The first property transactions app on Facebook was due to go live first thing this morning, with over 400,000 properties.
Property Place can be used by both private sellers and landlords as well as by agents, and claims to be the first use of Facebook in the world for the selling and lettig of properties.
There is also a facility for people to find and chat to potential room-mates, for a £35 fee.
Almost half the population of the UK (29.9m) are now estimated to be on Facebook, so the theoretical audience is huge.
Property Place charges private consumers £75 to sell and £35 to let their properties for a month’s listings, but they can also choose to use Emoov, an online estate agent, to handle the logistics and management of the transaction for a fee of £295.
Agents can also use Property Place to market their properties. They will be charged £50 a month to list up to 15 properties, and £150 to list up to 150.
Sohail Rashid, founder of Property Place, who has acknowledged that inevitably there will be agents who do not like the idea of sharing a marketing platform with private sellers, said: “You can upload details of your property in minutes and manage the whole process in one place.
“With nearly 30 million of us using Facebook in the UK, it’s the future of buying and renting property.”
https://apps.facebook.com/propertyplace/
Property Place is also available to non-users of Facebook at www.property-place.net
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Comments
Chris.
Thank you for that.
I want to save your posting and give a copy to the next loud mouthed idiot who accuses EAs of being paid for doing next to nothing.
Maybe you could repost this as part of the Allagents thread, it would be welcomed.
Hey Nev, so far this month, we are only one sale and last month, we only sold one property. We are averaging £1800 per sale, so that's £3600 income for 2-months work and 3 members of staff to pay, plus all the advertising, office costs, car & petrol!!! Then the taxman wants a chunk!!!
Luckily we expect these slow months and have some savings behind us from September & October sales, but still.
I have valued around 36-properties and listed 17 so far. Each property takes us an hour or two to get it photographed, measured up plus the paperwork needs completing including ID checks/ money laundering checks.
Then back at the office we have to produce floorplans, brochures, the newspaper advert, the internet advertising, organise the vendor's Energy Performance Certificate, send brochure copy, letter etc. to the vendor to agree/ sign off and then print out brochures and send out around 40 or 50 brochures to each registered buyer. Then we have to follow at these brochures with a phone call two days later and try to secure some viewings.
Each viewing needs a feedback call to the buyer and then to the vendor to let them know the buyers thoughts.
The time and cost involved is huge with no guarantee of selling a thing.
Each buyer (If we're lucky enough to get one!) needs qualifying to ensure they can afford to buy, we need to carry out ID checks and money laundering checks, produce sales memos and inform all parties and constantly monitor each sale right through to completion ensuring that everyone is doing their job, mortgages are being applied for, solicitors are working the case and occasionally re-negotiating the sale price following a bad survey or organising builder appointments & quotes.
Finally we can think about the completion and have keys dropped off and picked up, each time paperwork needs to be completed booking keys in and out and finally we can start thinking about raising an invoice and getting paid. This whole process can drag out over 6-months to a year.
A solicitor charges around £550 +VAT to handle a sale and spends around 10-hours on each case, with a pretty good chance of getting paid at the end. That £550 doesn't even cover disbursements like Searches or bank charges as the vendor/ buyer pays this on top!!
Estate agents will spend around 10-times that amount of time, throughout the whole process, all the advertising costs are paid for by the agent and there is no guarantee of a sale at the end of it.
Personally, I can't wait for this economy to recover so that I can either jack this all in and get a low risk job with a regular income or we start selling more houses and start to make some profit again to make the job worth while.
My little petrol lawnmower has just had a service and I was charged £200 for little more than an oil change, a new spark plug and two new cables. Took the bloke 3-hours apparently and you think £400 is too much to ask for 6-months work! You really have no idea. Run along now, leave the big boys to talk among themselves.
£400!!!! I think I going to have to call BS on that one mate!
Nev Brill - 'Aww,Chris complete pisser, sellers expecting to do valuations, take phots AND do floor plans (1Hrs work) for 2+% of their fee!! You are a complete and utter tosser.'
