High street agents could one day be offered access to the technology behind eMoov’s online platform.
Founder Russell Quirk has admitted to EYE that as part of the agent’s growth plans, one strategy could be to open up their technology to others.
Asked by EYE if he would consider white-labelling the eMoov platform so high street agents could make use of the technology such as to book viewings, Quirk said: “Yes, this is something we would consider.
“We are not geared up for anything like this yet but we are already considering expansion into Latin America and the Far East, and so it would make sense for us to also deploy the technology domestically.”
He highlighted recent praise for eMoov software by proptech expert Mike DelPrete.
Independent proptech expert says eMoov is the model that works in online agency
2015 “The high street is dead. It just doesn’t know it yet”
2017. “…will you buy my software please?”
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I see The Quirkster has read your comment Chris 🙂
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hit dislike instead of like by mistake (though, remember, he famously announced he doesn’t read the comments on PIE)
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That might explain the reason for all the dislikes on PIE stories yesterday!
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Question.
If Russell set up a new business and sold this software to just one agent.
Would this new business make a profit?
If so, maybe he has learnt a valuable business lesson?
If costs exceed turnover by some measure.
That is not a proper business and e should moov to one that does?
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REALLY – As Victor Meldrew would say – ‘You Can’t be serious’
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I think you are mixing up your Meldrews with your McEnroes…
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‘I don’t believe it’ 🙂
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Ahhh, Mr Mealham – nice to see you today!
I have a burning question that your wealth of knowledge of compliance, obligations under various Acts etc, could well help me with.
I’ll post it a wee while later – keep an EYE out for the next couple of hourse or so, please…
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Pleasure PeeBee. Might be better to email me direct: tmealham@aol.com as not to take space from the body of the story and responses. Happy to help if I can.
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No thanks Russell……as a group of entrepreneurs we are far more capable of designing and implementing a better performing more sophisticated platform ourselves……if we choose to do so.
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I was ‘considering’ reading this article. I didn’t. I only needed to read the headline. The answer is no.
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Growth plans or survival strategy? the only asset they seem to have is the the software. It’s logical to view that as a possible revenue stream, a bit like taking in lodgers to help pay the mortgage. I ‘m not sure the success generated by the Emoov platform is one many agents will want to embrace. Having £10k on Wonky the Donkey at 9:4 in the National sounds like a better bet, but what would I know about selling software to agents?
So much for reaching a tipping point market share of 16% by mid 2016. The whole disrupter sector hasn’t achieved 1/4 of that!
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EMoov’s platform is not innovative enough… the one piece of technology he suggested is available by a few different stand alone providers, and their are also companies that provide the platform and the service behind it already .. Agent V – if you think a group of agents building their own software is a viable solution talk to Onthemarket. Many of these Proptech start-ups exist because they’re trying to solve very small problems in the letting or sales process. Mainly, because of dated software, slow administration processes and poor customer service… Majority of these companies have exit strategies to be bought by Zoopla or by large property group – That is their end goal. They don’t care about your property market, when the problems are solved they will move to the next industry. High Street agents aren’t going anywhere – but this is modern business and there are many cost effect and simple solutions available to start running a more efficient business. High streets solution to “getting with the times” is to higher more low quality, poorly educated staff, give them antiquated systems, make them work almost unlawful hours, and continue to go at the market with a uninformed or non-data driven strategy. High street isn’t going anywhere, but the ones who refuse to update from windows 7 will not be around much longer. Poor customer service example – I cannot call your business and find out if a property is available, I have to register over the phone and then I’m promised a call back, which usually doesn’t happen. When it does happen it’s usually someone else fed my details trying to sell or let me a completely unrelated property. Emoov listed property – 3000 PurpleBricks listed property – 13,000
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Hi Anthony,
Does anyone actually know how to contact OTM at an effective level?
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Yes, but while the court case is undecided, any discussion and progress has been halted. That in itself is a victory for those attempting to hamper the challenge using vexatious, unnecessary and expensive handicapping in place of fair and legitimate competition.
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AgentV
“Does anyone actually know how to contact OTM at an effective level?”
Erm… you could try joining – might be one toe on the starting block to dialogue…
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Problem is that I never agreed from the start with the ‘One Other Portal’ rule. I know many people will disagree with my view, but I thought it was a bad strategic mistake. To my mind they should have just got as many agents on board at a reasonable price from the very start. They should have aimed to get the stock levels of properties as high as possible as quickly as possible…that would have driven more traffic to the site which then would have made it a no brainer for any remaining agents to join.
Whilst I totally agree with the principle of AM and was highly motivated by the idea, OTM placed me, business wise, in a real dilemma. In many ways Z is used as much as RM by our customer base and to drop one would have halved our leads at a time when we had historic low stock levels in a more difficult market as well. I saw the decision to join them as being good for me (in the long term), but a bad decision for my Vendors. So I did what most people confused do, I stayed with the status quo.
