Property Owl Blog

Hablib builds another casino

2009-11-02T16:50:00.003Z

Yet another 'sell your own' portal, Hablib, is launching on Friday 6 November and Property Portal Watch interviewed the founder, Anton Kreil, today.

Whilst Hablib has yet to fully launch it was mentioned a while back that the business model was an attempt to marry social networking and property. Someone was always going to give this a go and I love anyone who is prepared to break new ground. That said, I can't help but question how this marriage can work.

How does social networking associate with house purchase? Why, if I am selling/buying a house, will I want to socialise on a network. Notwithstanding I already belong to more networks than I can manage, why I am going to want to network with others during this process? I guess the standard response is to make the sale/purchase easier as I will be communicating with potential sellers/buyers, but do I really want to? Does it make the process easier? I doubt it. If I am selling privately then I will have my hands full dealing with enquiries (hopefully), arranging HIPs, conveyancing etc etc Indeed, even working on the remote basis that I want to network, I am only going to be active for the short time period I was involved with the sale/purchase and therefore of little use for revenue opportunities outside of this window (perhaps).

I do like the principle behind this, but as Anton concedes, they will need stock. Hablib is probably the fifth 'sell your own site' to appear recently and comes some time after Sarah Beeny's Tepilo. Sarah appears to have stepped up her marketing recently and I am seeing many Sarah Beeny articles where she is mentioning Tepilo. One has to wonder whether she has stolen the march in this very small market?

I wrote a while back that the sell your own marketing was growing slowly, but was still a very small percentage of the total market and the more competition within this niche would of course reduce market share. A very tough channel to crack and dominate in my humble opinion.

Anton says that '...The estate agents industry is like a casino...' Now I know a thing or two about casinos and perhaps a better analogy is that all the portals are the casinos. The agents are the croupiers and the punters the gamblers. The more casinos, the less punters there are to go around so you get empty tables, out of work croupiers and portals that sit there doing very little. The old established casinos hold their own, new ones come along with a flash offering, some punters will go and have a look, but soon realise that the casino doesn't have any other players (any atmosphere) and soon runs out of chips so they go back to the old casino. This is a great analogy if our punters are habitual gamblers, but they are not, they are only gamblers once every few years so will go back to the old familiar casino with atmosphere.

Anyway, I am off to put all my money on Black.

Look4aproperty Billions - Renthusiast probes further

2009-10-08T09:00:00.000+01:00

Renthusiast have asked further questions of Look4aproperty and the comments thereafter a worthy of a read.

Look4aproperty keep saying just ask if you want anything so I did. I called the number on the site and the woman who answered didn't really know what I was talking about. I asked if there was an agent in my area providing the loan scheme. She said she hadn't seen the website and was not sure why I was asking her. Following a lengthy explanation from me about the product she said she thought registered agents would be on the website, although she hadn't seen it. I explained they were not and asked who she was working for. She replied LMS, who are the property services group 'facilitating' look4aproperty.

She gave me another number and I spoke to a gentlemen who knew more about the matter and cheerily explained there was not a current list of licenced agents as they were still in the very early stages of the scheme being set up and at the moment no loan schemes were available to the public. He explained that they were still signing agents up to the scheme and would hopefully be ready to offer the product to the public in a couple of months.

Not quite the same picture as being painted by Look4aproperty and is probably why there are no terms and conditions as yet. I would hazard a guess that the product is not yet finalised and/or there is not yet enough new agents to warrant the product release, or ... there is no product?! Either way, there is currently no product to offer joe public.

I have also asked Hitachi to comment and will publish any comments I receive in due course.

HIPS will be History say the Tories

2009-10-07T11:19:00.002+01:00

Grant Shapps announced at the Tory conference yesterday that he would 'consign Home Information Packs to History' if the Tories were to win the next election.

Well, Boris Johnson promised that bendy buses would be replaced and guess what, yep, they are still out there. We all know you can't really believe a word that comes from a politicians mouth, but what if, they are actually telling the truth?! Unbelievable as it sounds, (the truth that is) would this open the way to a new approach in the modernisation of the house purchasing process? Indeed, HIPs in the original form did seek to help this process, but they were watered down and everyone moaned and whined until they were left with the dishcloth of a product that exists today.