If you think that the work involved in obtaining an instruction and selling a property equates to the cost of 1 hours work - well you really are daft. I saw figures somewhere (a few years ago) that put the average cost to an agent of selling a property at somewhere between £300 and £400 - nearer to £400 if I remember correctly.
So, yes, around here selling an average property for 250k at 1.5% makes it look like a high profit business.
But, of course, there are always plenty of deals that don't go through. And, of course, commision of 1% on an 80k sale doesn't make you a lot of money.
@Hadenuff
I'm in, think most on here would be too if it genuinely stood up to the big 3
.
Danny - glad to provide some well-needed mirth on what had become quite a thorny thread! ;o)
It wasn't a vendor who took the pot-shot at me (although I reckon many wouldf have liked to at some stage or another... just a local nutter. Don't forget I come from The Land of Raoul Moat! Anyways I escaped with a scratch. I didn't even realise I'd been hit at the time - adrenalin and all that. I'm surprised that I didn't outrun the pellet to be honest!!
They say these 'experiences' build character. They also loosen hair, from my experience. I never thought of it before - but Yul Brynner and Telly Savalas must have been Estate Agents before finding fame on the silver screen...
@PeeBee...
you got shot with an air rifle HAHAHA!!!!
sorry it was probably quite scary for you but just the idea that something so random would happen is hilarious!
are you sure you didn't step on their cat or something?!
Happy, I would be willing to operate a business model that charges each of my customers an up-front fee of £500 to market their property for 6-months and if it sells, manage it through to completion at no extra cost, but alas, this model wouldn't work because vendor's don't want the risks. They don't want to pay anything especially if they don't/ can't sell. The current model works because the fees come out of the sale and nothing is required from savings. The problem is that agents need a constant stream of sales through a pipeline to fund the operation and if an agent goes through a bad patch, things are going to get tight 2 or 3-months ahead. The time it normally takes for sales to go through.
Peebee, I just hate the "All agents do is take a few photos" B@llox!!
I would consider myself to be one of the most experienced agents in the city. Because it's my own business I get involved in every aspect of the job, so I am proactive and work really hard to make sales. Since we started our own business in 2004, we have sold hundreds of properties alongside other agents where those owners call the other agents and say "Please stop marketing my property as Chris has gone and sold it for us" yet since 2004, I have not had a single vendor call us to say the same thing! Not one single agent can ever name a property that they sold that we were also marketing at the time!!! For this reason alone, I know that we are achieving solid results I can be proud of. When we do all this, charge fees that tend to be lower than our competitors and still take wages below the minimum wage, I have to ask myself if we are not too cheap and need to put our fees up!!
To be told that we are only taking a few photos and are ripping people off for what we do strikes a nerve.
Agents that are riding this storm have my respect. We make a profit though selling more and can keep our fees down. Others charge more than us, but need to because they sell a smaller percentage of their stock. We have sold 64% of all the properties we have ever listed since 2004. There can't be many agents that can match that.
Our RM click through rate is currently 8.4% and in 1st place out of the 45-agents in the City. See link.
http://s17.postimage.org/u79ut4cdb/CTR.jpg
How many agents can honestly say that they have anywhere near that figure? Just take a few photos!! Right, if only it was that easy!
Chris. Boy - this 'nev brill' numpty hasn't 'arf rattled your chain, matey!
Firstly - take a chill pill, bud. You ain't normally akin to out-and-out mudslinging - so I only assume you were caught at a bad moment. YOU are the professional here - this berk is just a wind-up merchant.
In my sixteen years as an Agent (which as you know ended in 2007) I can honestly say that I worked harder and longer - and for less reward - than at any time in my career.
I also took WAY more stick than anyone in a 'normal' job would put up with - including being pinned up against the wall by an angry and frustrated purchaser (who, by the way, is now a good friend...) AND being shot by a tw@t with an air-rifle while carrying out an appraisal. FOR FREE!
'nev brill' is one of the type who simply mouths off about whatever they don't understand - mainly through fear and ignorance of the unknown.
