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Rodger Clark

Head of Sales

2060 Profile Views

About Me

Estate Agent??? well... i'm the nice one

my expertise in the industry

Started in Estate agency in October 2014

Rodger's Recent Activity

But if only half leave and there is no awareness of OTM then the half that leave will be at a serious disadvantage.

From: Rodger Clark 14 September 2016 12:58 PM

OTM - lowering the cost of portals was it's purpose and anyone who thought otherwise has just been sold a dud. It would never produce leads within 1-2 years but that's why they HAD to have committed members for 5 years. If you signed up to 5 years then you signed up for the vision of OTM not the leads. Complaining that it isn't delivering is just painful to read. Smile Please - you were a brave soul to join when you did but I've got serious respect for someone who can put themselves forward for the cause. I don't think OTM is dead but they need to put more focus into their heading now than ever. Also saying that OTM has damaged your business when we work in such a fluid business area is complete tosh. Every week there's a new regulation or tax, or vote etc and the market can drop off in a matter of weeks. We work in a business that deals with, on the most part, the biggest asset that the vendors have and those EA's that are savvy will survive the market peaks and troughs. If you cant afford the loss of business by joining OTM you shouldn't have gambled, and if you signed up to a 5 year gamble then i've got some great business ideas to pitch you all.

From: Rodger Clark 14 September 2016 12:55 PM

Email leads are a priority but if they wanted an immediate response they would have called the office. We find lots of leads are sent when they either don't need an immediate response or when the office is closed.... of course it will take me longer to respond to these.

From: Rodger Clark 27 August 2016 11:52 AM

... and justify your fee?

From: Rodger Clark 25 August 2016 11:57 AM

When selling your property you have to choose the best agent for you and the general public DO NOT know what is best for them. I find homeowners generally go for the cheapest or most recognised brands in their area and bringing the clients back to the independents IS a brilliant idea. The one thing i'd have to say is that by negotiating the contracts etc do you de-motivate the vendors? as they may feel like they have passed the buck onto you. We do not negotiate on contract terms or price - would we still be recommended? everyone else in the area charges 1/2 as much but delivers only a fraction of what we offer. would we get a look in? - doubtful as I cant see homeowners wanting to pay full price after shelling £250 out to someone who couldn't get us to move our price. How could you recommend us?

From: Rodger Clark 25 August 2016 11:56 AM

We opened our first office 4 weeks ago, and successfully sold a £1.3m (1.5%) property to a walk in buyer and the property hadn't even hit the market yet! - This might be lucky but the buyer would not have found the gem otherwise. We are getting a steady foot flow through the door and have taken on more listings. The office enables us to work smarter not harder: we do not have to deliver keys, we can ask vendors to come in and proof-read their brochure, sign off documents rather than posting it and waiting.

From: Rodger Clark 22 June 2016 12:22 PM

good luck selling your house when you've paid a company upfront for a service industry where they will have no incentive to perform. Having viewings conducted by a chap that lives and generally works 20 miles away, and really the only incentive for these people to sell your house is to reduce their overall workload. and Dean I would love to know what job you do if you think a 1.4 % service charge is high?

From: Rodger Clark 16 June 2016 14:28 PM

James portal juggling is illegal, agents do this but it is illegal. It is essentially falsifying figures, if you did that to HMRC you would end up in chains, if you do it on the property portals you should be banned plain and simple. I have been asked by my clients to generate interest by relisting property and I have said that it is illegal. If they want to relist after x weeks they have to leave for another company. A 2 week marketing break just is not acceptable either - then over the last 18 months a property can be advertised as new to the market when it has been listed fro 17.5 months previous. they don't use this just to relist new properties to create interest they use it to fiddle figures and relist properties that have gone under offer at lower asking prices so that they can say they always achieve 98% of asking price. Then they publicise these figures to inflate their position in the marketplace. This has a knock on effect of 'selling' the property in a very short space of time and again you see 'we on average take 8 weeks to sell your property'. These are falsified figures generated by manipulating the listings giving everyone a false view of the property market. PB 'supposedly' listed 3000 new properties this month and they are having investment based on these figures - god knows how many are actually false and how many investors have placed money in good faith with figures being fudged. Also James do you think that the owner down the street from this relisted property will be happy knowing that it's just a trick to get more interest? how will they feel that the house up the street can be advertised as 'new to the market' when it clearly isn't and that their property should get the same treatment. Then we have a free for all and no one knows what is going on. SHOCKING that anyone would condone portal juggling

