UK Agents Stage Assault on Portal Fees

Henry Pryor has formed the Estate Agency Buying Group

It’s no secret that some UK estate agents have been grumbling about the fees big name portals charge them.  

It’s been an issue on the boil for a while, but now it looks set to boil over.

Free-to-list real estate search engines like globrix.com and dothomes.com, have been making receiving significant coverage. And the launch of the NFOPP’s latest venture propertylive.co.uk, which is free to all agents who are members of a professional organisation, means many agents must be re-examining the value they get from paid-for portals.

While the big 4 – rightmove.co.uk, propertyfinder.com, findaproperty.com and primelocation.com – contiunue to dominate the market in terms of visitation and therefore most likely leads, the current economic climate is forcing agents to re-examine their marketing spend and the value they are truely graining from all their marketing.

This week, the news that market leader rightmove.co.uk was changing its organisational structure gave fuel for some estate agents to fill blogs and news websites with complaints about rightmove.co.uk’s fee structures and attitude.

But bigger than these grumblings is news that some agents are organising themselves along more official lines in order to enter discussions with the portals.

Henry Pryor from the Estate Agency Buying Group, is co-ordinating the battle for smaller firms who advertise on property portals. These smaller agents are facing “unprecedented falls in sales and therefore a significant loss in income and many simply cannot afford to spend as much as they once did”.

Pryor is hoping to band together smaller firms to negotiate the best terms possible for 2009.

Following Henry Pryor’s lead, some large UK agents, including Hamptons International and Rightmove PLC shareholder Countrywide, have grouped together in an attempt to negotiate fee reductions with rightmove.co.uk, primelocation.com and other portals.

While few want to make specific statements for fear of ruining negotiations taking place, most will claim that enquiry levels from the pay to advertise portals have decreased while free websites like globrix.com and dothomes.co.uk have seen an increase in leads.   This is debatable as the traffic gap between the big 4 and the free to list portals remains significant and any changes in that gap seem to be minor.  (Checkout our commentary on August traffic to the UK market)

In the current tight market, all agents regardless of size seem to be reviewing their advertising costs and strategies. And while print is obviously under immense pressure, agents will be revisiting all their advertising costs and the pay to advertise portals will have to work harder to justify their fees.

It seems that agents still want to advertise on paid-for portals, just not at the current costs.

1. Are UK Portals Really Losing Agents?

   Last year Henry Pryor formed the Estate Agency Buying Group, to band together smaller estate agency firms in order to negotiate the best terms possible for 2009 with UK property portals. As we entered the new year, Pryor told propertyportalwatch.com that many agents are holding firm and not renewing contracts with the pay-to-list portals....

2. Major UK Portal Fees Will Not Rise

   Mark Milner, CEO of The Digital Property Group, has announced that subscription fees for two of DGP’s portals, primelocation.com and findaproperty.com, will not rise in 2009....

3. UK Portal Fees May Increase for Some

   Mark Milner of the Digital Property Group says they are rolling out a completely new "value based" pricing structure for findaproperty.com and primelocation.com. This is likely to mean a price increase for some agents while others remain flat. ...

4. New UK Portal Aiming for rightmove.co.uk Agents

   The creator of a new free-to-list UK property portal says it has already begun enticing agents who list with market leader rightmove.co.uk....

5. 75% of Agents NOT Will Leave rightmove.co.uk

   An Estate Agency Today story claims that 75% of agents are threatening to quit rightmove. The article stated "an astonishing 75.7% of agents who participated in the Estate Agent Today poll say they will not be renewing their annual subscriptions to Rightmove. A total of 1,230 votes have been cast so far. Of these, 931 (75.7%) say they will not renew while 299 (24.3%) say they will stay with the hugely successful portal, which claims a 90% share of the listings market." Now a couple of comments about the survey. Firstly, anyone can complete the survey - i did and i am not an agent. Therefore there is no way that Estate Agency Today can know that it was agents who completed the survey. Secondly, the survey does not systematically interview agents to find out their true intentions rather it is most likely to be answered by those unhappy with the service and can be bothered to answer the survey. Therefore i am not surprised at the results - however i dont believe them. Read on for more comments ... ...