You will see him and his likes most mornings, screaming blue murder at the sun rising for the same reasons...
Copyright infringement:
You sign over the rights of what you permit to be uploaded. If something is taken [scraped] from your personal site, and it is a photo you have generated, they are in infringement. [Unless you have signed over your website to them as well.] Once you remove from there listing you demand that all your photos, plans etc... be withdrawn by a certain date and notify them that any use will be an infringement of the copyright act and you will take action against them.
Check out Getty Images to see how they are using this process in an attempt to squeeze money out of small businesses.
Happy Chappy, interesting question.
It seems many EAs are paying megaportals upfront for [promised leads] . But if we try & charge Joe public upfront for the service as Chris describes, well just don't stand near the fan!
Chris - If i walked into your office and offered you £500 up front to sell my property would you take it?
F-off Nev, no one forces them to use estate agents you twat. The vendor pays nothing if if the house doesn't sell. If it's so easy selling property and we all make loads a money from taking a few photos (Your words), then why do agents close every week, you thick shit.
If vendors paid an upfront fee and all vendors paid for the service they receive, the cost of using an estate agent would be around £500, similar to what a solicitor or a plumber charges. Most vendors pay nothing, not a sausage, because they are greedy and want too much for their homes. The estate agent provides this service to them completely free, but needs to claim enough from the properties he does sell in order to offer the free service to everyone else.
Your remarks show that you have no idea what you are talking about and hey, if it's such an easy job to make a shit load of easy money, what are you doing wasting your time NOT becoming an estate agent? W@nker!
Aww,Chris complete pisser, sellers expecting to do valuations, take phots AND do floor plans (1Hrs work) for 2+% of their fee!! You are a complete and utter tosser.
It annoys me when idiots say that agents charge too much to sell property!! How much would they expect to earn for a solid months work? I would around 60-hours a week and don't earn a penny unless we sell something.
That's free valuations, free advertising in papers, RM and other websites, we need computers, printers, paper, inks, phones, fax machines, extra staff to man the office, council tax rates, electricity, a company car, insurance, petrol etc. etc. etc. All this costs us around £10k per month and if we sell nothing we are making a huge £10k loss.
Thousands of agents have closed down over the last 4-years because they couldn't sell enough property to cover their costs!! I own this business and in 2008 my gross salary was only £7600!! I could have earnt more stacking shelves in Tesco's. Works out at 3060 hours of work at £2.48 an hour, less than minimum wage!!
If the general public wants a no sale, no fee service, where an experienced estate agent will come round, value the property, take proffesional photos, knock up scale floor plans, produce lovely brochures, erect a for-sale board, organising the advertising, accompany viewings, negotiate offers, ploduce all the sales paperwork and handle the whole sale right through to completion taking most of the stress away from both the buyer & seller, someone needs to pay the operational costs otherwise Joe public will need to do everything themselves!!!
RM should be able to charge a fee for what they do, but with no real competitor, they have been getting away with 22% increases year on year costing agents tens of thousands of pounds per year, which like any industry needs to be absorbed or passed onto the customer. When things are tight as they are at the moment with sales at record lows, agents will be passing these costs on to the customer with higher fees.
Paradoxically, in raising RM's prices at this rate, in this climate, they are creating the need for agents to find an alternative portal and this ensures their demise. A few years down the line they will look back and wished they had not bitten the hand that feeds them.
"The light that burns twiice as bright, burns half as long"
Regarding the copyright infringement issue, I am sure that when you sign up to GMG/Rightmove/Zoopla, you transfer the copyright over to them to do as they please.
GMG have just passed "their" properties on to Property Place.
Something doesn't smell right, but I don't think copyright infringement is a valid argument...
I'm off to check my t's and c's!!!
I think i have said enough about the megaportals, their detrimental effect on our industry and the future repercussions. Now let history speak for me, because it is happening right now.
When we receive posts like this:-
From anonymous: "Why can't some agents get your selling fees up to an acceptable level to pay for your online advertising costs?
How is a well run online business operation that generates your buyers/tenants as well as allows you to list ALL of your properties "SCUM bags" as you so eloquently put?