In the area I operate there is not one of main competitors on OTM which means they have no stock and correspondingly very little traffic. I can’t come off rightmove (other agents would use it against us) and zoopla gives me as many leads plus also valuations.
However, if they wanted our properties and stock on the site (without the OOP rule) with a pay per lead basis to help break into the local area, I would gladly help them out.
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So let me get this right.
You want 10… 100… 1000 ‘like-minded Agencies’ to join with you, and each pay a set (to be determined dependent, presumably upon take-up) monthly figure to set up, develop and implement what you hope will be a solution to all the ills of the industry – yet you positively baulk at the idea of paying a set fee to join something that is already out of the box, up, running and actually working (albeit in a wonky-donkey sort of way). You’d rather stick with the status quo – which are the main roots of the issues you wish to find the solution for.
That’s made me chuckle, AgentV.
Thanks for that – there’s not a lot of things to chuckle at these days.
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I knew I would get criticised for it, but I always try and tell the truth. Is it not better that OTM understands some of the reasons behind why it has not gained the ground it SHOULD HAVE by now.
Who said I would baulk at the idea of paying a set fee? I assessed that a pay per lead basis would be less upsetting for existing members already paying a lot more than the £50 per month offering that OTM were alledgely touting in many areas for new members.
If you remember I suggested the pay per lead cost be based upon the average existing membership cost divided by the average number of leads generated per member. That could be £5, £10 or £20 per lead…I don’t know….but I would expect it would generate far more revenue for OTM than the £50 per month offering.
I also do not want to set up anything that will be the solution to all the ills of the industry. It has been proved to me that that is an impossible task.
I merely want to set up something that enables us to collectively market to get extra business and become more noticed by the general public as the best route possible for achieving their property sale.
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“Is it not better that OTM understands some of the reasons behind why it has not gained the ground it SHOULD HAVE by now.”
To be frank, I strongly suggest that their understanding of those – and other reasons – was firmly cemented before they even launched. Or cetrtainly should have been.
I also sincerely hope that it has a strategy – or strategies – in place that allow it to immediately move forward once the current Legal shackles are removed. No – scrub that – I also EXPECT there to be a strategy in place to kick in the minute the outcome is announced.
“I assessed that a pay per lead basis would be less upsetting for existing members paying a lot more than the £50 per month offering that OTM were alledgely touting in many areas for new members.”
Sorry – but I fail to see why any other payment basis and amount than that which existing Members wilfully signed up to would be “less upsetting” in any way, shape or form. Early adopters could have all sat back and waited for the prospect of a ‘deal’ to be waved under our noses – but instead businesses with the collective High Street windowspace of several football pitches committed a not-insignificant amount of financial and physical investment because (in the main) they believed that it was in the best interests of the industry, their businesses and, therefore, their customers.
Of course – let the next wave have it for peanuts – the monkeys won’t mind in the least…
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Then we can disagree on all of this.
I didn’t introduce the lower membership fees …they did, clearly because they thought it would work and gain them more members. Maybe it did, but at the same time it upset existing members, and I understand why. I tried to come up with something that would possibly both work and at the same time be more acceptable to the existing membership.
I know I have always wanted OTM to be a tremendous success and still do. Lets face it…who wouldn’t have wanted to own part of something that would have become worth an incredible amount of money, and at the same time, protect data and reduce operating costs.
Just because you disagree with my opinions on how that can be achieved does not change my wanting them tio suceed.
Lets just agree to disaree, and see what they do next.
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This is incredibly surreal PeeBee. I feel like agreeing with one of your posts.
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Ah Observer….did you read our stats you asked for the other day?
Do you still think the online listers should not have to declare their selling success when charging customers up front as opposed to only for success?
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I don’t even have an estate agency and I could write:with the observer approach we get 99% completions from listings at 107% of original asking price.What i was saying is that either the entire industry opens themselves up via open APIs to show their exact audit trail of price achieved, time taken, completions vs listings, or we carry on as we are, nobody is accountable, everybody manipulates their figures and off we go.I agree that this is a really tough industry to be completely objective about and when you are only selling 100-200 properties a year then data becomes skewed really, really quickly.
Equally, if you want PB to announce all of their data then everybody has to do the same. As they are publicaly listed they can’t fudge numbers. They can choose what to report but they can’t lie about their numbers – a local agent has no such pressure.
I’ve said this before, there are some great local high street agents out there. People who live and die by the sword, who work the extra hour, go the extra mile and can justify their fees. Probably most people who visit this site would sit in this category. Equally there are those that just phone it in, deliver ok results, are completely dependent on RM & ZPG and cut corners wherever possible.
