How I became a Viewber for a day – and yes, it works

There are some cool innovations in the world of proptech, but when six companies have to share £25,000 (in a competition administered by the University of Strathclyde), it’s pretty damning of their chances of developing anything of use.

It’s why I’ve been so impressed with Ed Mead and Marcus de Ferranti of Viewber: they’ve raised sufficient capital, recruited sufficient Viewbers, marketed to and secured sufficient customers, and have built the technology and hired the support staff to look and feel professional, and to operate in a professional manner.

In short, they have set themselves up to win.

To satisfy my curiosity, I quietly signed up as a Viewber.

It seemed fitting given my first-ever job in the world of property, as a weekend sales assistant.

Viewber recently sent a communication around saying that they would lower the minimum £20 payment for a viewing, if an agency provided a whole day’s worth of work.

And very quickly you can see how this simple service – on-demand people for the property industry – can expand.

Agencies now have two options: hire for one viewing or one day’s worth of viewings.

You’d be forgiven for thinking this is too simple to be game-changing, but that is exactly why it is transformative for the industry: why would you ever put a notice on the door advertising for weekend sales assistants, when the people Viewber recruits are vetted, rated by other people and cheaper than hiring a weekend sales assistant?

This all speaks to the original vision of taking property professionals from an agency fixed cost to a variable cost. Why would you employ people to sit around all day when the better buyers and renters want to view in the evenings and on weekends?

I planned to tell you all about my experience as a Viewber – but there’s really not much to say: it just works.

It’s actually pretty amazing how fully functioning the technology is and how professional and speedy the support staff are.

Viewber didn’t even exist a year ago, yet today there are this many Viewbers

 

Apart from the one-person monopoly of Northern Ireland and the lack of a unique Viewber map-pin, the Viewber coverage is strong. I would presume usual network effects apply: as more people Viewber, more agents will sign up to try it out.

Viewber report that 45% of viewings are for high street agency customers each month, with Ed saying that auction and online agencies “were the first to recognise the benefits to them and take up the service”.

I had initially put this story off as Ed writes for EYE, but this is the most fundamental change the industry has seen since online listings gave agents a new advertising option.

Just as ‘the cloud’ has made it simple for anyone to get a website running, Viewber will make it so that there is an explosion of competition in professional property services.

Viewings are the tip of the iceberg that the good ship High Street Agency has been sailing into and scraping its sides against.

Right now Purplebricks needs to spend a lot of money recruiting, training and maintaining its pool of Local Property Experts – just like those website servers people needed before the cloud.

In the future, every agent will have a business that looks like Purplebricks – just without having to be a trailblazer and take the risks that Michael Bruce did. They also won’t get his rewards.

It puts into context the efforts that Countrywide, the Guild and others have made.

These former leaders of the industry have been spending a lot of time and money on trying to copy Bruce, yet here comes Viewber which makes this all simple and cost-effective.

Fitting, isn’t it? That the two innovative companies that followed the portal wars would be captained by Michael Bruce and Ed Mead – people you could rightly say are each “one of us”.

By the way, I conducted five viewings and I believe I have a five star rating. So if you need my professional services in the vicinity of SE25, head over to Viewber.

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23 Comments

  1. PropertyX07

    You lost me at
    “In the future, every agent will have a business that looks like Purplebricks…”
     

    No it won’t.

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    1. Estate_Agent_Memes

      No proper Estate Agent would allow this to happen:
      https://www.facebook.com/estateagentmemes/photos/rpp.787698468017448/1338531966267426/?type=3&theater
       

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  2. sb007ck

    So there was me expecting to read about his day as a “Viewber”, maybe a little about the properties he conducted viewings on, the people that he met…basically “The day in the of a life of a Viewber”. But instead….”I cant be bothered to tell you about my experience, because it was amazing”….”So amazing, i probably didnt even become a viewber for a day…just made it up”

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  3. Trevor Gillham

    Surely this should say ‘SPONSORED’ at the top??

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  4. Marketshare

    I was waiting to hear how details such as local schools, neighbours, benefits of the property, position of the sellers, issues with potential previous sales and general condition were provided to you.  Viewing is such an essential element of our business, I have to be honest and say that except for certain types of properties I just don’t understand why anyone would use such a service

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    1. MRC_London42

      Generally us viewbers are directed to the property listing on the agent’s website, or one of the national portals. Occaisonally we are given a few bits of additional info (e.g. tenancy fees) by the agent in the viewing request.

