New Artificial Intelligence digital search business ‘to offer competition to Rightmove and Zoopla’

| Rosalind Renshaw

A new business has launched, backed by ex-Countrywide residential boss Bob Scarff, which says it will offer competition to Rightmove and Zoopla.

Ems is a digital search agent that uses artificial intelligence, meaning that an individual’s search for a property is tailored specifically to them. Visitors to Ems are asked certain questions and artificial intelligence also tracks how they use the site – the more renters visit the site, the more is learned about them.

Leads are then delivered to agents on the basis that prospective tenants have been pre-qualified, with something known about their lifestyles and behaviour patterns.

The business went live at the end of January, and is currently in beta mode, serving the rental market in London. However, it plans to roll out nationally in the second half of this year.

Currently, there are no plans to expand into the sales market.

The service is free to agents and, says CEO and founder Alex Sullivan, they have no need to upload properties.

He said that it already has 70,000 properties in the London area alone, scraped from a number of sources including Rightmove and Zoopla.

However, a large number of properties do not make it to the Ems platform, said Sullivan, who claimed that “about a third” are out of date.

Sullivan, who was an estate agent for three years at the start of a career which has included helping to found a global payments company, has called his new business Ems for personal reasons.

“Three years ago, I went through a big life change. My younger sister, Emily, died aged 26, and a few weeks later my daughter Ella was born.

“The business is named after both, and has been designed to have a personality – we always refer to it as ‘she’, to emphasise that this is a personal service offered.

“We are in competition with Rightmove and Zoopla, and also MoveBubble. What sets us apart from the portals is that our service is personalised.

“The portals offer a ‘one size fits all’ approach, where the users have to do all the work, including their own searching.

“Our property searches are entirely personalised to that one person.

“For example, a prospective renter will often search by postcode, whereas Ems may recommend neighbourhoods based on what we learn about that person.”

Ems, which only works with agents and not landlords, will also book viewings.

While free for agents, renters can choose to pay nothing or upgrade.

There is a £50 package, where Ems negotiates the lease with the agent, while £75 is charged as a “settling in” service.

Scarff, who was responsible for 800 branches at Countrywide and was among the first wave of departures as its disastrous lurch into ‘retail’ took hold, said: “I’ve lost count of the number of prop-tech start-ups that I’ve been approached by in the two years since I left Countrywide.

“Most of them had good ideas or a good implementation team. Ems has both, and that’s why I have invested.

“Ems will deliver a much better experience for customers, and will help agents generate low-cost, high-quality, pre-qualified leads better than anyone else in the market. Agents will save time, save money and be able to deliver a better service.”

As well as investing, Scarff will also be acting as an adviser to Ems, helping to develop the offering to agents.

www.ems.ai

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23 Comments

  1. Bless You
    April 4, 2018 at 08:02

    Good luck. Not sure how you can compete with rightmove and zoopla when your business uses their content to trade… they might not like that.

     

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  2. Simon Bradbury
    April 4, 2018 at 08:13

    How interesting.

    I suspect that A.I. will feature in our daily lives with increasing frequency in the years ahead and our industry will no doubt benefit (as well as be challenged) by such technology.

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  3. Blue
    April 4, 2018 at 09:46

    The problem with ai is that the i often isn’t.

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    1. GeorgeOrwell
      April 4, 2018 at 12:10

      AI or A’UP! The arrival of yet another tech spin-off. Who knew? and we thought Estate Agency was just Selling Property for the best price!

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      1. PeeBee
        April 4, 2018 at 12:15

        Don’t worry, GeorgeOrwell – they ain’t threatening to invade our comfy Sales Domain…

        …yet.

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  4. fluter
    April 4, 2018 at 09:54

    The fact that they scrape properties from portals means that invariably much of the information may well be out-of-date and could lead to tenants wasting time on properties that are unavailable.

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    1. AlexSully79
      April 4, 2018 at 11:30

      Hi Fluter

      Thank you so much for the comment. You are quite right, we have experienced that approx 1/3 of rental properties in London are out of date. We have been busy building a platform which can take a pretty smart guess at which ones are no longer available and remove them. We work hard to create a great experience.

