Is new portal’s brash move the wrong move?

It’s the nature of marketing a new product that there has to be a certain amount of brashness if it is to succeed.
But there’s a new kid on the block in the world of estate agency insisting that to join its on-line presence estate and lettings agents are only allowed to be on one other portal.

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In kind human terms, such an approach might be described as an overabundance of self confidence. This new portal, owned by a group of estate agents, is insisting that already successful portals must be abandoned in order to come to its party. To keep the property analogy going, how do you think you would fare if you arrived in a neighbourhood and asked everyone to come to a party provided they left behind all allegiances to all their old friends but one? Precisely!
So it is that I’m not abandoning Rightmove or Zoopla to join the new portal. The latest survey by Property Academy, in which 4,506 people currently selling their home or investment property were questioned, shows that 94 per cent expected their property to be marketed on Rightmove and 68 per cent on Zoopla, while 39 per cent backed Primelocation.
I don’t see it in the interests of my clients to withdraw their homes from being promoted on one (or more) of the top three most used property portals just to satisfy the whim of a start-up. If you are thinking of selling your home, ask any estate agent you are thinking of instructing if they have abandoned other portals they formerly used in order to join the new one.
Many may well answer that they have done so to break the grasp of the other portals and also to save themselves money. But if they are working for you and charging the same commission as other agents then the only winner may be themselves. After all, your property will not be on-line where you imagined it might be and you will be taking part in a marketing experiment that may possibly delay the sale of your home. If the agent argues that it won’t because the property will still be on Rightmove or Zoopla then what is the purpose of backing the new website other than to save money?
Personally, I will continue with both Rightmove and Zoopla while that’s what my clients expect. True, their combined cost is probably equal to the overheads of 1.5 extra staff members but I have ameliorated that not by slashing their bill but by insisting they add on other marketing tools for free. This increases their effectiveness for sellers because greater analysis of their data is possible.
Interestingly, the Property Academy survey, for which 35 per cent of respondents lived in the south east but outside London, shows that 68 per cent of all respondents first saw their next property on Rightmove or Zoopla, 62 per cent said they would not consider selling through an on-line only agency, and 78 per cent did not make their choice of agent by selecting the one with the lowest fee. What impressed them most when considering which agents to seek out for valuations was the agent’s reputation (20 per cent), its marketing or brand (16 per cent), or because they had dealt with the agent before (14 per cent).
In other words, they like what they’re getting already and that’s what I’ll continue to provide. But I’m not averse to change and when it’s needed I’ll make it. Until then, the industry can carry on navel gazing and I’ll carry on selling homes.<