ALL rightmove BOLT-ONS and that would take them out pretty quick.... doh. That's where their profit comes from and most of the bolt ons are a waste of money anyway. Wake up. PS...£295 plus VAT per branch per month? per year surely.

From: J Blackmore 12 November 2019 09:11 AM

If agents were to actually think for a minute, all they need to do is dump their "premium", "bolt" on poor value additions back to the basic membership and spend that on OTM and you'd see rightmove's fat profit go negative overnight. Fools to themselves anyone that uses their premium listings, and other stuff. We don't and it makes no difference at all and in essence we get OTM free. Wake up.

From: J Blackmore 22 October 2019 09:15 AM

Whist that appears true on the face of it, its the same failed logic as the fee bans. I sell large plots to developers and I can tell just from common sense that if they built them all at once..1) they'd never sell them, 2) Wage rates would soar for 2 years then plummet, 3) Just because the sites have consent doesn't mean the build conditions are met does it; These often take years to meet. 4) Study the EU directive on nitrogen / nutrient making building impossible in many areas.

From: J Blackmore 30 September 2019 09:25 AM

What a load of rubbish and a desperate article. So Mr and Mrs buyer are so stupid that they only buy by working out price per sq ft do they? 99.9% don't have a clue even how big their own house is in sqft or care. I even had an RICS surveyor refuse to alter a valuation which had a 25% difference between external and internal claiming it's the wall thickness...doh, of 1.3m wide! In fact most floor plans are produced by EPC surveyors, not even estate agents. Do your readers a favour and delete this article.

From: J Blackmore 17 September 2019 09:19 AM

The only person it will affect are older people going into care or those moving with a job and renting; all others will make no difference other than put the stamp duty on the selling price. It just needs slashing, not moving.

From: J Blackmore 04 September 2019 10:13 AM

The only person it will affect are older people going into care or those moving with a job and renting; all others will make no difference other than put the stamp duty on the selling price. It just needs slashing, not moving.

From: J Blackmore 04 September 2019 10:11 AM

SDLT has been at the level where it has killed fluidity. For many, the stamp duty is their fist years salary lost net of tax so not worth moving. Half it at least.

From: J Blackmore 19 August 2019 15:37 PM

"If the burden of duty was shifted from buyer to seller" what rubbish, a tax is a tax, it matters not who pays it, only the level. Doh.

From: J Blackmore 14 August 2019 09:31 AM

Basically the co-founder can't find cheap houses anymore. The usual low stock corporate tactics of overvalue, lock-in contract then spend months beating owners up for price reductions. Where is the story?

From: J Blackmore 14 August 2019 09:28 AM

Good old Osborne, what a mess he made. Stamp duty stops people moving and is now so expensive, it's even putting people off moving jobs because of the cost. If you get a new job out of area you can't rent your home out because of the tax and can't move because often your first years salary is lost in stamp duty (which is paid net of income tax of course.) Good job.

From: J Blackmore 09 July 2019 10:33 AM

If your going to write an article at least be impartial - your remoaning 'statistics' at the beginning. The same logic applies to any vote and always has done! A vote is a vote, suck it up and stick to the housing topic or don't bother.

From: J Blackmore 28 June 2019 09:59 AM

I spoke to an applicant who was talked into using this by an agent and it basically sold it well below market value and the he got charged £5,000 + VAT which equated to about 3.5%! Not a great deal for the consumer I'd suggest considering the same agent often quotes 0.5%.... Someone did alright, but it wasn't the seller.

From: J Blackmore 21 June 2019 11:26 AM

Yawn, no story here....

From: J Blackmore 07 June 2019 09:23 AM

meanwhile they tell agents how to do their jobs.......hmm perhaps they should look in the commons if they want to see double standards.

From: J Blackmore 28 May 2019 11:12 AM

Translated means "Thanks the the Tories handling of brexit", not brexit itself (but that wouldn't make a good headline) and our years of mega-billing tenants assisting with the gov's rash decision to ban tenant fees;. Now what do we do...

From: J Blackmore 20 May 2019 09:18 AM

It's this simple, the more they mess with a market, the more it backfires. There will be less private tenancies in a year from now and it will be more expensive to rent. Not just from these fees but from all of their stupid changes. Note they don't ban FTB mortgage arrangement fees do they? nothing to do with their chums who run banks hey.

