Property portals have helped kill off local newspapers, says ex-editor

| Marc Shoffman

A former regional newspaper editor has cited the rise of estate agents advertising on property portals as a major factor in the decline of the local press.

Keith Perch, who edited the South Wales Echo, Derby Telegraph and Leicester Mercury, and who is now a lecturer in journalism, says local papers saw their revenues and staff numbers decline after failing to notice the changing way estate agents were advertising properties.

Writing in a new book, Last Words, he says traditional newspaper executives failed to “understand the nature of the threat or the opportunity of online classifieds”.

He writes: “Take property advertising, for example.

“Newspapers already had a good relationship with thousands of estate agents throughout the country and already gathered details and a photograph of hundreds of thousands of properties from them for advertising every week. Moving this online and making it searchable would keep them ahead.

“But the newspapers did not understand either the internet or the business of estate agents. In newspapers, space was at a premium. As a result, advertisements for houses tended to include just one photograph and very limited details of the property.

“The estate agents were quick to realise the internet offered them the chance to put full details, and lots of photographs of every house, online, giving them rich data which was searchable at any time.

“They had access to the data via their members and could attract a direct audience without the need for newspapers as intermediaries.”

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33 Comments

  1. ARC
    January 25, 2017 at 07:09

    In other news Bears announce they are using the woods as lavatories.

     

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    1. Bless You
      January 25, 2017 at 10:07

      I would take note chap..its rightmove that will close down 1000’s of estate agents next, with their let any dodgy pay upfront agent on its site.

       

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      1. Typhoon
        January 25, 2017 at 10:41

        Bless you how right you are. But the industry doesn’t see it sadly

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      2. ARC
        January 25, 2017 at 11:45

        It was only a lighthearted observation in the stating of the obvious which I think is how it has been taken in the main.

        for the record the fears that keep you awake at night actually would have no bearing on me so no noting required.

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  2. eltell
    January 25, 2017 at 07:09

    Ain’t that the truth!

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  3. AgencyInsider
    January 25, 2017 at 07:15

    How long before there is a comment saying that traditional full-service agents are going to go the way of the local papers because they don’t realise it’s all going online, innit?

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    1. ARC
      January 25, 2017 at 07:20

      depends if Mr Quirke or one of PR lot are up this morning

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    2. smile please
      January 25, 2017 at 08:02

      Think you will find all traditional full service agents are online.

      They offer better marketing and better service.

      Online agents ONLY USE to date is they are cheaper oh and if some reports are to be believed that saving is almost lost with them being made to use their solicitors

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      1. AgentV
        January 25, 2017 at 10:05

        And the main reason they are cheaper is that theirs fees are being subsidised by investors. If they were the UK government doing this for a business …wouldn’t it be breaking competition law?

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        1. Bless You
          January 25, 2017 at 10:09

          same as amazon…different world. in old days a business was supposed to make money.

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  4. Robert May
    January 25, 2017 at 07:38

    Long long ago  here in North Devon all the agents enjoyed a very  happy relationship with  the local paper. Everyone knew and respected the ad reps, the reception staff and even the guys out back in production when we wanted to make a last minute amends to adverts. All that change when an arrogant, greedy new editor arrived. Genuinely nasty sorts who thought he owned the town and every business in it “without him we were nothing”

    With about 400,000 properties to sift through on the  portals,  local newspaper advertising is still a useful précis of what is new, what is price changed, what’s fallen through.  Once a week I sit down for an evening and wander through the property pages the last 3 properties I have found to buy came from  print, not portal advertising.

    The portals are a convenient excuse for editors who  didn’t understand their changing role, didn’t adapt and in our case in North Devon didn’t respect their agent  CUSTOMERS

    Call me old fashioned and out of touch but I would love to be working with the few remnants of the old guard,  people who are still in the business and still have a very healthy mutual respect for agents.  Newspaper advertising is not  just about selling property it is about demonstrating a local presence, a longevity and experience in the area,  it is a reinforcement and a USP that non geographic internet listers can’t compete with.  Local papers win instructions; you can sell what you haven’t taken on.

    Win more, Keep more, Sell more. Learn to love you Local newspaper again and they will love you right back.