I suspect the HIPs providers will be lobbying hard to keep them in some shape or form and we will be lobbying hard to modernise the entire process so perhaps there will be a home for a better product in the future?

By the way, the Tories are 1/4 to win the next election and the bookies don't normally get this wrong, (source William Hill)

Lobbying government for a change in the house buying process

2009-09-22T07:50:00.000+01:00

We need a lobby.

I don't mean a nice Italian marble one for the entrance of my house, no, I mean a professional lobby that will approach the government to change the law on house purchase.

This is the first step towards modernisation of this industry. Who can perform this role? Unfortunately, I don't have a great deal of confidence in the NAEA or any of the other bodies out there.

I believe the industry needs a professional group that is paid to lobby parliament, get a few MPs onside and grease the palms of the people who need greasing.

I, along with others, would be prepared to source and brief this group and perhaps I ought to arrange a research and intelligence gathering stage where I collate views from agents, mortgage companies, solicitors etc etc. So let's start that here. What do you think should change?

By the way, I would also like an Italian marble lobby, but not sure my flat would support the weight.

Look4aproperty £1 billion marketing drive

2009-09-17T11:19:00.004+01:00

You will recall that James Caan and the guys at Look4aproperty made some ambitious claims a while back that they were going to single handed kick start the housing market.

They have now announced a £1 billion marketing offensive. Look4aproperty has tied up a deal with a finance company to provide interest free loans to first time buyers to cover fees and disbursements. Buyers can apparently borrow any amount from £500 and pay it back over 36 months interest free. Sadly, it doesn't include the deposit!

Speaking with the Negotiator, James Caan said '...The market has changed dramatically in terms of the deposit you need today versus what you may have needed a couple of years ago. In that environment, a few thousand pounds today is a material sum. First and second-time buyers don't have that level of liquidity; whatever cash they have, they need for the deposit, so I think this product can make a big difference.'

I like this idea, it has balls on the face of it. But dig deeper and is it all a little vague. Is this just a big £1 billion marketing exercise?

Indeed, if the average number of houses sold per month is currently 35,000 (Land Registry) and average fees were £1,000 then even if look4aproperty was involved on every transaction they would not come close to the £1 billion. So, if you have a billion why not offer deposit loans?! Now this really would have balls!

The devil will be in the detail and the terms and conditions are conspicuous by their absence.

Punters can only access this through agents who are signed up to the scheme. These agents must be signed up to look4aproperty, i.e. paying £200 per month. Agents get a healthy commission of £500 (apparently) per sign up and only two agents per region (no definition) are allowed to participate.

This has all the hallmarks of a clever PR stunt, but I can be persuaded otherwise if the guys at Look4aproperty send me the terms and conditions and fill in some of the blanks.

Real estate was never our cup fo tea

2009-09-16T07:39:00.002+01:00

FOREM says this comment is straight from the founder of dothomes.co.uk which is now up for sale by way of auction.

How many more entrepreneurs with portals feel a bit like this at the moment I wonder? I must admit I have had similar thoughts from time to time. Why? A hundred and one reasons, but fundamentally we are dealing with a very mundane act (a house purchase, house rental) and the market is well served with established players providing a reasonable customer service.

Many new portals have sought to shake up the industry concentrating on the b2b elements (i.e. free for agents to list) and indeed have improved the market and probably the customer experience. But buying a house is still a function the average human being will do only three to four times in their life and won't start until they are on average 31 years of age. Yes, there are millions of us, but the whole process is nothing to get excited about and whichever way you cut it, it has a finite point.

From an entrepreneurs point of view many have immersed themselves within the industry and maybe it just isn't exciting enough to keep their fires burning. That said, the industry is not short of new entrepreneurs who want to give it a go (Zoopla and a host of other new portals), but I suspect a few others may prefer the taste of coffee very soon. For me, I still like tea and will continue to try a few different flavours and this industry won't get rid of me just yet.

The dothomes Auction closes on 1 October 2009, but no information on how to bid, where to go etc etc?

Property Owl Blog is back, long live the blog

2009-09-09T15:17:00.003+01:00

Apologies for the lack of posts, I have been .... well, fed up!