Sounds like sour grapes to me. "
It makes the Rightmove model crystal clear
Make the industry [believe they are] dependent on you, then jack up the prices at will [cause EAs are too scared to stop using the service] then tell them to go earn more money from the customers to pay them.
Acceptable level for who, customers during a recession ?
Who owns Rightmove, the Sherriff of Nottingham?
What Property Place has done is just the tip of the iceberg, their policy is similar to Eddie Shah & the Today newspaper, then a stalking horse aimed breaking the print unions.
Property place is the stalking horse testing the Facebook waters then when the glitches are ironed out, one of the megaportals will buy them out.
Remember this service puts, vendors in direct contact with potential buyers, and offers a fixed price conveyancing service, so where does that leave the independent agent?
A. Pissing into the wind!
I never ever list on portals, yet my properties still appear on them, leads get sent to me.
I don't need, ask for or want this service, especially as some of these 'leads' are for properties I listed over a year ago, but when a portal kicks off it's first day with 400,000 properties, they have to come from somewhere, legitimately or not!!!!!!
Dominic ; Has the right idea, copyright infringement seems to be the flavor of the moment, so send Property place an invoice for every lone of your listings, they use without permission. If they want £50+ pcm to list, how much have is the intellectual property they have stolen to build there site worth? I would say looking at projected profits about £50 for each property they have illegally listed.
AceofSpades says
'RM have certainly given value back to agents',
So did Bernie Madoff , his first 'investors got very good returns, now we know why.
found on introducer today. Must have forgot to put this bit in the EAT press release.
Sohail Rashid, founder of Property Place, says:
“We’re all feeling the pinch and looking at ways to save money – Property Place is the perfect tool for people looking to sell or rent their property without the hefty estate agent fees, saving the average user £4,150.
Dominic
If you put this much effort into selling houses, I would instruct you.
I could develop the website in 3 months, would you send me you RM BLM feeds?
Say for example, you paid £50 per month for all your properties.
£50 x 1000 member agents = £50,000 per month, reinvest that minus server costs for the site, window stickers, then TV I think :-)
Staff costs minimal because we wont be spending money on reps telling you that your fees have gone up.
A contract that has no price increases for 5 years, then only 10% for the next 2 years etc.
Am i on to something or am I just day dreaming?
I can actually do this!
I think im going to set up a webpage where you can sign up your agency, lets see exactly how serious you agents are in jumping ship.
The GMGPS execs supplying this data don't give a shizzle what is right and proper.
I doubt you will even get a reply!
The only way we are going to ensure Rightmove don't get any more powerful is to support someone else.
Facebook may work - but i am waiting for the Zoopla/PrimeLocation merger
Does anyone have any news on this ?
Can't wait to see costs !! but get okay enquiries from PL at the moment so keen to test Zoopla
Rightmove got every estate agent to:
a) advertise the RM logo in their windows
b) advertise the RM logo on their websites
c) advertise the RM logo in local press ads
d) advertise the RM logo on their property details
e) advertsie the RM logoon their letterheads
And it worked.
Another portal could do it again with the support of agents
Rightmove now pocket £80 million a year of Estate Agents commission, Ed, Joanne and Miles loves ya.
Rich on your efforts, and they never pick up the phone to thank you.
Are you ready for your rate hikes next month?
What an audacity!!!!
Email sent to GMG today... (Anyone else using a Vebra, Core or CFP product should follow suit!)...
++
I have noticed that you are listing my agency’s properties on your facebook app – I have not been asked for my permission or authorisation for the reproduction of these property listings and as such, I am giving you written notice that these should be removed with immediate effect.
I would also appreciate a telephone call from someone to explain why and how this has occurred. I understand that this site has been produced by GMG that owns Vebra, who in turn provides support for our software, GMW.
I feel that use of your clients’ property listings to populate a portal/site/facebook app in order to build your brand and user base is immoral, underhand and currently, infringing copyright. It is a tactic that is not that far removed from one agent advertising other agents’ properties.
