Online agent YOPA launches new Agent Guide – and the high street comes off worse

| Rosalind Renshaw

Online agent YOPA has a new feature called the Agent Guide on its site.

It claims to compare high street agents in towns with YOPA itself.

However, the comparison is between YOPA’s national inventory – which it puts at 3,293 – and the high street agents’ own local stock, which needless to say is a lot less.

It also compares selling times between itself – YOPA says its own selling time is four weeks – and local agents, whose selling times do not fare well in comparison.

So far, the guide has information on 75 towns and cities but says it is adding more.

The feature can be found here – or at least it could until earlier this morning, when it was pulled, replaced by a message saying it would be back soon:

https://www.yopa.co.uk/estate-agents-in/

When EYE asked about it, a spokesperson told us that the YOPA team has just “released a whole website re-brand and this tool was mistakenly published before it was finished. The team are making changes to it”. However, yesterday we could not see what those changes were.

Meanwhile, YOPA today had a double-page advertising spread on pages 2 and 3 of the Daily Mail. It is also  launching a new prime-time TV advertising campaign, exactly a week after announcing its £27m investment by LSL and the Daily Mail owners.

Today’s highly prominent Mail spread for YOPA said: “We’ve kept the good bits of traditional estate agents and done away with all the bad bits. Like the expensive commission and the 9-5 opening hours. You know, all ye olde-fashioned stuff.”

The first of the three TV adverts can be seen during tonight’s episode of Gogglebox on C4.

The adverts, like the Mail’s spread, explore the idea that selling your home with YOPA is such a no-brainer you’d need a ridiculous reason not to, such as apparently being two inches tall or holed up in a boat surrounded by ice.

YOPA’s previous campaign, launched a year ago, featured original members of the Village People.

YOPA chief marketing officer Gav Thompson said: “YOPA is turning the world of estate agencies on its head. These ads turn the world of estate agency advertising on its head.”

YOPA last week raised £20m in funding from LSL, whose 12 estate agency brands include Your Move, Reeds Rains, and Marsh & Parsons, plus a further £7.6m from existing investors the Daily Mail and General Trust.

It is already backed by Savills.

You can see one of the new adverts below – the script is pretty much the same in all of them.

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35 Comments

  1. Simon Bradbury
    September 8, 2017 at 06:56

    What do people think about the”Guide”?

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  2. AgencyInsider
    September 8, 2017 at 07:20

    Right at the top of each guide result for a particular town it shows YOPA listing over 3,000 properties with an average listing age of four weeks, followed by all the local agents with their relatively very few properties and highly variable listing ages.

    The is calculated to mislead a consumer into thinking YOPA is largest local agent in that area and outperforms the local agents in that local market.

    The guide also states the average fees saving a seller will achieve by using YOPA. I would question how they define the figure since they cannot possibly know how much each agency in the locality is charging and therefore cannot know the true average local fee.

    You ask what we think of the Guide Mr Bradbury. I’ll tell you. It stinks.

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  3. PeeBee
    September 8, 2017 at 07:31

    Oh, dear – I feel an ‘informal resolution’ on the horizon…

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    1. Simon Bradbury
      September 8, 2017 at 07:46

      Completely spot on Pee Bee!

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    2. PeeBee
      September 8, 2017 at 13:40

      I guess that was “informally resolved” thanks to the power of EYE, then…

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  4. ArthurHouse02
    September 8, 2017 at 07:32

    This tool is ****** ridiculous, am i reporting this to the ASA or shall i leave it to one of you guys?

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    1. PeeBee
      September 8, 2017 at 07:36

      I’ve already Tweeted @ASA_UK warning them there’s a tsunami coming their way…

      Report
    2. Chris Wood
      September 8, 2017 at 07:37

      If everybody leaves it to someone else, no one will do anything (seemingly Propertymark current policy)

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      1. ArthurHouse02
        September 8, 2017 at 07:40

        I’ve tweeted as well. If you response will do something more formal later in the day

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      2. Chris Wood
        September 8, 2017 at 10:35

        As regards the ASA, as I have mentioned on Twitter. If you Tweet your displeasure or concerns, it will be noted but NOT actioned. For the ASA to take up a case you must follow their complaints procedure using the correct procedure including writing to the advertiser in the first instance. If you don’t follow the procedure, your complaint won’t be registered/ dealt with (I speak from experience).

        https://www.asa.org.uk/make-a-complaint.html

        Report
  5. ArthurHouse02
    September 8, 2017 at 07:34

    Interestingly enough, all their data appears to have come from Zoopla. Wonder if YOPA spent time researching it, or if Zoopla (Part owner by the owners of YOPA) just handed it to them on a plate

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  6. MarkRowe
    September 8, 2017 at 07:42

    Great timing to produce a guide that lists the majority of major cities, specifically designed for search engine optimisation on each town, right down to the URL’s used on each town as you click it. This will tie into their advertising campaign nicely. The errors that have been spotted won’t change anytime soon because it doesn’t matter, to them anyway…

    They won’t care about the glaringly obvious bias throughout the whole report, as the worst they will get from the ASA is just a slap on the wrist. By this time, it would have been too late, their advertising campaign will near it’s end and they will be onto their next campaign.