From: J Blackmore 13 May 2019 11:30 AM

All I can say is that I listed a nice plot of land on both RM and OTM two days ago and got 6 leads from OTM and none from RM! (at a third of the monthly price!)

From: J Blackmore 03 May 2019 10:12 AM

They will blame Brexit, but in reality, it's been their pathetic assault on home owners and landlords. As if anyone needs more proof of the incompetent idiots in parliament.

From: J Blackmore 02 May 2019 09:24 AM

Sadly he missed out the Government's obsession with picking on estate and letting agents to sort out their own housing mess, whilst it's okay to ban letting fees etc, it's apparently not okay to ban mortgage arrangement fees, but then again, MP's only have chums in banks, not letting companies.

From: J Blackmore 11 March 2019 10:00 AM

Good, hopefully we can soon tell Rightmove to take their 17.7% price hike and tell them to .....

From: J Blackmore 06 February 2019 09:33 AM

I'll tell you what he's busy doing. He's busy speaking to national house builders in order to increase the quota of social / affordable housing built. When I last spoke to him, his main focus was by far building affordable houses anywhere and everywhere. I was left wondering if he was really blue in his beliefs!

From: J Blackmore 04 February 2019 09:50 AM

Disappointing - It looks like 1st promotion is more important than principle considering he was a brexiteer. Who's heard a squeak from him since his appointment!

From: J Blackmore 16 November 2018 09:37 AM

Notice how the fool that writes this says "UK careers toward an uncertain future" having a jab at brexit, when in reality it's the stamp duty, taxation and attack on anyone with a second home that's dragged the market. It will slide now to be negative very soon... but no doubt that's brexit's fault and nothing to do with the remoaning government and their shocking handling of it.

From: J Blackmore 03 September 2018 10:07 AM

Completely predictable (Unless your a chancellor) - if you ignore the Gov's 12 month fudging, then the writing has been on the wall for 10 months. It's now just weeks before the rolling average goes negative and once reported, consumers stop buying and down it goes. Blame the stamp duty, tax, landlords not buying and selling instead etc.... Well done Osborne and Hammond - Chumps of the year award on route.

From: J Blackmore 16 August 2018 09:27 AM

NEWS FLASH? Dearly Lordy Me - what a pathetic site this is

From: J Blackmore 01 August 2018 09:31 AM

No - Rightmove will dwindle because of they are playing into the 25 year rule trap where they will last about 25 yrs from creation. In order to diversify they will have to heavily invest which will mean reduced profits or hugely increased fees - neither of which is easy for them in their cruising position.... you watch - 7 years left and counting. I predict that OTM could well be the biggest, despite Simon's hate for them - and his 100% wrong predictions so far.

From: J Blackmore 31 July 2018 12:09 PM

Rightmove has always been our single biggest advertising cost per branch and their arrogance with price rises will be their ultimate downfall. At the moment we get about 60/40 to rightmove / OTM leads so sooner or later it will happen, unless they lower their costs. If rightmove had any brains, they hold prices for a few years and it would make OTM's job more difficult - but they are too greedy and self obsessed to think about it.

From: J Blackmore 20 July 2018 12:08 PM

I know Kit so i read this with interest because I too was surprised at his appointment. However, there are two things I would say: The last few ministers have been shocking, so he only has ballet shes to fill and that I think he will probably be quite good at it this role.

From: J Blackmore 14 July 2018 09:53 AM

Yet another piece of legislation that will back fire. If they cap it at 6 weeks, we won't accept any pets, any guarantors, and only both parties employed. Basically unless they are the perfect tenant they'll be homeless or have little choice. I've sold 10% of our buy to let portfolio this year with more to come, so there will be less houses, less choice, more restrictions, no tenants fees, so only the best tenants will find a home - well done all you advocates of this dumb legislation, when the actual issue is that the UK IS FULL UP!

From: J Blackmore 27 June 2018 16:07 PM

More fool the general public - all you are buying is an advert on rightmove for 849 quid... "real estate agents" is the biggest joke the ASA let go by; as a buyer you cant even speak to one - just an email and a call centre. The public are the real mugs for giving away their hard earned cash to essentially a "sell it yourself" website.

From: J Blackmore 27 June 2018 12:45 PM

No comment from Simon?? slating OTM? how unusual. More importantly the QUALITY of the leads we get from OTM has always been 100% compared to Zoolpa which are appalling. Zoolpa = IOm looking for a 4 bed in London for £250,000 withing 100 miles - complete trash, so we left.