If I am honest, and I usually am, I had grown a little disheartened with certain areas of the property industry (i know, we are in a recession). I saw portals opening daily, more software providers giving away their products for free, more agents doing the same things or less. It felt to me that so many were not listening and missing the point. It was all too much, too crowded, too claustrophobic.

So instead of falling into a well of despair I asked myself, what does this industry need?

Apart from less of everything, I concluded we need an entirely new model! And I don't mean sell it yourself websites, tinkering with new pricing models based on leads, clicks, views, subscriptions, free hosting etc etc and I certainly don't mean more portals. I mean a completely new approach. One that turns the industry on its head. Out with the old and in with the new. It is mid life crisis time!

So where to start?

- The law regarding house sale/purchase needs to change (i.e. the Scottish approach)
- Agents, if they remain, need to be regulated
- The entire industry needs to be rebranded
- Should we go communist and let the government control house sales
- Surely one feed and one portal is enough
- How about every house sale is auctioned on one portal (the land registry)

I think we should discuss this, preferably over a pint or two.

See you all at the Windmill Pub next week.

Drinks bash

2009-09-08T16:08:00.001+01:00

Evening all

Don't forget the Owl and the Pussy Cat drinks bash next week.

Hope to see you all there.

Iphone apps for the UK real estate market

2009-08-05T09:43:00.011+01:00

The rush to get an iphone app into the UK market has now been joined by Rightmove, who yesterday announced their iphone app.

This all follows Nestoria’s first foray and then Globrix. With others sure to follow I thought I would actually take a look at them and see how they compared. In order of launch:

Nestoria – iproperty

Don’t search on your iphone for nestoria, search for iproperty. Nestoria created an api that worked on the iphone and then let the world see what they could create. An excellent idea in principle and as always Nestoria are at the cutting edge of innovation.

Unfortunately, as with many front runners I feel the product needs a little attention. The opening graphics are good, but the search page doesn’t quite resemble anything the user may be familiar with. To be fair, it is not that bad once you get the hang of it, but for some reason my search on Clapham to rent didn’t produce any results. Now I know Clapham is a bit of a dump, but there must be a few places for rent.

The search from my gps location was hard to find, but works well once found and was quick. This function is so, well ... iphonish it needs to stand out more.

The property results page is not particularly attractive, no pictures and it feels as if the property listings are too far apart and not in any particular order. For more information I must click on preview and photo, which is too small and some properties deliver scant information. At first I really didn't like this, but I am getting used to it.

At least I can go directly to the agent’s website quickly and easily and it does feel as if there is no fuss with this application. Being first in innovation is always a challenge and more often than not one needs to revisit and update the product once the rest of the pack have caught up. They have caught up already (see below).

As the only one to charge (£1.79) for the app I fear the uptake will be slow.

App store was showing only 2 reviews, one good, one bad.

Globrix

Globrix is not an app per se, so you have to use it in your browser on the iphone. Not a problem there and no download (not that this is really an issue). What Globrix have done is to update their mobile site to allow iphone users to search from their gps location (a function that is just made for the iphone). It is a clean and easily identifiable button on the home page which takes one directly to property listing page.

The property listings page is well laid out and I know where I am and what I am doing, good usability with good clear buttons make it easy for me to find my way around. Good information and map details give me all the information I really need.

Drilling further into a property I get a nice large picture and more information along with the button that takes me to the agent.

The site works well and whilst it is not an iphone app in the true sense of the phrase, I like the idea of making it work from the mobile website. Indeed, forethought, as one can allow other technology platforms to benefit from the gps search functionality as when it is available. That said, I like having the app button that I just hit once and there it is.

Rightmove

Rightmove is often overlooked for credit in technology and many agents of course enjoy bashing RM at every opportunity, but the truth is that their back end agent technology is actually very good and their iphone app is very nice indeed (ok, their website isn’t great, but the public still use it above all others).

Anyway, with 30 ratings already, the majority of which are positive, I am expecting good things.

From the opening screen, I am impressed. Good graphics, great use of colour and lovely big buttons. I am in familiar ground and left with little doubt what I am to do.

The property listings page is cleanly presented and again I am in familiar territory. Drilling down to a property reveals a lovely feel good screen with a range of menu options providing all the information I need. A wonderful call the agent button reveals, yes, the telephone number in iphone fashion so you can just press the call button, excellent!

