An entrepreneur has entered the estate agency portals market with a series of local boutique websites.
Neil Harvey, 29, has so far created 20 local portals throughout the South-West, and plans to launch in Birmingham next month.
He charges agents £45 per month, with a second revenue stream coming from local advertising.
He said: “The concept is to create local portals that add value to each area, including links to Ofsted reports, a local blog, etc.
“In Plymouth, for example, arguably the best four local independent agents in the city support it, and the concept is growing.
“I am setting out to provide a niche and interesting alternative to what currently exists.”
Here are a couple of examples.
www.plymouthproperty.co.uk
www.swindonproperty.co.uk
Neil Harvey can be contacted by email on neilandrewharvey@gmail.com
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Comments
How many times can agents say 'if we leave rightmove..blah blah' its never going to happen.
If you leave Rightmove the vendors will go to the agent who does upload to Rightmove.
Believe me I would LOVE everyone to jump ship from RM and leave them stranded, they are robbing bast***s.
Zoopla is the answer, we get more leads from Zoopla than Rightmove, most of RM leads are 'more details' Zooplas are viewing requests.
@ Death by 1k cuts.
"This could be the answer - consider:- If the top 3 or 4 agents with, say a combined 60% of an areas market share, get together and agree to ditch RM fully and instead list on this (or any other ) "local" portal then they'll save themselves a fortune and because RM no longer have significant market share in their local area vendors will no longer be unduly concerned whether the agent is on there or not. "
Rubbish. The big agents get Corporate rates. They don't care, plus economies of scale and all that, they would not save a fortune. Neither would they leave. What would be their motivation ?
Wow yet another!
Seems like a great idea - no one has been able to take on rightmove at a national level - that train has already left the station therefore alternative tactics will be needed.
This could be the answer - consider:- If the top 3 or 4 agents with, say a combined 60% of an areas market share, get together and agree to ditch RM fully and instead list on this (or any other ) "local" portal then they'll save themselves a fortune and because RM no longer have significant market share in their local area vendors will no longer be unduly concerned whether the agent is on there or not.
Whether this site achieves this or not is completely irrelevant it's the idea that is the key so lets all embrace it and start collaborating with one another - with websites so easy to set up now the agents in a town could set one up and own it themselves - wouldn't that be great!
We've done it with newspapers and many towns in our area have "associations" that run papers. This was done years ago to stop exploitation by the newpapers so why not do the same to counter the portals. Key point is that RM's strength is also it's achillies heel - we are only compelled to use it by vendors because it has 95%+ of the properties on it if they only have 30% then the vendors wont be fussed. RM is not going to be killed off by one big portal taking it on head to head thats clear - but this could be what we have all been waiting for - "death by a thousand cuts"
We use a dedicated mirror server and its £300+vat per month, we don't mind paying Rightmove you are right because they sell property, they are no1.
Are you saying that Facebook has little credibility Puzzled??
Paul D: 'It should be free for agents then make money on the advertising coz without agents you have no website.'
Using that logic,RightMove should be free. Yet you don't mind handing them hundreds of pounds per month per branch.
A free site that relies on advertising revenue has little credibility. It actually costs a lot of money to host a serious server set up - with real time mirroring, loads of redundancy, database licensing etc.
I expect those agents are paying nothing as it being used for promotion, agents would not pay £45 when Rightmove are throttling them for every penny, also the site will get penalised for SEO as its basically the same but with the town place changed.
It should be free for agents then make money on the advertising coz without agents you have no website.
Pointless IMO, everyone goes to rightmove and zoopla and they can supply this data within a few hours to their site if it was needed.
Love it,
make it look better though.
Could be a good idea with legs ... who knows?
One thing is certain - the web site design is awful.