      Personally, if those listings are reasonably comprehensive, I feel that is more than adequate background to prepare for viewings –  certainly for first viewings. I have lived in the area for close to 13 years, and what I can offer in addition to the printed blurb is the local perspective on shops, services etc etc

      A prospective tenant yesterday was fascinated to be told there was an off road footpath/cycle lane virtually all the way from the property to her office some 1.5 miles away.

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  5. smile please

    I Echo the above comments.

    Just out of interest, you were meeting members of the public, you were going into peoples homes, you are in essence freelance with very little accountability or probably referencing.

    Did they at least run a DBS check on you?

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    1. PeeBee

      If he’d turned up in a DB5 I certainly wouldn’t have been buying from him, smile please – that would have just been uberpretentious!

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    2. MRC_London42

      I do not believe DBS checks are done by viewber (certainly in England & Wales, less certain in Scotland / NI where the underlying rules are different).

      In any case I’m not convinced Viewber would be qualify as an organisation that is entitled to ask exempted questions under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.  For England & Wales background see https://www.gov.uk/guidance/dbs-check-requests-guidance-for-employers

      That said, the vetting of viewbers is rightly an area of some concern, and the “freelance via a third party” status of viewbers is perhaps not widely appreciated by viewers when they turn up for viewings. There is potential for reputational damage for both viewber and the property agent themselves if something was to go drastically wrong.

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  6. Property Paddy

    Another nail in the coffin of the traditional estate agent?

    Every estate agent being his own business and relying on companies like viewber to do the manpower bit ?

    As an industry desperately short on experienced and knowledgeable local staff as it is I do wonder how well an even more deregulated and unstructured approach to selling or letting property will work, particularly for the client.

    If something goes wrong who takes responsibility?

    That said I can see this is a real potential game changer, although it clearly benefits the CCA more than the high street agent.

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  7. Mark Walker

    Do the Viewbers know who the Money Laundering nominated officer is?

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    1. Mark Walker

      This was a serious question.

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    2. MRC_London42

      Mark, can you expand on your concerns please ? – I am a viewber who is failing to grasp why this could be an issue, and yet you obviously feel it is a serious concern.

      (From https://www.gov.uk/guidance/money-laundering-regulations-nominated-officers-and-employee-training ) “Businesses that are regulated by the Money Laundering Regulations must appoint what’s known as a ‘nominated officer’. The nominated officer must be someone in the business. You must act as the nominated officer yourself if you’re a regulated sole trader with no employees.”

      Viewbers are self employed, and IF they were operating a sole trader business that falls under the Money Laundering Regulations they would be their own Money Laundering nominated officer. Viewbers are not involved in the negotiation of rentals or sales, and would have no expectation of becoming aware of prospective tentants / purchasers financial affairs.

      As my own post (below, July 22nd) indicates, Viewber are not forthcoming about the implications of self employment (for many viewbers this is likely their first and only experience of self employment, and the lack of “hand-holding” is regrettable). However, I fail to see the case that viewbers could be considered to be running a business that falls under the Money Laundering Regulations.

       

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  8. Property Paddy

    It’s like what I said in my post above
     
    Innit?

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  9. Ed Mead

    Morning everyone, thanks for your comments. It’s clear there are many questions and it’s also clear that agents are increasingly using the service as an overflow. If you try to see a property through some of the best known agents in the UK, Savills, Knight Frank, Strutt & Parker, Jackson – Stops, Symonds & Sampson etc. etc. at the weekend you will often get someone turning up to show you round who is not an estate agent but is a local able to get along and let a buyer/tenant in – all Viewber is doing is offering the same service to all agents. Buyers don’t mind this and are simply grateful to get in when they want.

    Agents are almost always the best people to show properties, of course, but what about 2/3/4th viewings, decorators and all the other assorted visits that take your negs out of the office when they could be doing better work. Inspections on managed properties with a simple pro forma etc..