Pictures are well presented and I am also shown a moving gallery of property images. Again, very slick. The search filters work well.

It just looks and feels better! It is also free. From the brand point of view, my property searching habits have grown up with RM and this app just cements my feelings further that if I ever do search on the iphone for a property I will probably hit the RM app button.

It is the only one of the three to truly marry up with the iphone and make use of iphone capability and functionality.

Summary

Many agents will still question the large sums they give to Rightmove, but if they continue to develop and innovate in this style I would want to be with them. Before agents poo poo the iphone app as a frivolous foray with their money, one ought to consider for a moment how many of your current clients have iphones. Then consider your future clients.

As an agent I would be working out how to best optimize my pages so my client’s property stands out on the iphone. Heard it before, take good pictures, write real descriptions!!

For the moment, the RM app is staying on my iphone.

Hannells Estate Agent -v- Home.co.uk

2009-07-23T06:04:00.000+01:00

The scraping issues we raised a while ago refuses to go away and now Hannells Estate Agents is allegedly 'poised' to commence proceedings against Home.co.uk so reports estateagenttoday.

There are a growing number of comments appearing on the estateagenttoday forum ranging from support to the usual let's get rid of rightmove type, but it is certainly a matter worthy of debate.

I am not sure I can expand upon my earlier post other than to say this matter should never get to a Court and really ought to have been handled better by Home.co.uk if what was reported as being said by Home.co.uk is true.

Globrix gets a face lift

2009-07-22T09:33:00.002+01:00

Globrix has a new home page and some other new goodies inside.

Constructive criticism is always of use and my humble comments are below.

Moving from a google style search page to what I would call a more traditional based home page requires going back to basics a little. It requires a review of basic usability issues and navigation.

Look at Zillow and Trulia in the States and they both have traditional layouts, with tabs and sub menus together with the larger search box. New boys Zoopla also adopt this style and I believe one needs to adopt one or the other, i.e. google style search no clutter (Nestoria) or search and traditional navigation/usability features.

To this end, I would very respectfully suggest the following:

1. I feel that tabs/menu option ought to have been introduced. It feels as if the information presented is in unfamiliar areas and not following basic usability/navigation principles and will thus confuse the poor old user.

2. I love the 'Know' feature, but why not call it something the user may understand and then join it to the Buy.Sell buttons which are now arguably part of the brand. Does this need a sub menu to ensure the user can find what he or she is searching (comments above apply)? Is this branding more brand than functionality? I have said before the Buy.Sell buttons look nice, but do they work? Why would I click on 'Know'? As a new or infrequent user there is a danger I would see this as just part of the logo/brand.

3. Although I am a bit of a large text fanatic, the text below the search box is way too small on my screen.

Looking inside there are some other goodies.

Property details pages have been updated and provide a host of goodies for the user, namely house sale prices, property sold in the month, trends in that area etc etc. Not all properties have this feature and I am not sure whether it is a paid for addition (i.e. featured listing) or whether it is the agents choice, I suspect the former. Although a paid for service, the details page is better than many agents' websites and therefore a much more attractive option for the user and well worth considering.

One small niggling point is the details page allows other agents to advertise on that page (sponsored agents). The actual agent selling the property is not clear and this will confuse the user.

Now I love the guys and girls at Globrix and I love to see new developments, new functionality and look forward to seeing Globrix.ie, iphone apps and all the other goodies. The above is by no means negative, on the contrary it is positive criticism and those in the know, will know! Ahha, maybe 'Know' is part of an advertising strategy?!

Tepilo - agents listing on the site?

2009-07-21T11:34:00.003+01:00

Further to my earlier mentions about Sarah Beeny's site, Tepilo, I thought I would have a quick look to see how she is getting on.

I was viewing a property in North London and wondered whether this was the work of a bona fide seller or the work of an agent. Well, what do you know, the same property with identical photos was for sale through Foxtons, appearing on their site and Rightmove and no doubt other portals.

This begs the question: are Foxtons feeding property to the site, uploading property under the seller's name, merely advising the seller that they ought to be listed on as many portals as possible and encouraging them to undertake the upload process or is this just the owner's actions? Somehow I doubt the latter point and if Foxtons are uploading under the sellers name, doesn't this fly in the face of the principle behind Tepilo. If true then it surely doesn't bode well for Foxtons, but maybe it is all a ploy and they are only advertising their hooker stock!