      Sully – CEO @Ems

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      1. PeeBee
        April 4, 2018 at 12:12

        “We have been busy building a platform which can take a pretty smart guess at which ones are no longer available and remove them”

        Oh. Well. 

        That’ll be all right, then.  Sorted.

        Can it also take “a pretty smart guess” at tonight’s Lotto numbers for me as well, please?

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      2. fluter
        April 4, 2018 at 14:20

        I’m not sure how many clients are happy with smart guesses but as a smart guess, I would suggest not many.

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  5. MrLister
    April 4, 2018 at 10:58

    Good luck with it. If it’s got Scarffs backing there must be something in it….and a lovely way to remember his sister.

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  6. PeeBee
    April 4, 2018 at 11:20

    I almost liked the idea on first look – although the fact that they are using scraped data is normally enough to boil my wastewater.  Why can’t companies like this actually start from zero – the way we all have to – and build from there?

    I wonder what Mr Scarff would have said if it was his CW data that was being scraped?

    THEN come the ‘claims to fame’ like this one:

    “Our customers convert at 10 times industry average and cost you absolutely nothing”

    which immediately bring up the hackles – the billshuttery alarm is ringing loud and clear.

    This is, is it not, a site that went live no more than three months ago – and pretty much no-one either in or outside of the industry have heard of it?

    Except on Tw@tter – where their ‘Followers’ list is, to say the least, ‘diverse’ and ‘interesting’…

    Gets a ‘No’ from me.  Not that they’ll give a fuppenny – I don’t do rentals.

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    1. AlexSully79
      April 4, 2018 at 11:38

      PeeBee…That claim is accurate against our numbers. But we would be the first to say that we are a new company and the numbers are in the 10’s thousands not millions. 
      It is our aim to connect great qualified renters with great Agents. And we’re very happy to take feedback on our communication. We want to be open about where we are and what we aim to achieve. 
      If you would like to drop me a line sully@ems.ai I would be very happy to talk openly about the product and our aims. 

       

      Sully – CEO @Ems 

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      1. PeeBee
        April 4, 2018 at 12:09

        “But we would be the first to say that we are a new company and the numbers are in the 10’s thousands not millions.”

        “10’s thousands” of what, Sir? Properties? Potential tenants? Sausages?

        “I would be very happy to talk openly about the product and our aims.”

        Great. So let’s talk openly here.  Last time I checked, it’s about as “open” as you can get.

         

        PeeBee – resident PITFA @PropertyIndustryEye (unconnected)

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        1. PeeBee
          April 4, 2018 at 17:44

          Quick enough to jump on my first comment, ‘AlexSully79’ – why no response to the second?

          Don’t you like the idea of “open” discussion?  It was you that suggested it.

          Just in a very ‘closed’ sort of “open”.

          I’m here if and when you’re up to it.

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  7. GeorgeOrwell
    April 4, 2018 at 12:13

    Sully? Shouldn’t you be getting on with your business.

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    1. PeeBee
      April 4, 2018 at 12:16

      He IS.

      This is his Sales Pitch.

      Sit back, get the popcorn out – and enjoy the main feature!

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      1. GeorgeOrwell
        April 4, 2018 at 12:28

        Is this like Colin Murray on Saturday’s? “Defend the Indefensible”?

        I simply detest The Scrapers, it’s stealing because they never asked the providers permission!
         

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        1. PeeBee
          April 4, 2018 at 12:35

          But they don’t see it that way. 

          They ridiculously attempt to defend the practice by claiming that it benefits the party whose information is pirated.

          We owe them soooooo much…

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  8. Macca109
    April 4, 2018 at 12:19

    Isn’t scraping the properties illegal? I.e. against Rightmove and Zoopla’s T+Cs?

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    1. PeeBee
      April 4, 2018 at 14:26

      “illegal” is one thing; “against Ts&Cs is another thing completely.

      And while the portals continue to ignore their own contractual obligations when it suits their agenda why would anyone else give a fuppenny about sticking to the rules!

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      1. Herb
        April 5, 2018 at 09:18

        what obligations do they ignore?

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  9. htsnom79
    April 4, 2018 at 19:01

    I am now aware of 3 Sullys’

    1. Best scarer, monsters Inc

    2. Pilot who landed in the Hudson

    3. CEO@ems

    Happy days.

     

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