Are Rightmove/Zoopla about to go out of business??

[Dan_1981]

hornetrider said:

If the 1% is inc VAT then go for that if you want a red brick agent.

Alternatively pick an online agent who is on RM and pay ~500 quid.

That was our thinking.

The 1% is a more local agent but still provides everything the larger nationals does, at less than half the price.

[Funk]

Dan_1981 said:

We're going through the process of putting our house on the market at the moment.

All the agents are promoting this new option, all seem to be dropping Zoopla.



O/T but how much would people expect to pay an agent to market a bog standard 3 bed semi in a popular area surrounded by loads of other 2/3 bed semis.

All vallued the house at an identical price 125k.

Prices ranged from 1% to 2200+VAT.

Out of interest, will your agent choosing to drop Zoopla have a bearing on your decision whether to use them or not?

[Dan_1981]

Funk said:

Dan_1981 said:

We're going through the process of putting our house on the market at the moment.

All the agents are promoting this new option, all seem to be dropping Zoopla.



O/T but how much would people expect to pay an agent to market a bog standard 3 bed semi in a popular area surrounded by loads of other 2/3 bed semis.

All vallued the house at an identical price 125k.

Prices ranged from 1% to 2200+VAT.

Out of interest, will your agent choosing to drop Zoopla have a bearing on your decision whether to use them or not?

Dropping Zoopla won't impact on our decision.

Dropping Rightmove, would

All 4 agents brought stats showing the majority of click through's & interest they created came from Rightmove. Of course they were all dropping Zoopla so they'd make sure the stats supported this decision.

From our point of view neither my wife or I have ever used Zoopla, both of us spend numerous visits per day on Rightmove.

[FrankAbagnale]

If it's a toss of a coin decision go with a Zoopla/RM agent.

OTM has no presence at the moment, very few purchasers use it and while you personally use RM as do most people, a large portion of purchasers only use Zoopla.

[Funk]

Dan_1981 said:

Funk said:

Dan_1981 said:

We're going through the process of putting our house on the market at the moment.

All the agents are promoting this new option, all seem to be dropping Zoopla.



O/T but how much would people expect to pay an agent to market a bog standard 3 bed semi in a popular area surrounded by loads of other 2/3 bed semis.

All vallued the house at an identical price 125k.

Prices ranged from 1% to 2200+VAT.

Out of interest, will your agent choosing to drop Zoopla have a bearing on your decision whether to use them or not?

Dropping Zoopla won't impact on our decision.

Dropping Rightmove, would

All 4 agents brought stats showing the majority of click through's & interest they created came from Rightmove. Of course they were all dropping Zoopla so they'd make sure the stats supported this decision.

From our point of view neither my wife or I have ever used Zoopla, both of us spend numerous visits per day on Rightmove.

When I looked at the figures there was quite a bit of crossover from people searching both, but both also had a fair degree of visitors that used only the one portal. I would want my property in front of as many eyeballs as possible and OTM simply can't achieve that.

[DeltaTango]

We are already receiving a greater number of productive leads from OTM than rightmove. The level of useful enquiries via Zoopla was always low.

Rightmove have already moved to de-clutter their site to reflect the more user-friendly nature of OTM.

[surveyor]

I think there's a North South divide with Zoopla - much stronger in the South.

[RichF]

I wouldn't think the 'big two' would be worried just yet looking at the visitor figures for January. Considering these figures are desktop only as well and all those people using the apps on mobile / tablet, OTM has a long way to go.



Considering rightmove was setup by estate agents in the first place, it makes me laugh that this is the estate agents response to something estate agents setup.

I half expect it to go well, get sold or ftse-listed and we'll be hearing of a new competitor setup by estate agents in another 10 years.

[FourWheelDrift]

No the next step is setting up a compare site that looks at all of them and puts the results in one easy to read place.

www.comparetheestateagentwebsites.co.uk

[Xaero]

RichF said:

I wouldn't think the 'big two' would be worried just yet looking at the visitor figures for January. Considering these figures are desktop only as well and all those people using the apps on mobile / tablet, OTM has a long way to go.

It looks like after OTM got their publicity stunt, the hits dropped, followed by a surge in people going on Rightmove.

I'm looking to buy mid-late this year so am keeping an eye on the market at the moment. I have added OTM to the regular check, but it's not given me anything interesting yet. Also when I send a mail to an estate agent via Zoopla, they said it didn't even mention what property I was interested in, so I doubted how useful the website was, although it might have just been a mistake I made in sending them a message.

[FourWheelDrift]

And on Zoopla, people who only used rightmove went "there are other sites?" looked at Zoopla and OTM and then decided they had less houses but the ones they had were on rightmove anyway so went back to rightmove.

[ReallyReallyGood]

FourWheelDrift said:

No the next step is setting up a compare site that looks at all of them and puts the results in one easy to read place.

www.comparetheestateagentwebsites.co.uk

I'll admit, I clicked that

[scenario8]

The established portals are very expensive but new portals spring up all the time and mostly have no impact. We'll see what happens to this one.

FWIW I just inserted the name of the London borough of the sales office I am currently sitting in into Rightmove, zoopla and onthemarket. All types of property, any status.

Rightmove 768 properties
Zoopla 730
Onthemarket 31

It looks better if you take out those under offer - but not that much.

That's a London Borough not some hamlet in the middle of nowhere. Only Spicerheart have signed up (and one single office independent). There's a long way to go, then.

We shall see.

[FourWheelDrift]

Well Rightmove has just screwed up the streetview/map options on properties.

You only have one option now, map & street map, but without the little yellow man option to move the streetview yourself by putting the little man down where you want it. Click on streetview and it takes you to the pin position, which is hardly ever in the right place because it's centre of postcode placed. So you end up leaving rightmove and looking on google maps to find it.

[hornetrider]

Agree about the streetview mistake. The whole look and feel of RM has changed on the desktop recently and not for the better. I also don't like all the capitals in the option boxes at the top of the listings, feels very shouty.

[toohangry]

I've always used RM for browsing property...do RM and Zoopla have properties exclusive to themselves or is it the same stuff on both?

I could go and search but this is easier.

[Bluebarge]

toohangry said:

I've always used RM for browsing property...do RM and Zoopla have properties exclusive to themselves or is it the same stuff on both?

I could go and search but this is easier.

Not all agents use both.

Zoopla has that handy (if inaccurate) house values tool that shows an estimated value as well as past sales details (if sold in t'internet age).

[MitchT]

Rightmove is still my default setting. Onthemarket claims to have all sorts of properties that 'other big sites' don't, but in my experience it has fewer. Also, OTM seems to duplicate many of the shortcomings of the RM site rather than be something different and better.

[TTmonkey]

Bluebarge said:

Not all agents use both.

Zoopla has that handy (if inaccurate) house values tool that shows an estimated value as well as past sales details (if sold in t'internet age).

Which can be massively wrong. I had to threaten them with legal action as they were putting buyers off my property with a widely inaccurate price estimate. Ok if you are selling an everyday house in an estate full of every day houses but terrible if you are selling something special. They were £140,000 out of the eventual selling price.

[Jamp]

Why doesn't one of them allow DIY listings? I'm sure EAs wouldn't like it but surely it would secure an extra slice of the market for one portal and so gain a USP for that portal? Might be a good tactic for Zoopla if they're losing agent share at the moment. FWIW I only used Zoopla to search, mistakenly thinking all agents used both major portals. Now I'm looking at selling (nice 2 bed flat with garage in Walkley, Sheffield, any one? ) I'm reluctant to go with the agents which don't advertise on Zoopla.