I have no concerns that the former will survive and in my opinion the latter don’t deserve to be in charge of liquidating somebody’s most valuable asset.
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Now I am agreeing with a lot of what you have said……..not sure this is really happening today!
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Thinks he can sell sand to the Arabs does he?
good luck with that one matey
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EMoov’s platform is not innovative enough… the one piece of technology he suggested is available by a few different stand alone providers, and their are also companies that provide the platform and the service behind it already ..
Agent V – if you think a group of agents building their own software is a viable solution talk to Onthemarket.
Many of these Proptech start-ups exist because they’re trying to solve very small problems in the letting or sales process.
Mainly, because of dated software, slow administration processes and poor customer service… Majority of these companies have exit strategies to be bought by Zoopla or by large property group – That is their end goal. They don’t care about your property market, when the problems are solved they will move to the next industry.
High Street agents aren’t going anywhere – but this is modern business and there are many cost effect and simple solutions available to start running a more efficient business.
High streets solution to “getting with the times” is to higher more low quality, poorly educated staff, give them antiquated systems, make them work almost unlawful hours, and continue to go at the market with a uninformed or non-data driven strategy.
High street isn’t going anywhere, but the ones who refuse to update from windows 7 will not be around much longer.
Poor customer service example – I cannot call your business and find out if a property is available, I have to register over the phone and then I’m promised a call back, which usually doesn’t happen.
When it does happen it’s usually someone else fed my details trying to sell or let me a completely unrelated property.
Emoov listed property – 3000
PurpleBricks listed property – 13,000
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Anthony – Your generalisation regarding the standards of High Street agents is insulting to many excellent businesses providing a first class service.
No doubt your business and the service you provide is faultless – unlike your spelling (we don’t higher staff, we hire them)!
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Not sure where your numbers came from in respect of Emoov listings but you can borrow this ‘Essex to actual’ constant; multiply all number by 0.6 to give numbers less….. bovine than the ones you’ve quoted.
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“High streets solution to “getting with the times” is to higher more low quality, poorly educated staff”
Yeah, Anthony11164 – it’s a real bu99er when they can’t spell even easy-peasy words, innit?
Like… hire, for instance…
Boils the wazzwater. They should invest in a reliable spellchecker – don’t you agree?
AND a grammar checker, while they’re on – ensuring that the one they invest in works properly by thoroughly researching its’ effectiveness.
It’s a well-known fact that there’s nowt worse than making “a uninformed” choice.
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It’s only a matter of time before all these cheapskates assess the ACTUAL PROFITS they are making, realise they are dismal and back off. That’s when REAL estate agents doing a proper job can get on uninterrupted, providing a REAL service for fees that allow them to do the job PROPERLY.
In the meantime, when dealing with chains involving Purple Bricks and co, Joe public has to share our frustration at the results of their crass over valuations and inability to assist quickly and professionally with the progression of sales.
The old adages will surely apply – ‘You get what you pay for’ and What goes round, comes round’.
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if we use CAPS as liberally as YOU do then all our COMMENTS will appear as though they’re being SHOUTED . I’m not hard of HEARING and I’m not BLIND so we can stick to LOWERCASE when making points.
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You write how you want mrharvey – I’LL WRITE HOW I WANT. I’ll bet your sale particulars as boring as HELL!
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Ha! If you rely on CAPS to get your MESSAGE ACROSS, the message ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH.
🙂
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I love this kind of dialogue!
In my humble opinion, mrharvey is wrong.
I’D much prefer it if the really important words were all in caps/bold/italic/underlined – that way I could TELL which were the most relevant, salient, expressive parts of the post, and although MRHARVEY might not be over chuffed it would still draw his eye TO the message that was being delivered and thereby GET to the point without having his head STUFFED with unneccessary verbosity.
;o)
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Haha! That made me laugh PeeBee.
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It was meant to – and sincere thanks for not taking the hump! ;o)
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The budget models need a £500 break even. My guess is we’ll see a monster sized and funded company come in and offer sellers entry from £150-200 + ongoing £30-£40 For RM or -£75pcm for RM and Z. In return they’ll want your next x years home insurance, next 6 years car insurance or next 20 years budgie and goldfish insurance. They’ll even send a bod round to list for you as an agent.
At this point the current budgets go bang or have to raise £m’s more to run at a loss.
Current budgets are just a glitch in the time line.
An agents portal wouldn’t reach 2nd place now without £300-400m behind it.
So agents need a new platform and uniting to open up stock and make savings is logical as per other countries. Collaboration (which a portal does not bring) is the only way agents will reverse the ground zero race and again up fees. Budget agents fees are too low to join in such a movement.
This Friday Im meeting with an agent who has just secured a 50% higher fee offering subbing out, over other local independents and corps who can’t offer as much local office exposure.
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“The budget models need a £500 break even.”
