Here is an intriguing thought: with Zoopla coming from nowhere to hot on Rightmove’s heels in the space of five years, should Rightmove have bought Propertyfinder?
Simon Baker, global property portal guru, certainly thinks so.
Back in 2008, Rightmove was – as it is now – the UK’s number one property portal.
In second place was the Propertyfinder Group, then being offloaded by the owners of The Times, News Corporation, and the Austrian portal group REA.
Rightmove didn’t – apparently – bid for it and Zoopla, then almost unknown, jumped in and bought it for not much money.
Indeed, Baker claims that Zoopla actually made money on the purchase because they went on to sell the small stake that Propertyfinder had in Hometrack for more than they had paid.
Zoopla didn’t hang around for long, with Alex Chesterman dropping the Propertyfinder name – and the rest, as they say, is history. The deal was instrumental to Zoopla’s traction in the market and the company could now be about to float on the stock exchange.
So, should Rightmove have taken out their number two competitor when they had the chance? Did Rightmove make the wrong move?
Baker says an unequivocal yes, although EAT thinks that the UK’s competition rules would probably have made such a purchase impossible (there was quite enough dithering when Zoopla and the Daily Mail wanted to merge their respective property portal businesses).
However, it is an interesting thought – especially as Baker was managing director of the REA Group at the time. We doubt, however, that it could possibly have been in agents’ interests. Could it?
https://www.propertyportalwatch.com/2013/11/did-rightmove-make-the-wrong-move/
%20-%20IMAGE%20Client%20Accounting%20%E2%80%93%20what%20are%20your%20options.jpg)
Comments
@Dave Evans "It would be foolish to think that ZPG or RM acquiring the source of feeds would mean that they had control. Agents would never stand for it"
Really! Not stand for it, that surprises me.
I just published a guest post on our blog submitted by an estate agent calling himself angry agent., which contains dozens of quotes from estate agents all over the UK along with a copy of an email sent from a Zoopla rep to another agent..
All of the comments are negative and relate to unfair pricing, rubbish lead generation and appalling customer service from both Rightmove and Zoopla.
I have even gone as far as emailing the link to RM and Zoopla asking them to respond, which if the customer service quotes are anything to go by, they won't do.
Seems to me Dave that agents have been standing for it and more for about 15 years now, this won't be any different.
Here's a link to the post if you are interested.
http://www.findersandsellers.com/wordpress/rightmove-and-zoopla-2/
The opening post said nothing about restrictions placed on the Agents, nothing about putting an AM blanket ban on all but one other portal
Note the bit about the 'cheap supply of data' recognising who the data belongs to, is the first step in putting thing right in terms of who is serving who
@ Now I am confused -
AM are proposing it from the outset. GMW, if sold to Zoopla, would have to change the terms of the existing contract and reduce the service and restrict that which was already a benefit
Those agents will have already spent shed loads on license agreements, dongles, user licenses training
Still confused?
A commercial portal owned by Agents can propose restrictive practice but no-one else can? How does that work Dave?
It would be foolish to think that ZPG or RM acquiring the source of feeds would mean that they had control. Agents would never stand for it and I am sure that such a restrive practice would be a breach of contract.
In the old days when software couldn't, wouldn't feed, someone came up with FAP editor.
So imagine you sign up with AM, choose RM as your other site ZPG acquire your software provider and data feed - Do you REALLY think it would make a difference and they would compromise the 5 year agreement you had signed?
No - of course not.
Does anyone else get
"Error in eval(expr, envir, enclos) : object 'df1234' not found" with IT Guru's post?
It seems the words are in the wrong order
"arrogant and aggressive, far from sophisticated" seems to fix the syntax
Looks like agents could be paying even more in the very near future to fund the buy outs.
Just saw a tweet from someone calling themselves angry agent which says his Zoopla fees are set to increase by 30% next year.
Perhaps at the time it wasn't the thing to do but who now controls all the local newspaper advertising sites along with their portals, has a competitive portal and feeds the government / lenders with their price data? Rightmove only have a portal and a presence based on property data but that is it. If the lions share of the data gets switched of either through AM's one portal rule or through someone's aggressive and sophisticated restriction of the data feed, purchaser loyalty will soon follow the data, the other 19,250,000 claimed unique portal browsers will follow shortly after.
It isn't just about the portals Mr Guru (I do chuckle at self appointed genius) The life blood of the portals is still Agent's data and whoever controls that wins. there is perception that RM is the place to be and that mindset currently provides the control, AM are challenging that thought and Zoopla currently have a Royal flush plus both Jokers.
I hope you don't mind but I have enough experience of this to know arrogance, pretension, naivety and stupidity when I happen across it, like this morning for example (twice).
You waits for weeks for a Guru to come along and here we have two in one morning!
ZPG & RM are far from arrogant. They are aggressive and sophisticated - you get to make 70% plus margins by being arrogant.
The reason RM didn't buy FAP was because they would never have allowed to do so. Besides, with 94% of the UK properties listed, why would they buy it? The feelings towards RM was reasonably hostile and without competition and choice it would have been more so.
They are very astute and does Mr Baker really think the Miles Shipside and Co are saying "Doh, why didn't we think of that?" - I am certain they did and decided not to.
The ZPG & RM duopoly will continue. Ok, AM will have a small affect but whilst the big three Countrywide, LSL & Connells remain unrestricted in where they advertise I suspect many will go with safety in numbers.
RM would never have been allowed to build upon their monopoly so the 'wrong move' debate is academic.
I suspect that the big cheeses at ZPG & RM have a few cards up their sleeves. I suspect there may even be a bit of a joint plan afoot.
AM have raised about £4m - which is roughly the profit Rightmove makes in 30 days.
@justathought
Whats to Rightmove doing that anyway. Its probably their long term goal anyway.
if Rightmove is what landlords & vendors want and where buyers & tenants look, and agents look to shaft Rightmove, what stops Rightmove from welcoming landlords and vendors directly and simply becoming an online agent?
The biggest coup for Alex Chesterman was getting hold of Think property.
Perhaps Mr Baker has overlooked the leg up that was gained by suddenly having almost every Agent in the country as a captive audience feeding property data to his portal.
Perhaps Mr Baker hasn't been a guru for long enough to know the origins of Think property. When Asserta got hold of GMW with the thousands of Agents Mike Griffiths was servicing, add Solex (Vebra) to the mix a few years later, then the aqusistion (by GMGPS) of Core completed the Royal flush of the very biggest proportion of Estate Agency suppliers. When CFP added almost half of all Lettings and management Agents in 2008 the set was complete.
Rather strangely with the data feeds all set up to feed Think property and the 'Whitbread of the Agency world was completed, it was a total shock that Think was (methaphorically/ actually?) given away in August 2008 leaving GMGPS with seemingly no purpose and a revenue stream reliant on support revenues.
The final coup for Chesterman was the lunacy of DPG letting him get his hands on Findaproperty and Primelocation.
Truly either Mr Chesterman has the luck of the devil or he has simply been smart enough to realise the naivety of Newspaper folk.
All has gone very quiet on the GMGPS sale of the software houses after Zoopla apparently pulled out of the deal in August but I would suggest that when 'someone in the know at Zoopla suggests there is nothing left to buy' [reported in a post by EW] it shows Zoopla too have caught the arrogance of dismissing the value of the data feed from about xx thousand Agents.
I think if I were Miles Shipside I would get hold of GMGPS and cut of the cheap supply of good quality data to Zoopla, perhaps that will show up what is what, who is good and who is not.