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  7. Malcolm Barnard
    September 8, 2017 at 07:52

    ASA complaint form duly completed & submitted for this one.

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  8. revilo
    September 8, 2017 at 07:58

    It’s an absolute joke!

    Their website is poor and misleading in several places, search facility is poor, but I did eventually find that in Northampton they have 19 listings, which ranks 17th of the 19 agents in town!

    PMSL…

    Just about to sell my own house and sorely tempted to get all these on-liners to mine for a valuation, just for the amusement value of it! Shall I sell tickets?

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  9. AgentV
    September 8, 2017 at 08:01

    Before you know it the guide will be all over Banner advertising on OTM version2.

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  10. Aaron
    September 8, 2017 at 08:13

    Very misleading guide. Comparing their whole listing count to a local Agents. If it were unbiased as they claim it to be, they would compare their results by each town. You should be picking up on this asa!

    Not only that, my borough is included and it gives incorrect information about my company. So it can’t be trusted, and we know that, the issue being that customers won’t. Hope the asa actually do something on this occasion to prevent this type of misleading from continuing, it’s far beyond a joke now and surely the only way to prevent it from continuing and to protect consumers is to start issueing fines, plus there is no way on earth their listing time to sale is 4 weeks. I’ve never seen a yopa sold board up in my area within 4 weeks of it propping up, usually talking months.

    Found this review of theirs too which is fitting really https://uk.trustpilot.com/reviews/59b11c86d2c875078490bf50

    I feel better now.

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  11. Blue
    September 8, 2017 at 08:25

    I’m calling BS on this. Average age of their listings is 4 weeks..  my 4r$e.  Trawl through their listings, stacks from 2016, Jan, Feb, March etc., plenty of price reductions also.

    Totally designed to mislead.

    Criminal.

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  12. Property Paddy
    September 8, 2017 at 08:39

    I Think it’s brilliant, really insightful.

    Honestly !

    OK it’s complete Bo77ock5

     

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  13. mmmm
    September 8, 2017 at 08:40

    And in my town, they appear to be misrepresenting everyone by not showing us as advertising on RM… only them!

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    1. PeeBee
      September 8, 2017 at 13:44

      That was the same in EVERY town!

      Pity it’s gorn – I was SOOO looking forward to the sh!tstorm that we were brewing up!

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      1. GPL
        September 8, 2017 at 15:08

        Play nice PeeBee

        Report
  14. surrey1
    September 8, 2017 at 08:50

    If you’ve never had an instruction in an area, how would it still take 4 weeks to sell it?

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  15. PepeM
    September 8, 2017 at 08:53

    These cowboys are listing at best around 400 properties/month across the whole country, makes this a complete joke ! Sure the team at LSL must be proud of throwing 20mill at this lot !

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  16. Chris Wood
    September 8, 2017 at 10:36

    As regards the ASA, as I have mentioned on Twitter. If you Tweet your displeasure or concerns, it will be noted but NOT actioned. For the ASA to take up a case you must follow their complaints procedure using the correct procedure including writing to the advertiser in the first instance. If you don’t follow the procedure, your complaint won’t be registered/ dealt with (I speak from experience).
    https://www.asa.org.uk/make-a-complaint.html

    (repeated from a reply above)

    Report
  17. Trevor Gillham
    September 8, 2017 at 11:42

    They’ve pulled the page

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    1. Property Paddy
      September 8, 2017 at 12:15

      so they have.

      Presumably they realised they cant misrepresent the truth.

      “you can fool some of the people……………………”

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    2. gk1uk2001
      September 8, 2017 at 12:48

      The mere threat of an ‘informal resolution’ with the ASA must have been enough to scare them into removing it……….

      Report
    3. Ostrich17
      September 8, 2017 at 13:03

      Maybe someone from LSL had a quiet word?

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  18. Chris Wood
    September 8, 2017 at 12:50

    Call-centre agents marketing team chant: “I feel the need…. The need to mislead”

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    1. PeeBee
      September 8, 2017 at 13:50

      Can I be your wingman?

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      1. Chris Wood
        September 8, 2017 at 15:42

        =D

        Report
  19. GPL
    September 8, 2017 at 14:07

    NEWSFLASH…..
    New YOPA Campaign planned…..
    Picture of someone walking along the street, pausing, lifting their shoe….. oh, terrible dog mess on sole…. and I can make out the letters Y O P A ?

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  20. David B
    September 8, 2017 at 15:21

    Absolutely brilliant own goal?

    What if…..

    IS on the phone …for god sake…. how can I justify any potential sale to you lot if you publish the LPE recruitment area vacancy manual before the Court Sanction hearing?

     

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  21. Fayron
    October 29, 2019 at 13:10

    Look UK online estate agency – Houzeq
    https://m.houzeq.co.uk

    Report
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