     

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    1. Robert May
      January 25, 2017 at 07:43

      Sorry all, long day yesterday…. You can’t sell what you haven’t taken on  Although one firm I know of  quite often lists properties “sold by another agent”

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    2. Ric
      January 25, 2017 at 09:17

      Completely agree Mr May – We associate the locals with shoving as many unhappy vendors in as you could to appease their upset at not having sold yet, knowing full well the advert would not help it sell anyway and then in the next vendor contact proceed to tell them how the “paper does not sell houses” (you can imagine them wondering why an earth we made a point of saying “local advertising” in market appraisal pitch if we don’t believe in it).

      I think the paper does have a place for agents, it is the cheapest mail drop you can do! So, you’ve got to ask yourself, would you drop 20,000 houses a leaflet advertising a thumbnail photo list of 20 odd properties with a few words accompanying each?

       

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      1. AgentV
        January 25, 2017 at 10:10

        Ric

        So, you’ve got to ask yourself, would you drop 20,000 houses a leaflet advertising a thumbnail photo list of 20 odd properties with a few words accompanying each?

        No …..but I know what I would put on a leaflet drop to get a good return of enquiries ….or in the paper if they would allow you to. Contact me and I will tell you the answer….just can’t say it in the open.

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      2. Bless You
        January 25, 2017 at 10:17

        that’s it..i agree.. its not so much the portals but the quality of the newspapers. They cant compete with world news, fake news etc…no one buys papers period

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  5. Chris Wood
    January 25, 2017 at 07:55

    Our local paper had an arrogant, “you need us and we’ll squeeze you” attitude, rather like someone else I know. Times change. Karma has been restored.

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  6. smile please
    January 25, 2017 at 08:03

    At least that’s one thing we have to thank the portals for.

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  7. Trevor Mealham
    January 25, 2017 at 08:19

    Article reads:

    traditional newspaper executives failed to “understand the nature of the threat or the opportunity of online classifieds”.

    I’d say the newspaper execs let themselves down.

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  8. Peter
    January 25, 2017 at 08:44

    This will be a disaster; I use them for lighting my fires.

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  9. FromTheHip64
    January 25, 2017 at 08:55

    Local papers are a pointless waste of time….not unlike this article. Those days were great but they’re long gone now. We’d rather put the money into a sign on the main roundabout.

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    1. fluter
      January 25, 2017 at 09:12

      That’s what we did and funnily enough, loads of people noticed it. Our local independent newspaper is still a broadsheet and they insisted on placing property ads in random positions pretty much throughout the paper rather than having a “property section” and insisted on charging different agents different rates for the same sized ad and lying that they were doing it. Architects of their own demise if you ask me.

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  10. PRman
    January 25, 2017 at 09:45

    Hello ARC. I’m awake. Newspapers have brought about their own demise through a lack of quality, nothing to do with not realising about property portals. After all, Mr Perch’s papers were all owned by the Daily Mail, which has been very active in the property portal field. Maybe instead of driving down staff numbers to appease shareholders and thereby diluting the appeal of their papers, the bosses at DM should have been passing down pearls of wisdom about how to work with estate agents and simultaneously embrace the portal model. Local papers still have a role to play, with well executed property sections driving reader interest and (my clients tell me) causing a spike in portal visits via featured properties. Success means being neither exclusively on-line or High Street, or using only portal or print advertising. I don’t really recall newspapers having that good a relationship with estate agents for many of the 27 years I’ve been in this job, they only wanted to screw them over leading to organised agent groups launching their own papers to keep costs realistic. Things are improving now though, at least in the area in which I work. Newspapers are waking up to the value of agents and are working hard to get editorial contributions to make their supplements better. Long may it continue – take a writing course and join in (or get a good PR with a newspaper background rather than a degree in “media studies” so you can carry ondoign what you do best!).

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    1. AgentV
      January 25, 2017 at 10:16

      Totally agreed….content is king…its needs to be engaging and what people want to read. Know that and you are halfway there….have the content on a regular basis and you could become a dominant player in the local market.

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    2. LondonR90
      January 25, 2017 at 10:27

      My point of view – I’ve never read or bought a newspaper. I do, and so do a lot of my friends and colleagues, read a number of newspapers online. What I can say is that there are a lot of advertorials being paid for by businesses looking for online exposure. It works well, but costs a serious amount of money per article.

      The newspapers were punished for this kind of stuff a few years ago but they still keeping doing the same thing. It’s quite a business…

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  11. Anonymous Coward
    January 25, 2017 at 09:50

    Didn’t he basically say “It was all our own fault – we were too arrogant”.