I am confident you may argue that you are currently providing a free route to market and advertising opportunity. An argument that many will no doubt swallow. However, your ultimate motivation is to build a business off the back of property listings that are not your own, and then charge those agents whose properties created a user base and market for your business. GMG did exactly that with Thinkproperty.
Worse still, having first used your clients’ properties to successfully build a market and user base, you plan to enjoy a healthy revenue steam from private sellers wishing to capitalise on this new and much cheaper route to market, undermining the business and industry that first created it.
It’s a tricky position – without your clients’ properties, you have nothing to offer. Without anything to offer, you have no business. Unfortunately, your clients’ properties are NOT yours to offer! A fact that you have seemingly overlooked.
I really look forward to a conversation and explanation.
Hadenough 'Would this work? Yes, thoughts please????'
Not in a million years. If agents wanted to move en-masse to another portal there are plenty there waiting - Zoopla, Globrix etc. Isn't Globrix free? It was when it launched.
But, the thing is, people using the main portal because they have HEARD of it. Now if every agent stopped using the main portal and used yours - or one of the others - and advertised that portal as heavily as they currently advertise the current market leader, then maybe you could get some traction.
But you will NEVER get agents to act together like that.
Rightmove pocketed £80 million of Estate Agents commissions.
Ed, Joanne and Miles love ya.
They still want more, better get ya fees up, get those pesky vendors to pay more coz Ed, Joanne and Miles want a bigger cut. Are you ready for you next rate hike. It is next month.
"Rightmove told me yesterday my price was increasing again that is twice this year, they are the real SCUM bags."
Why can't some agents get your selling fees up to an acceptable level to pay for your online advertising costs?
How is a well run online business operation that generates your buyers/tenants as well as allows you to list ALL of your properties "SCUM bags" as you so eloquently put?
Sounds like sour grapes to me.
(EA's change the record or do something about its so boring)
@benji
Its not a feed, its a scrape
Not going to work - What is very frustrating is that 100's of my companies old properties have appeared on the page!!! Properties that have sold, reduced in price & withdrawn. They must have an old feed (so put in your postcode and see if yours are there!!). Bang Out
their t&c say "they are not responsible!! see attached!!
""Professional Social Media makes no warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of this property directory or any linked or associated particulars. All property descriptions represent the opinion of the author or the agent with the right to manage and market the property, not Professional Social Media. All pictures and property information are only for guidance, and must not be seen as statements of fact and should therefore not be entirely relied upon. All users are strongly recommended to rely upon their own searches and investigations. All users should also ensure that they verify the legitimacy of any alleged seller or agent on behalf of the seller and to only disclose any personal information in a safe and secure method. No portion of this description forms part of an offer or contract. All measurements are approximate. For further information or any concerns with regards to any content, information or any part of this application please contact Professional Social Media"
Okay, I sit and read all the time that a new site is needed to challenge rightmove, we can do this.
Plan of action
I will make a similar site to rm and zoopla, you provide me with your RM Spec feed, we will update it every 24 hours. There will be no charge for listings EVER, 3rd party advertising will cover the costs.
Your part: Add the logo to your site and put the sticker in the window promoting it the same as you do RM.
Would this work? Yes, thoughts please????
I am 100% Serious with this, if I can see some support I will give my contact info
sorry, wrong article
@duncan dunlop
I would be interested to know where exactly you (oodle) get our listings from because the data there is inaccurate and out of date.
Are you taking a feed or do you scrape?
as with all these businesses, they need agency participation to achieve authority and critical mass. the medium through which they transact is irrelevant- online/offline/facebook applications etc etc etc
if the agency community is happy to create a platform for private sellers then they should participate. if they are not, they should not.
the sector may well have concerns about rightmove but what's the point of creating another rod for its back?
@ Get a Grip
Totally agree.
I glimpsed CNBC the other day, and it stated that Rightmove had enjoyed a share price move of +64% over the last 12 months....and that is the third highest increase in the whole European Stoxx 600 Index !!
Rightmove. are. just. taking. the. piss. out. of. us.
