Mark Milner, CEO of The Digital Property Group (DPG), has announced that subscription fees for two of DGP’s portals, primelocation.com and findaproperty.com, will not rise in 2009.
“Whether we’re talking about 2008 or 2009, there are no price increases. Our [pricing] strategy is new and is being rolled out as we speak.”
Milner made the comments in an interview with The Negotiator this week.
Milner claimed some portals were increasing prices year-on-year to satisfy shareholders, and also spoke against agents banding together to lobby for lower fees, saying that DPG’s pricing took into account the circumstances of individual agents.
Miles Shipside, commercial director at competitor rightmove.co.uk, was quoted as saying that “middle ground portals” were engaging in underhand tactics to survive, such as announcing forthcoming price rises for rightmove.co.uk, when the company had no such plans:
“We are concentrating on helping proactive agents survive by reaching the biggest audience more effectively so they can sell more property and can choose to advertise even less in newspapers, who funnily enough own all these middle ground portals.”
Despite the clarification from these leading portals, the debate over portal advertising fees is not going to stop any time soon.
Advertising Partner
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