    We are planning a webinar session for agents to ask relevant questions within the next three weeks or so, so if you’d like an invite and to get some answers, please do email info@viewber.co.uk. Otherwise you could ask some of the agents mentioned above the same questions – it’s an age old practice and one that’s well accepted – is there anything wrong with everyone having access to the same sort of overflow service?

    By the way – Ray was an excellent Viewber and the ops team had no idea who he was when booking so it’s great to hear him giving them a good shout out.

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  10. Agent090

    Face it we can’t always show  properties all day every day of the week ( not if we’re doing the sharp end stuff of taking on instructions, talking to clients, tying up deals, negotiating, running an office) so why wouldn’t we dip in and out of a service that helps us to do our jobs  ? I’ve always used weekend staff anyway ( who aren’t always reliable bless ’em)  so this is  just an extension of that surely and it’s more cost effective . The industry is changing rapidly and is ever more demanding – technology is here to enable us to adapt and survive so I’m going to use every tool in my box to make sure I stay ahead of the game and can make the most of every opportunity . Those who claim online agents are going to disappear and wax lyrical about a nostalgic golden era of estate agency are sleepwalking their way to oblivion – remember the dinosaurs ? Your competitors ( and online agents too)  do

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    1. PeeBee

      “…remember the dinosaurs ?”

      If, Agent090, your question is in the literal sense, no – they were slightly before my time.  But I do remember a good chunk of stuff I’ve learned about them in the past.

      Here’s something I posted in a response to ‘EasyChris’ a couple of days after the Orange Disruptors had their knees-up ‘launch party’ in amongst the dinosaurs at the NHM, waaaaay back in September 2014 –

      “Thing is, Chris, the dinosaurs weren’t given a fighting chance. A flaming object the size of a city dropped out of the sky at several thousand miles per hour and wiped most of them out – along with 80% or more of all life-forms on the planet.

      But easyPlop ISN’T a body capable of global extinction – you are NOT, and never will be, a planet-killer. You won’t even cause a wobble in the rotational axis. And had the dinosaurs been given a fighting chance then it was quite possible that it would have been THEM standing around yesterday looking down at the @r$£hole of Estate Agents…”

      But to be honest, I like to think that my other comment on the subject – again here on the pages of EYE, from only February this year, var nigh boxes off the dinosaur argument and consigns it onto the same dustyshelf as the Ark of the Covenant:

      “135 million years+/- on the planet before they were decimated to var-nigh extinction by a GEE – but their close relatives can still be found today.

      Homosapiens, on the other hand – about 200,000 years to get where they are today.

      ‘Progress’ has resulted in this ‘new race’ of planetary caretakers being closer to wiping ourselves – and the planet itself – out than T-Rex and his cold-blooded buddies ever were.

      Lesson to be learnt/learned (delete which you feel be grammatically correct – both work here ‘oop North) if you think you’re better/moreadvanced/whatever and the natural successor:

      Don’t f**k with the dinosaurs unless you have an asteroid!”

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      1. observer

        As always you jump off the deep end when the allegory he was describing is that those who rest on their laurels decline whilst those who adapt survive. That is a truism that has been proved throughout the years (with a notable couple of exceptions: sharks, crocodiles, alligators who haven’t evolved in 1000s of years).
        Go to the Galapagos islands and see what adaptation really means.
        EasyProperty right now are not going to cause many problems to traditional agents but PurpleBricks certainly are.
        Just as a hypothesis:
        I suggest that the best local agents have a profit margin of about 20%.
        I’d suggest there are many that operate at less than 10%.
        If PurpleBricks takes 10% of the market, how many agents will then go out of business? Whether or not that is backed by shareholders money or not. That is simply the state that they are in and agents are in.
        I’m not celebrating that fact and like the incessant AgentV believe that local agents (as individuals and independents) can prevent that happening. Sticking your head in the sand or being willingly flightless is not the best way to escape the clutches of a predator. Every creature thought they had nailed survival until they were extinct.

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        1. PeeBee

          Ahhh… observer – there you are!

          Help me out here.  Please.

          It’s heartening to read you say “I’m not celebrating that fact and like… AgentV… believe that local agents (as individuals and independents) can prevent that happening.”

          But on the other hand… you seem to suggest that by fighting we are somehow burying our heads and get ready to ride the wave  now and not wait for the tsunami that is coming.  Either I’m reading you very wrongly (for which I can only apologise) – or I can’t read you at all.