From: J Blackmore 14 June 2018 10:07 AM

How does anyone over pay? your solicitor sends you a statement with the balance required on including stamp duty, so unless they don't know what they are doing (which is more than possible) then where is the problem? "news" about 1 incident no doubt.

From: J Blackmore 30 May 2018 11:02 AM

This will only come as a surprise to the clowns in the treasury. Well done to them. Next up....the lettings fee debacle.

From: J Blackmore 24 May 2018 09:27 AM

Completely predictable to everyone but the government...stamp duty and other tax changes have destroyed the market so hopefully they will get less income and realise what a load of bozos they have been again. I would put it at 80% Taxes to 20% uncertainty.

From: J Blackmore 14 May 2018 09:15 AM

How quality not drop? for example, if the gov caps a requested change to a tenancy at £50 + VAT and no reference fee the answer will be NO CAN DO. Why would a landlord pay to reference a replacement tenant? why would we bother with all the agro for £50.... watch while this this stupid stunt hits the fan. We've sold of dozens of let out houses already this year, some that have been rented for years......one massive tenant backfire on the way.

From: J Blackmore 10 May 2018 10:26 AM

Exact;y what I was thinking - where is the "oh I've been wrong some many times after my personal witch hunt of OTM" from Simon Shinerock....

From: J Blackmore 10 May 2018 10:21 AM

Meanwhile the government still hates estate agents and never has a good word to say; perhaps they should appreciate what they have; they should go to somewhere like Thailand and see what goes on there!

From: J Blackmore 08 May 2018 10:08 AM

Like Connells was ever anything more than a cover to flog financial services and bolt on's...dear oh dear this is news from 1995!

From: J Blackmore 22 March 2018 11:55 AM

I've been seriously considering ditching my shop in favor of exactly this - just a big office. We spend most of our time out with clients and most people coming in are tenants, tradesmen or existing clients to sign. 99% of people who look in the window are just having a casual look. In the US it's the norm for many; they just call their agent and its the people they deal with, not the shop.

From: J Blackmore 17 March 2018 09:35 AM

I can explain their "stunning growth" in two seconds, chuck millions at it and make misleading TV adverts knowing that the ASA is a wet rag and lets them get away with it. "Commisery" is paying £1000, not selling your house and being told you are tied to them when you want to leave.....Honeymoon is over for them.

From: J Blackmore 07 March 2018 09:56 AM

They also need protection for agents! we are not all bad. We had a spate of tenants wanting their app fees back after lying about CCJs etc and then trying to claim it back from the ombudsman knowing that the bureaucracy is such a time sapping waste of time. All were found in our favor but the TPO are shockingly bad at handling complaints to justify their existence no doubt. This industry is becoming all regulation and no time to work!

From: J Blackmore 19 February 2018 09:49 AM

Simon must find any positive news for OTM difficult to comment on. As soon as there is a any bad news, an email alert is sent out saying NEWSFLASH BAD NEWS FOR OTM (Yippee), then no comment when the shares bounce etc. OTM will be fine, but this site has about a much credibility recently as the BBC do with Brexit which according to figures is 97% - 3% pro remain.

From: J Blackmore 16 February 2018 11:55 AM

I didn't sign either, and OTM said we were free to leave once the IPO happened as the 5 year agreement was no longer valid....which is why they were keen to get everyone to re-sign.

From: J Blackmore 29 January 2018 15:05 PM

£30m is enough if well managed - they need new management for sure. However, we get about 60/40 Rightmove to OTM leads and the OTM leads are good quality when compared to Zoopla which the leads were a joke. "I want a 6 bed house in London for 100k, dont care where it is..."

From: J Blackmore 29 January 2018 09:40 AM

I don't get why agents signed a 5 year lock in if they didn't want to? I didn't. OTM tried and tried but when I asked if my gold loan will be retained as a loan or converted, they said it will be converted anyway, so we didn't sign either a listing agreement of the share lock in. Can't say they were happy about it, but oh well. I also refused to sign because of the appalling job Ian had done with OTM yet will no doubt get rich out of it. That said, whilst everyone may slate OTM on here, we all know with enough money behind something you can do what you like and make it work......ask George Soros and his EU puppets. There is room for a decent portal (unlike Zoopla which is more like an email spam machine) and the we actually get better quality leads from OTM, in fact by a mile.