Time for a revolution.
It always amazes me the vitriol aimed towards RM when you see how many agents still use RM to power the property search on their own website, promoting RM and effectively encouraging house hunters to look at other agents.
There's no argument, RM is a dominant consumer brand, use it to work for you and it will deliver value.
Have you ever worked out the ROI based on your average monthly listings, sales fee and RM cost?
If vendors could hear you bleating about RM pricing when you're quite happy to increase the selling fee you charge when house prices increase (those still on antiquated %'age models) without adding any additional value or doing anything extra to justify the extra, I'm sure more vendors would try private sales. Ever wonder why EAs have a poor reputation?
This FB offering may not be ideal, but everyone is claiming to be waiting for a RM alternative, whilst happy to ridicule every new initiative. Social Media is a growing platform and savvy agents will find a way to make it work for them.
FFS get a grip. Rightmove told me yesterday my price was increasing again that is twice this year, they are the real SCUM bags.
If this works then RMove can stick it, embrace this I am signed up and will be looking forward to some traffic.
A bit of promotion and EVERYONE will start looking here, so RMove can shove it.
The traditional agency and private selling divide. That old favourite.
Remember, if a buyer looks at half a dozen private properties on the app and half a dozen agency listed properties, there is one massive common denominator...surely you have guessed it already?
Which ever of the 12 properties Mr Bloggs chooses to look at, and potentially buy, there is no charge to him. That is why the buying services of an estate agent compared to dealing direct with Joe Public is always going to be MUCH more appealing.
The agent is almost like a referee (a biased one, granted) but its a bit of peace of mind the buyer can expect. A good agent also assists the buyer a long the way and helps get them organised.
I agree that private sellers should not be on Rightmove; agents have spent years and a lot of de niro to help develop them into a powerful brand (don't be fooled, RM have certainly given value back to agents, so it is not a one street and this is a different argument).
Agents go to war with each other every day. Surely an app or marketing service like this is worth consideration (if it is actually any good). The fact that private sellers use it is an excuse. I would hope any agent in the land has the experience, skills and resources to blow private sellers out of the water.
Like I mentioned, the deciding point whether you use this app or not should be based on the end product you believe you will receive.
However, when someone plasters stats like "30 million of us using Facebook in the UK" I lose respect immediately. It's a lazy and poor attempt of a marketing fact.
Once you remove all the young kids who have a profile, the students, the fake/spam accounts and pet accounts; minus the people who have no interest in looking at property on Facebook or no interest in property at all, you are left with just a fraction of 30m UK users who you can actually class as your target market.
The site is already breaking the law, agents beware as you could be fined for not displaying an EPC!
@ace.
I'm calling BS on that one mate.
I have signed up and have put my properties on. Awaiting my first enquiry but contract terms cost ease of use and their sales team are all far superior to RM and others. I think it is excellent and am keeping fingers crossed for success
The startup failure to success ratio is over 100/1 - so the chances of either of these succeeding is very low. If you've got the industry with you it stands a better chance but when you are trying to work at odds with the industry ie accepting private sellers then your chances of your business being adopted and achieving any tangible revenue are reduced dramatically.
God I hate these scraping sites, basically thieves, the portals should stop them scraping and their model would be tits up overnight. They called me asking to advertise, they can go screw. This smells like the Tesco Isold crap, agents list then accept private sales.
Check out rentlord.com They had a great pitch in techcrunch san fransisco
It was the end of me!
Its not an app, its a page - anyone can make a facebook page and put a property listing engine on it. Did he scrape the listings? if so why would any agent pay for it if their listings are already on there! Bad business model and no defensible position (as they say in investor land). Bound to fail. Next !
I am a daft anti agent pillock and I lub this story and will post loads of crap later, just need someone wiv a brain to post so I can cut and paste and try to lok cleba, like rantravy etc
why would estate agents promote a facebook app that allows consumers to sell and rent their own properties thus cutting out us! completely baffled #fail
There is NO app in the App store and the link above runs very slow and crashes not a good start.