          Now you’ve flitted out from the last room you seemingly chucked a firework into, and here you have flitted once more – in through some orifice or other with what strongly appears once again to be a banger at the ready and trusty Swan Vesta poised to be struck.

          In answer to the post above, you will note that I was simply relating to Agent090 previous conversations with others on the subject of dinosaurs. 

          I was not, as you suggest, “jumping off” any end – deep, shallow or anywhere inbetween.

          If you believe that PurpleBricks’s effect on the UK Estate Agency world (purely using your stated example for the purposes of debate) is akin to a GEE. then I would have to ask what your definition of a GEE would be?

          Heavy rain in Manchester (shock…horror…) making big muddy puddles that have an extremely detrimental effect on suede slingbacks, maybe?

          A misty morning in Cleethorpes causing utter pandemonium on the school run, perhaps?

          Or what about an overoaded artic on the A2274 causing ripples on the surface of a lurking copper’s cup of coffee sitting waiting for such a heinous breach of the Highway Code?

          They are an Agent, competing with other Agents.  If and when Agents compete fairly and squarely, then good luck to them.  Let the best side win.

          IF

          AND

          WHEN.

          In the meantime, resistance to what I and many, many others within the industry (and what certainly appears to be some 95% of the homeowning population when they wish to sell what is generally their biggest asset) firmly believe to be NOT “the future” of things – either here or to come – is not futile.

          Whatever the ‘disruptors’ and their fanbase like to think; whatever they will try to engineer using the name of ‘progress’ to further their cause – traditional Estate Agency can and will live long and prosper – and continue to best service those that it is there to service.

          And I’ll say it until the cows come home. 

          Or brontosauruses, for that matter.

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  11. PeeBee

    “How I became a Viewber for a day…”

    “How to write a totally irrelevant headline to plug a business”, more’s like…

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    1. PeeBee

      Hmmm… wonder who the ‘Disliker is…?

      Eenie…meenie…miney…mo…

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  12. melba44583

    It’s super handy to outsource our high volume viewing properties like student lets and frees up our time for more value-add tasks.

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  13. MRC_London42

    I’ve been a viewber for slightly over a month, and whilst overall the experience has been fine, I do have some misgivings. I’ve had 20 viewing appointments across four properties in inner London each for a different online letting agency. I have been severely disappointed by the number of no shows by viewers (9). Admittedly the properties are at the bottom end of the mainstream London market (£1100-£1400 pcm studio and 1 bed flats), but my frustration is directed at both viewers and letting agents for the lack of communication and courtesy in notifying of no shows.  The worst example was a couple of evenings ago when I was requested to do a block of five viewings at short notice. When I rang the letting agent for more info I was told they didn’t know anything about the property, and that some of the 5 viewers had cancelled, but were unable to confirm who had cancelled as it was after office hours. In the event just 1 of the 5 turned up – a guy with a 4 or 5 year old child to view a studio apartment, hardly the most appropriate property given his circumstances. Another agent directed me to collect the keys from a concierge … some two hours after the concierge had left at the end of his working day.

    I’m currently running at an average hourly rate of circa £19 including travelling time, (after allowing for expenses) which is a FTE of around £34k pa. In inner London the travelling time can be an issue, especially if the key collection point is no where near the property. For me, a semi retired IT and business consultant, the recompense is barely worthwhile, and is certainly far too low for me to volunteer to stand outside in the middle of winter waiting for viewers to (not) show up.

    The viewber support staff do indeed do a good job, and payments are received weekly for the previous week’s viewings. However, the underlying website / IT has a significant number of rough edges which currently takes the edge off the experience. Perhaps my biggest concern is Viewbers are advised their status is self-employed (as is obviously the case) but Viewber then fail to discuss the implications of this for both public liability insurance and car insurance. I suspect few viewbers carry appropriate insurance to protect their own interests, and this could well become a source of reputational damage to Viewber (and potentially the property agents themselves).

    Viewber clearly offers an innovative and viable solution to property agents, but perhaps said agents need to “up their game” to ensure viewbers remain motivated to respond 24/7 throughout the year. I signed up to this portal specifically to make this post, as I feel the original article fails to mention, let alone address, a number of issues that could limit the long term viability of viewber.

     

     

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