Bounce your methodology across me for that one, please, Mr M.
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@PeeBee: One of the budget bosses told me at an event what it costs to send in their listers.A lister for A N Other budget told me he gets £240 to go out and do details and £300-£320 if he does the viewings as wellIf we assume a lister is £250 + EPC + poss photographer + AML checks + RM/Z etc. £500 breakeven sounds rightSo IF a big insurance or mortgage company or like commission fee earning model over the next x years tie in was to come in and charge £150-200 upfront with a signed insurance, mortgage contract to be. The even the £500 could be subsidized and trash the current big budget models.Direct line now have ?? 250,000 private landlords. ……….. British Gas x landlords. These big BIG players could bring a real budget offering to even make Purple Bricks go purple faced.Thus where do normal agents go. The race to the bottom isnt the way. A collaborative model could be to up fees and up access to more listings.
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“If we assume a lister is £250 + EPC + poss photographer + AML checks + RM/Z etc. £500 breakeven sounds right”
Beg to differ – but it doesn’t sound like anywhere near “right” to me.
Where are the ‘next tier’ costs? And the tier above that?
Where is any provision for TV/press/radio/’back of bus’ advertising?
Google Ads & other means of buying eyeballs/traffic?
HMRC/compliance & Insurance costs/VAT?
The list goes on – and on (although as we are aware many seem to be somewhat ‘lightly covered’ in the immediately previous section of the costs list…) and further on again.
I would respectfully suggest your estimate to be, in three words, Not. Even. Close.
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When the ‘disruptors’ who have franchisees finally wake up to the fact that they have been trading outside of the law with no individual redress, no individual ICO, HMRC etc. etc. the costs of the model will increase along with their prices …that is, those left at the end of that process who wont have a criminal conviction or two because their franchisor did not take appropriate steps to protect their franchisees/ licensees and failed to understand even basic estate agency laws.*
There is nothing wrong with disruptors. They can be a real force for good and are to be welcomed. Innovation is key in business and service however; all new disruptors must comply with the law and the codes of practice as they stand. If those laws and codes are outdated, argue for change, but do so from the right side of the dock.
*I will go on record now as predicting a number of cases of former/ current franchisees of a couple of well known organisations who may well decide that they have a solid legal case having consulted the organisations in questions ‘how to set up a franchise handbook prospectus, with no mention of specific legal requirements or, assurances from management that it wasn’t required.
I’m quite sure the Federation of Small Business, your local Trading Standards/ CAB or, Mr Beaumonts’ advice line on PIE will be happy to offer advice to anyone concerned
British Franchise Code of Ethics http://www.thebfa.org/about-bfa/code-of-ethics
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Even if i wanted the software (Which i do not).
Would i buy it off such a dis-likable individual or would i buy it off another party?
Lets look at the onliners.
Easy property – Failed to get off the ground
Teplio – Only gets a few properties from having Beeny plastered all over prime time tv and is not a serious contender.
House Simple – Burning through their wedge on Media and ad words and making no real progress
Emoov – Other than readers of PIE nobody has really heard of it and now looking for an exit stratagy by the sounds of it.
Leaves us with PB – Soon enough the truth will come out …..
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Exit strategy? I got the impression of bailiffs trawling through a shabby reposession to see what, if anything, can be recovered.
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I was trying to be kind 😉
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It seems Russell has finally given up on eMoov and is now just trying to copy what other companies e.g hy street are already doing well at. He was always the bridesmaid in the online agency market with purplebricks and more recently house simple and yopa quickly taking greater market share. Now he wants to be second fiddle to decent software companies that support high street agents. At the end of the day if an online service was something i wanted to offer I wouldn’t use a system created by a failing online agent that apparently didn’t believe in the high street model….
He’s already shot himself in the foot – after years of bad mouthing and belittling high street agents no agent in their right mind would use anything created by him!
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He was always the bridesmaid in the online agency market with purplebricks and more recently house simple and yopa quickly taking greater market share
He’d have us believe was the daddy of disruption, long before Purplebricks became public Russell was telling us all what’s what on EAT
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Robert, can you with Rummage 4 magic tools tell us how many listings are for sale today and how many agents? Can you give us a pro rata how many listings an average agent could have if sharing was equal.
Then apply RM charge increases of an extra £70pcm for the next 3 years and in the holocaust can we assume all agents operate at £501 per listing.
Whats then the agents RM + Z spend and if it costs £500 to send a neg out how does this whole sorry sole agency fees up front joke look.
The trend is budget i unsustainable other than a cash raising machine. Next week it will be mega funding for a virtual icecream mega company or budget virtual funerals. The only winners are the VC’s during fund raising and on exit.
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Well, you just have to give the Quirkster credit where credit is due. He never fails to stir the pot. Fifty comments and rising…
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