From: J Blackmore 12 December 2017 09:49 AM

With my dealings with the The Property Ombudsman in Salisbury we desperately need an Ombudsman of Ombudsman! after those fools wasting weeks of our time with false claims by tenants to try and get money! all of which after wasting months found nothing was wrong.

From: J Blackmore 30 November 2017 15:58 PM

Anywhere else in the world - what a joke!; the idiots that draft this stuff clearly have never been in or spoke to anyone in a land registry office in Thailand for instance! there is no chance of them ever getting that info and if they could the cost would be ten times the tax at least.

From: J Blackmore 23 November 2017 14:15 PM

How do they advertise on rightmove and cover the UK and get around rightmove's policy of having to have a local agent? I planned this out 5 years before purple bricks and it was made very expensive by the requirement of rightmove to insist on someone conducting local valuations, viewings etc etc?

From: J Blackmore 18 October 2017 10:40 AM

Yet another dumb idea, stamp duty is about a tax on wealth / asset value so to link it to energy is really sensible!. Why don't they learn, the more they mess about with property and the more stupid schemes they come up with the more it backfires...

From: J Blackmore 13 October 2017 10:33 AM

With a big wadge of investment capital It's easy to build a budget online agency in a rising market when you can put little effort and marketing cost / duration into selling the house. The market has been like that since 2009. When the cycle changes and houses don't just sell because they are on rightmove and you have to put some effort into it; then watch what happens as the cost to income ratio changes. That time is just starting now. By the way, why even publish comments by someone linked to a company.....

From: J Blackmore 28 September 2017 10:05 AM

The LPE's have got away with it in recent years because of what was an easy and rising market. They "value" a house having driven 15 miles and can't find the house even though they know the area so well! and typically after the vendor has had high street agents around; the vendor then chooses the marketing price themselves and it goes on with Purple Bricks to "save money". Around here the purple bricks boards now just sit as "for sale" for months. As the market gets more difficult you'll see the whole budget model start to backfire as they days of "stick it on the internet and it'll sell itself" end.

From: J Blackmore 28 September 2017 09:48 AM

More trash - so now the Tories are saying "work had, save, store you savings in a second home because we don't know where else is sensible and we'll penalize you for it to give it to anyone that want a free or cheaphouse"...more of a libtard dumb tank than a Tory think thank.

From: J Blackmore 21 August 2017 11:56 AM

No particular comment on this case, but it's about time someone regulated the TPO for lettings! If they had their way they would bog agents down in paperwork just to support their own existence. If it hasn't hit you yet, the new trend is for tenants to say "give in to my demands or I'll just complain to the TPO and bog you down for the hell of it".....so they do...

From: J Blackmore 25 July 2017 09:48 AM

Visits up 2% - Agents bill for 2017 up 12%!

From: J Blackmore 24 February 2017 09:11 AM

Virgin offer flights; so do Ryan Air, both are seats on a plane but you'd not catch me on the latter even if it was free - I want the job done properly. The same applies!. Funny how their turnover devide customers was so much greater than the fee they misleading quote! must be all the "bolt ons you have to take!!"

From: J Blackmore 17 January 2017 09:57 AM

The ban is the stupidest idea yet; If the tenants don't pay a fee to the agent there is no contract or obligation from the agent to the tenant and conversely there will be nothing to prevent tenants applying for multiple houses at the landlord's expense. As there will be no obligation between to the tenants no doubt agents will continue to advertise the house and if a "better" tenant comes along (i.e bigger income, no pets etc) the agent can jump ship whenever he likes and who can blame him. The tenant can jump ship whenever he likes.... the system is socially floored from day one and will favor the ultra-low risk tenants only if landlords or agents are expected to invest their money in referencing a tenant. Imagine walking into a shop and the shop has to give you money - that is how stupid this idea is. The more people mess with a free market, the more it backfires. If they want to help housing - what about the average £1000 mortgage arrange fee for a £90 valuation! of course that won't get banned because of all the "chums" that run the banks.....

From: J Blackmore 12 December 2016 10:04 AM

£1000 per customer that's a much as some high street agents! in fact I know many places where that is actually more - must be all the "bolt" on's you have to have.....what a surprise.

From: J Blackmore 05 December 2016 09:08 AM

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