An independent web developer says that he has launched 200 ‘hybrid’ sites for high street agents around the UK who want to be able to offer vendors an alternative service.
Neil Harvey, who runs a small business, Juice Media Design in Devon, says that he has built a system which allows an agent to have an online offering with a brand at arm’s length from their own name and website.
In England and Wales, agents have their own individual territories – for example, www.claphamproperty.co.uk is run by a local, unidentified Clapham agent.
Each agent decides what they want their online alternative to charge. Altogether in London, there are currently 15 separate websites charging vendors between £1,500 and £1,800 including VAT.
In Scotland, the system works differently, with 20 regional independents, each widely separated geographically, supporting www.scotlandproperty.co.uk
The cost to vendors in Scotland is £999 plus VAT.
Each of the websites shows which portals the particular online agent lists with, and offers the possibility of a vendor requesting a valuation from the traditional, but un-named, agency. The different agents also choose colours, and any information they want to put on their ‘arms length’ sites.
The websites do, however, all seem to show the same stock picture of an ‘experienced local expert’.
Harvey said that he first had the idea last year and developed it, and that all 200 launches have been in the last few months.
He said there is strong demand among independent high street agents to be able to offer an online service that does not get confused with their own branding.
He said: “Not every vendor wants the traditional offering and more tech savvy vendors are happy to do their own viewings and deal with offers.
“The key to having another option is to convert the vendor that you might not have been able to convert or to entice another type of vendor that you may not be attracting.
“High street agents who use this option are ahead of the game as it doesn’t devalue their existing offering and gives them a tech savvy alternative.
“For example, if a vendor you didn’t know or a vendor who didn’t want to use your traditional method, came to you and said they would pay you £1,000 to make sure they were on the portals and they’d take care of the viewings and negotiations, I think most smart estate agent business owners would take that.
“Then, if the sellers struggled with the negotiations, it’s a simple up-sell back to the traditional fee.”
One user, Sean Greenwood, property manager at Scottish firm Seddons, said: “Having this tech allows us to compete with online and hybrid agents.
“This gives us the option of offering a very good online service as well as our traditional high street service.”
Some examples are:
Someone tell this chap, don’t waste your time and mislead agents, just stick to website designing.
This Vendor DIY sales is a no go and doesn’t make money.
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Think he tried doing it himself last year. Good idea but I don’t any know agents who can afford to sell their 5-6 units a month for £600.
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This chap contacted us a while back. It’s a useless bit of kit.
Flawed throughout.
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Looks to be a template with different colour scheme and photo.
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I googled Bury property and the rest and the sites are nowhere to be seen, so how these agents get any business for their grand is a mystery.
Interestingly, OTM appear on Adwords for all searches.
A far better way for agents to get additional instructions and sales would be to advertise their own agency/traditional service, not a fixed fee alternative, locally on Adwords.
It continues to stagger me how so few agents advertise online, you are missing a massive opportunity.
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‘Having this tech allows us to compete with online and hybrid agents.’
Is it not supposed to be the other way still?
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Flawed throughout, no onward tech support, pay your 50% upfront, no live site to test and pretend you are the viewer, buyer, vendor, tenant or landlord.
I liked the concept as an alternative, but screen shots and a landing page, isn’t quite enough to demonstrate why parting with my money is enough.
Nice chap mind you… but Neil, you must let the Co. Owners you are pitching to, test drive the product and understand it. You cannot sell something confidently you have never used and you must have a clear tech support programme? who an earth will mend it, when people cannot log in, cannot log out, etc etc.
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Scary that a professional web developer thinks its ok to expose his clients to so many fines.
No Terms of Use, no Privacy Policy, no GDPR compliance, No Redress scheme. And more…
The risk of commissioning work from a non-industry specialist just makes it a false economy.
I was talking to an agent only last week who had been pinged by Trading Standards for £15k for non-compliance on his website.
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Agents using Jupix have been able to offer this solution with their PropertyFile plugin for quite some time.
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I use PropertyFile as a landlord and it’s the best thing my agent offered me. If I had to move managing agent I would look for one that offered this.
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groan !
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Isn’t this basically what the guild offered to their members in the guise of easyproperty? And we all know what a roaring success that was, not to mention Countrywide offering the exact same thing alongside their traditional offering. Again, hardly a resounding success was it?
Seriously, what competent agent would want to damage their business and brand by offering to sell properties for pennies alongside their full price service?
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