Business Idea - thoughts please
Discussion
Hi All,
So here is my idea (which others have tried) although only a couple of similar businesses on the net.
Sell your home direct
Don't use agents and pay high fees
Dedictaed website for a given regions, county, town
Upload your own images
Add descriptions and meausrements
Add your price
Link up with a local HIP's provider and put their number on the site
I will then advertise the serice:
Local press (1/2 page, 1/4 ads in the property section
Leaflet drops
Ad words on google
word of mouth
I've been in the property market for about 15 years and just had a LIGHT BULB MOMENT. Although I'm sure you will enlighten me with all the down-falls.
I will charge £99.99pa and you can change your details as many times as you want. I might run a first 50 homes free offer.
So thoughts please.
IceBoy
So here is my idea (which others have tried) although only a couple of similar businesses on the net.
Sell your home direct
Don't use agents and pay high fees
Dedictaed website for a given regions, county, town
Upload your own images
Add descriptions and meausrements
Add your price
Link up with a local HIP's provider and put their number on the site
I will then advertise the serice:
Local press (1/2 page, 1/4 ads in the property section
Leaflet drops
Ad words on google
word of mouth
I've been in the property market for about 15 years and just had a LIGHT BULB MOMENT. Although I'm sure you will enlighten me with all the down-falls.
I will charge £99.99pa and you can change your details as many times as you want. I might run a first 50 homes free offer.
So thoughts please.
IceBoy
Sounds like a good idea but I think it is one of those ideas that will not grow organically, ie, it will work but only if there are thousands of houses on it immediately and everyone knows about it. I guess that means you will need to invest a lot of money to get it off the ground at a satisfactory level.
In France, where agents regularly get 8% commission there is a website called www.pap.fr which is well used and functions how you want yours to, it works well and exists alongside the normal channels.
Good luck though.
In France, where agents regularly get 8% commission there is a website called www.pap.fr which is well used and functions how you want yours to, it works well and exists alongside the normal channels.
Good luck though.
Thanks Justin,
My only concern is what you pointed out.....when you first get to the site, it might only have 2 properties listed and that will put others off......if I can crack this, it might work.
Thats why I might offer the first 50 properties listed first and that is why I want to try local town first.
IceBoy
PS. keep the thoughts coming
My only concern is what you pointed out.....when you first get to the site, it might only have 2 properties listed and that will put others off......if I can crack this, it might work.
Thats why I might offer the first 50 properties listed first and that is why I want to try local town first.
IceBoy
PS. keep the thoughts coming
The trick is getting a critical mass of houses on there. If I was doing it (and I've considered developing a site like this before) I'd want at the very least 10 houses in each region before even considering trying to charge, which could mean potentially 1000's of house adverts needed before you earn a penny.
The only way to get 1000's of adverts will be to go balls out in marketing from day one, so you need a reasonably sized war chest to get things moving.
If there was money in it, why isn't someone already be doing it online. Rightmove could own that market in weeks...
The only way to get 1000's of adverts will be to go balls out in marketing from day one, so you need a reasonably sized war chest to get things moving.
If there was money in it, why isn't someone already be doing it online. Rightmove could own that market in weeks...
IceBoy said:
Similar but I would just be an advertsing portal, rather than an agent.
The portal will be marketed locally and buyers drawn to it.
Iceboy
They won't. Rightmove is the only place worth advertising a house, just as Autotrader is the defacto place to advertise a car and ebay the defacto auction site. They are already dominating their markets and will be impossible to unseat. They will continue to be popular, because they are popular, if you see what I mean. When you buy you want all sellers in one place, and when you sell you want all buyers in one place, hence the above three websites will continue to be most popular.The portal will be marketed locally and buyers drawn to it.
Iceboy
Housenetwork was the one which sprang to my mind when reading the OP, as this business is the cheapest route onto Rightmove. (Since rightmove only allows agent adverts, housenetwork performs a very very 'light weight' agency service.)
I'm afraid that I don't think there's space in the market for your website to be very big. Just as free ads continue alongside ebay, they are there and they are local but ebay is the king.
Hope that helps.
nekrum said:
Already done by Sarah Beeny http://www.tepilo.com/
Was literally just about to post this. Tepilo is also free...Google are also preparing to launch a map based property portal which will be free to list for both agents and private individuals.
Frimley111R said:
I'm sure there are already a few sites like this.
CHIEF said:
housenetwork.co.uk/
nekrum said:
Sarah Beeny
Lukey223 said:
Google
Arese said:
OnOneMap
This:jon- said:
The trick is getting a critical mass of houses on there.
The market is consolidated and Rightmove is the place to be. It's a bit like black hole - the more it sucks in the bigger it gets and the more power it gets to suck in. Same with eBay.I just don't see a new startup coming in and stealing market share from corporations with the resources of Rightmove.
I looked at this some time ago. And I have the perfect domains for sale if you're interested. .com, .co.uk & .net...
The biggest hurdle is getting punters to understand that they don't need an estate agent. And getting them to accept that they will have to conduct their own viewings, correspondence and so on.
Don't try to advertise in the local press if they have a property section, because they won't take your business (you're competing with their main customers).
What are you going to do about For Sale Signs? They are one of the major selling tools used by estate agents.
There was a very successful company doing this insuide the M25. Can't remember the website, but the company was Axle Publishing Ltd. They had the key, which several people here have already alluded to: If you go national, you won't get enough content to attract buyers or more sellers. If you go local, you miss out (at least initially) on the biggest benefit the internet can offer - global penetration.
When I researched this, there were many, many websites doing this (no, you haven't invented anything new). I analysed well over 200 websites, and the average number of properties on each was something like 16. RightMove was one of them (IIRC), and they quickly decided to add listings from estate agents too, and then decided that was a better earner than the private sales thing.
It is about cruitical mass, and I decided I'd need about £50k to generate that mass quickly enough. So I went with a locally-focussed print version in the end (à la Autotrader).
Sold the business after 6 months. :Yay:
ETA: That print version no longer exists...
The biggest hurdle is getting punters to understand that they don't need an estate agent. And getting them to accept that they will have to conduct their own viewings, correspondence and so on.
Don't try to advertise in the local press if they have a property section, because they won't take your business (you're competing with their main customers).
What are you going to do about For Sale Signs? They are one of the major selling tools used by estate agents.
There was a very successful company doing this insuide the M25. Can't remember the website, but the company was Axle Publishing Ltd. They had the key, which several people here have already alluded to: If you go national, you won't get enough content to attract buyers or more sellers. If you go local, you miss out (at least initially) on the biggest benefit the internet can offer - global penetration.
When I researched this, there were many, many websites doing this (no, you haven't invented anything new). I analysed well over 200 websites, and the average number of properties on each was something like 16. RightMove was one of them (IIRC), and they quickly decided to add listings from estate agents too, and then decided that was a better earner than the private sales thing.
It is about cruitical mass, and I decided I'd need about £50k to generate that mass quickly enough. So I went with a locally-focussed print version in the end (à la Autotrader).
Sold the business after 6 months. :Yay:
ETA: That print version no longer exists...
Edited by Doofus on Wednesday 31st March 13:45
10JH said:
The Ononemap site is really nice and simple. Hadn't seen that before but I will definitely be using it in the future.
I reckon the design of that kind of site is so crucial to its success.
It's been around for a few years, but seemed to be taken offline for about six months last year. Not sure why.I reckon the design of that kind of site is so crucial to its success.
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