From: Rodger Clark 28 April 2016 12:17 PM

Although OTM and AM are a mutual they don't act like it. Did you have a say in the overseas portal? Did you hacve a say in the fact they now power Countrylife's homesearch? - Is it really benefitting all members or just some? you say there are 'no massive profits for shareholders' but shareholders are the driving force behind Z and RM success - yes there fees are high but they do the job they are given to do, something an estate agent should be well aware of (cough Online agents cough). AM should have never agreed to reduce some fees to £50 a month when others pay through the nose for the same service as they are a MUTUAL - everyone in this together. They have lost credibility (if these £50 contracts prove to be true)

From: Rodger Clark 13 April 2016 18:33 PM

AM and OTM should not be terms that are interchangeable. Are all AM agents on OTM? I thought not all "OnTheMarket last week told EAT that it was standard practice for any company to seek outstanding payments from customers in arrears. “We work to ensure that everyone in contract with us meets their obligations for the benefit of all members of Agents' Mutual" said a spokesperson." Are they saying here that OTM is for only the benefit of AM? Freudian slip there... What about the rest of us?

From: Rodger Clark 11 April 2016 11:21 AM

I've just realised I work 1 hour a week. now what do I do with the rest of my time?

From: Rodger Clark 26 February 2016 15:19 PM

£992 or £922? typo in the title.

From: Rodger Clark 26 February 2016 14:55 PM

Tomorrows headline "High street agents warns against dual marketing" Thursdays headline "Mortgage advisor warns against using your high street bank for your mortgage" although I cant see why they would publicise that here? I don't know 1 would-be purchaser that looks on this site for anything. Maybe social media might be a better place for that sort of article.

From: Rodger Clark 09 February 2016 15:49 PM

OTM is a great concept - I'm pretty sure you will all agree. In reality it is failing, they set up a portal with NO financial stability. There was NO initial pot of money that was in the bank to be drawn on when needed. Even the online agents know that to compete with the big boys you have to have deep pockets that's why they end up crowdfunding. The not-for-profit portal thought it could compete year-on-year (with 2 companies who's profits are getting bigger) with no excess cash available from anywhere, in a market that is on the downturn, with a restrictive policy, where they at the end of the year would wipe their face clean (financially) with 7,500 branches headed by a guy who believe his hopes and dreams pay our bills. OTM have made too many mistakes this year and until their business decisions are based on facts and not a wing and a prayer I will never join. BUT the concept of OTM was a great one. What this shows is that to be an entrant into this market you need 7,500 members paying x per month to SURVIVE. Maybe if someone brought a cheap portal to market; let everyone sign up for year 1 for a nice cheap fee so they could afford ALL 3 - bear with me. Making it clear that once the first 12 months membership was up to stay with OTM they had to drop one other portal, add in a price rise. NUMBER 2 property portal overnight.

From: Rodger Clark 14 December 2015 16:20 PM

I'm sure I've heard of all this 'rob the rich to pay the poor' before. But seriously...Like anybody in this day and age if you cant afford it you cant afford it. If you cant afford the tax you cant afford the house.

From: Rodger Clark 23 November 2015 11:01 AM

Doesn't all this 'saving' money depend on him: 1) Doing all the work himself 2) Selling 3) getting a similar price to selling through an agent? The only way we are going to find out if it works is: if it sells, what it sells for, and how quickly it sells. I Hope EAT keeps an eye on this. This is obviously a massive publicity stunt, if I had a £19.5m house and was as penny pinching as this owner seems to be I would have contacted a larger internet agent and asked them to list for free as publicity. haha. he spent £550 + VAT and could have got it for nothing. Cheapskate... only time will tell on another note EAT can you quote all figures inclusive of VAT please? its become industry standard and you are the news of the industry. Thank you

From: Rodger Clark 16 November 2015 09:40 AM

@ Algarve - did you read the article? Nowhere does it claim Foxtons are involved. Damn their arrogance!!

From: Rodger Clark 12 November 2015 13:27 PM

What lessons have you learned during the last 9 months (OTM launch) that will help you for the future? and Are you going to develop Zoopla into something more than a property portal? if so will the properties be central to this plan or will it just tick over until everyone leaves for greener pastures? And where do you see Zoopla's place in the market in 5 years?

From: Rodger Clark 09 September 2015 11:43 AM

Blame the intern and don't blame the person that was due to proof read the whole thing before it went live. If we are letting the lowest common denominator complete the wording for your site then you are asking for trouble. Does anyone know of any good online experiences? We just hear of lots of people trying and moving back to traditional agents. The agent that gets you the best price overall for your property is the best agent and we urge everyone we talk to use a traditional or hybrid agent as they generally (I have no evidence for this just anecdotal evidence) achieve the better price. After these bargain hunters have had their time online they soon warm up to traditional high street agents as we deal with more and more sellers moving to traditional agents from online now than ever. As a High Street industry we all need to be singing the same tune and making sure the message is delivered as a service industry and advertising the property is just a small part of what we do.

From: Rodger Clark 07 July 2015 11:40 AM

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