Rightmove reminds agents of new 14-week listing rule

| Rosalind Renshaw

Rightmove yesterday sent out a reminder to agents about the new ‘anti-juggling’ 14-week rule which was introduced in December.

The reminder emphasised that a property cannot be relaunched as a new instruction within that time-frame, which has been dramatically increased from two weeks.

It said: “If you have a property for sale that you take off Rightmove and put it back on within 14 weeks, it will display as usual but will keep the original listing date and will not go out in property alerts.

“If it has been longer than 14 weeks since the property was last listed, it will relaunch, the listing date will be updated and it will be sent out in property alerts.”

The change only affects sales properties, not rental listings.

Meanwhile, a new and independently developed anti-portal juggling system has been named ‘Ros’ after the editor of Property Industry Eye.

The system, consisting of new software and a £6,000 computer, is in the final stages of beta testing of the detection system launched by Robert May, and devised with help from a small number of agents determined to stamp out the practice.

The system scans property portals, and can do so quickly. At the moment, the data relates only to Rightmove listings, although the backers are working on Zoopla and OnThe market.

The system does not scrape properties, but claims to be able to identify which properties have been ‘juggled’ in some way and who the agents are. It can also identify actual property listings in any given time period.

In the preview of the system shown to EYE, it was very clear who the main culprits appear to be.

There is a truly astonishing amount of further information which is currently only accessible to a small handful of individuals, who do not include journalists. We understand it will be made available to the regulator, NTSEAT, and to redress schemes, as well as to commercial firms.

While the system has been built to combat portal juggling, it actually looks to breaks down information in a number of ways, including at the smallest local level, which could give a one-office high street business information about rivals.

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14 Comments

  1. Chris Wood
    February 17, 2017 at 07:15

    Hats off to Ros’ and the PIE team for having faith and guts, to Robert and Coding Doby for their IT genius and persistence in the face of BTs incompetence/ corporate sabotage (?), to persons unnamed who have quietly worked in the background to get the TPO on-board, to PeeBee for many hours worked into the wee hours checking listings, to Roz’ and her predecessor, Gizmo and, to Rightmove for moving to act on this problem. Please make the next step the removal of these agents who have been persistent law-breakers.

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    1. PeeBee
      February 17, 2017 at 09:33

      And the very same ‘hats off’ to you, Chris – for fashioning a stick into a poker… knowing where to poke that stick… who to poke it at… and when they jump, how to take one shot to blow their bl00dy heads off!

      ;o)

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  2. surrey1
    February 17, 2017 at 07:31

    The data quality team seem marginally less than useless. Having been berated for leaving an sstc property on 24 hours after completion, I suggested they may wish to police a little more even handedly. They’re currently three weeks into investigating others i pointed out three months past completion. You can see the completion dates on rightmove plus, how hard is it???

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    1. Robert May
      February 17, 2017 at 07:48

      It is a volume problem, I have every sympathy for what the have to cope with.

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      1. surrey1
        February 17, 2017 at 08:56

        If only they had the money to staff appropriately!

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      2. Windsor197848
        February 17, 2017 at 09:02

        Let’s redirect the blame at tight company management who are not throwing resources at the problem, opting instead for profit. Not the individuals who directly handle the admin work involved.

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  3. Robert May
    February 17, 2017 at 07:46

    I would  like to thank Rightmove  and the data analysis team. it is only when you get deep into what is going on that you realise the  scale of what they have to deal with. (at the same time as  fending off a near constant Peebeeing)

    Thankfully the vast majority of, innocent, didn’t realise it was wrong, well everyone else is doing it, can’t beat em join em stuff has stopped,  the technical issues excuse doesn’t wash every 3 months so it is now crystal clear what is going on, how, when and by whom.

    The drop in volume and concentration on  persistent jugglers means  we can look up and refer to specific agents  or activities at normal conversation speed.  If I am asked about an activity or agent  the observations are up in as little as 0.25 seconds. The first of our long, deep reports  came in  under 4 secs yesterday  (down from 4 hours on ‘Beast’)

    There are some big names  (+ small and vocal) still  doing things in contravention of CPR, BPR, redress scheme codes of conduct anf the portals’ own terms and conditions.

    What we do about those agents will be decided at a collaboative meeting within the next few weeks.

    As was mentioned a  little while back I have devised a  points system that will allow,  notification, warning, and finally sanction against offenders.

    Rightmove have to be thanked for coming to this party and I am confident the agents who chose to ignore them and the regulators really will wish they hadn’t.

    In respect of BT, I think I have  finally solved a serious issue affecting several hundreds of Business Broadband customers for as much as two years.

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  4. StanLaurel35
    February 17, 2017 at 08:42

    I find it amazing that you can get ‘dislikes’ from some people for the superb work you have all done – Thank you to you all – On the other hand I suppose the ‘dislikes’ are from the dishonest, cheating, unscrupulous Agents you have set out to stop. Thank you all once again for making it an even playing field.

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  5. AgentV
    February 17, 2017 at 08:43

    I have to admit that I had no realisation of the scale of this problem and the amount it was used for embroidering marketing stats etc., until Robert, Chris, PeeBee, Smile Please and everyone else, whom I can’t think, of brought it to our attention….and then fought hard to get rid of it. Many congratulations, and keep up the good work.

    The public may never never know enough to thank you, but ultimately they will realise they are being better served.

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    1. Chris Wood
      February 17, 2017 at 11:19

      Thank you. That means a great deal.

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  6. Property Peep
    February 17, 2017 at 11:08

    Brilliant work Robert, can’t wait until we can see some of the results, I’m fed up of one particular agent in my area. Their website is very relevant at the moment in this day of fake news and alternative facts.

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  7. smile please
    February 17, 2017 at 11:11

    Well done guys, i keep saying but do mean it!

    Now if only some of that data could be leaked to certain financial reporters ……….

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    1. Chris Wood
      February 17, 2017 at 11:21

      I had my latest of several conversations with a highly respected broadsheet journalist only yesterday whose jaw may still be sore from when it hit the desk after the demonstration of what Roberts software can achieve and, the scale of what is going on (and also by which companies).

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  8. PeeBee
    February 20, 2017 at 13:55

    Says it all that RM have to issue a “reminder” after only two months…

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