    Rather like the Sony Walkman and the advent of iPod, the newspapers just could get their heads out of their a***s long enough to see what was obvious in front of them.

    Even if you are market leader you still need to be thinking about the future.

    The final nail in the coffin of the iPod was the iPhone – made by the exact same people…   That’s what a really clever company does.

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    1. AgentV
      January 25, 2017 at 10:20

      I read a story once that the inventor of ‘Netflix’ tried to set up a joint venture for his infancy model with ‘Blockbusters’. Allegedly the directors of B. on meeting him…. laughed his idea out of the boardroom !!

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  12. PRman
    January 25, 2017 at 09:50

    Sorry. Last sentence above should read “carry on doing”. The mistake qualifies me for a job on The Grauniad!

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  13. smile please
    January 25, 2017 at 10:22

    Local paper around here still charges circa £280 per page – It is a weekly paper.

    We use to spend just over 2k per month on the “rag”

    To say i am happy only 3 agents now advertise in it is an understatement.

    I have no objection to being in it, its nice to see your name in print but the cost is ridiculous.

    I can have 10,000 printed and delivered leaflet put through homeowners doors where i know they have to look at them for just £450

     

    To me a page in the paper should be no more than £75 all in. At that figure its value and there is still a massive profit margin for the publisher.

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  14. Thomas Flowers
    January 25, 2017 at 11:02

    It appears that the portal executive teams are somewhat more savvy than the old newspaper execs. They never managed to get control of the two most important aspects of estate agency.

    1. Real time listings –  via RM’s own real time data feed that they have total control of and are now able to offer the other most important aspect of estate agency:

    2. Instant alerts (or hot box applicants as we used to call them) RM could not offer these prior to real time data?

    Do you know that the real time upload allegedly includes the property number now? Apparently so that Google maps can locate the property ?

    Funny how RM are now massively pushing DIRECT prospecting products, paid for by the likes of PB?

    Perhaps agents are those old newspaper executives now?

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  15. P-Daddy
    January 25, 2017 at 11:11

    Smile please i agree and it is similar for us.  We still use the local rag…as do all the other agents, but it has changed significantly. Years ago, we all boycotted the paper until they reduced the rates and improved the quality of print and reduced the price from £1,500 per page to £425 per page and went to tabloid size from broadsheet. The paper realized how upset their readership was without property!! Yet they still charge £375 per page and are trying to increase the price this year for the first time in 5 years. Very dangerous as all are now starting to cut back on the number of pages. So why appear in the first place I can hear many saying. It’s all about the age of readership. We have a high percentage of older property owners who are our future clients who do still value a physical presence for their property as well as online. Within 5 years, this will cease to be the case once they have all died or downsized, but right now it is part of our marketing for clients. Rest assured we will be delighted when we can remove this from our marketing spend, but the moral of this story is, in the past agents united to bring an overbearing supplier under control…who needed our content. Never lose sight of this in the current online world, the portals need our content and they are milking all of us to their multi billion ££ benefit. Wake up!

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    1. AgentV
      January 25, 2017 at 12:06

      We need something different to everything that has so far been suggested. Are you interested?

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      1. P-Daddy
        January 26, 2017 at 14:05

        If it is genuine…bearing in mind no one has reinvented the wheel yet…just made it faster and efficient.

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  16. PeeBee
    January 25, 2017 at 14:07

    Okay – I guess I’m going to have to admit it.  However much it pains me I have to comment on the power of t’interweb anf these portal malarkeys.

    We’ve booked nine viewings so far today on a property which I received instructions to market late last night.

    The response has been phenomenal. Unprecedented, in fact.  It’ll no doubt be Sale Agreed to one of these viewers.

    Of course, it hasn’t even had the chance to be advertised in the local paper yet so unfortunately I cannot comment upon the effectiveness or otherwise of the ‘New to the Market’ ad which will not now appear until mid next week.

    But of course this is all about ‘it’s all gorn online, innit’? – so I’ll stick to the subject.

    I carefully chose the imagery for our internet listing.  Picked out some cracking buzz-phrases from my considerable armoury of factually correctish billshuttery for the summary.

    I wanted people to slow down – to actually stop – at my little place on the hard shoulder of Information Highway, and not to whizz past at 69.8 miles per hour the way they do on roughly 99.87% of all listings if the quoted figures are in any way believable.

    Nine viewings. Someone else making positive enquiries as I type.  H£11 of a result, I would say.

    Can’t wait to upload it to the internet…

     

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