If it is the owner thinking they can possible get away with the commission they would be wise to check their Foxtons' terms and conditions.

Zoopla buys thinkproperty.com

2009-07-15T08:03:00.002+01:00

Is Zoopla buying all the portals and/or have they abandoned the PropertyFinder deal?

Zoopla announced that is has purchased thinkproperty.com for an undisclosed sum.

One, two or ten portal purchases, the real management challenge is integrating these portals and creating one dominant brand.

There are of course still too many portals and whilst this will increase traffic for Zoopla agents it leaves Zoopla with the headache of integration. Zoopla's acquisition strategy will have faced these issues and I suspect this is the long term plan to integrate front and back end systems and perhaps feeds, but just how long do Zoopla have to complete the task, will the task be complete only to find the market has changed? It is possible that after a two to three year acquisition and integration process the market will have changed. I have to say however that if the market is going to change then it will be towards the Trulia/Zoopla model and therefore this strategy would appear spot on.

That said, I do wonder whether Zoopla's strategy ought to be more focused on new technology rather than building a portfolio of portals. Perhaps it is as they are certainly not shy to innovate. Whatever the course they are steering they are the ones to watch.

Having a strategy to regularise property feeds would also be a marvellous idea and one that the industry as a whole should work towards, but this is another debate.

Anyway, all the above activity keeps us busy and I still think Zoopla needs to purchase another blog, know of one?!

All eyes on Google

2009-07-06T12:11:00.003+01:00

I wrote a long time ago that the single largest threat for the property portal game was Google entering the space (not exactly ground breaking foresight, but I do like to remind some people!). Anyway, Google Base was around then, but now it is being widely reported that Google Australia has launched '... a new tool on its mapping service that will directly link buyers and renters to available property.

The Google Maps feature, which launched today in Australia and New Zealand, will host free listings supplied by real-estate agents and publishers.

Although many existing publishers and real-estate agents offer map-based searching, the maps on Google's new service will reflect real-time changes in search criteria and location...'

The corresponding blog post from google is of more interest: '...Increasingly, people are heading online when looking for a new house to rent or buy, and from today, we're adding the ability to search for properties on Google Maps. We've worked with partners across the real estate industry to provide up-to-date listings, which you can search for directly from the Google Maps search box.

You can check it out by entering a search like 'real estate crows nest' and clicking through to search real estate listings. A marker will appear on the map for every available listing, using our new search results feature, so you can get a really good idea of the distribution of the properties for sale or rent. This also means you can perform a search and see all the properties for sale close to, for example, a local school you're interested in your kids attending. You can click on each marker and each small circle to get more detailed information about the property, including the listing agent's website and contact details...'

My emphasis on working with partners, but the rest of the blurb sounds like common 'we are a portal' blurb. Video and street view all in their as well so arguably shaping up to become a rather decent tool. The home page has the beginnings of a tasty page as well (below).

One obvious question for agents is, how the hell do I get my properties in at the top?! Well, if you have been loving google for the past years and developing your site accordingly (as I have mentioned on numerous occasions) you should be half way there, but you need to be feeding up to Google Base. How many agents do, I am not sure? Indeed, how many agents have actually recorded their business details and location with google, google maps etc?

There is also the opportunity to advertise on the actual map result page creating more ppc options. If I were an agent I would certainly capitalise on this aspect and ensure that if my properties were not popping up then my ppc/ads were coming up in the right areas.

The end of portals? I doubt it. More like an opportunity for all to integrate with and utilise more of the google service.

Will Google's 'partners' monoplise this service? Discussions have already begun over at JRA.

Scraping - Home.co.uk singled out

2009-07-01T06:41:00.002+01:00

The Negotiator opens discussion on what lawyers will no doubt describe as a grey area.

Home.co.uk is accused by one agent as mis-marketing that agent's property details. These details have been acquired through the process of scraping or to give it the politicians title 'indexing'.

The argument goes something along the lines of: if, as an agent, your properties are scraped daily then there ought to be little to complain about, it is free marketing after all. But, if your properties are infrequently scraped, poorly scraped and thus displaying incorrect data there is a problem.

The USA has seen its share of these issues with some of the heavyweight real estate portals/search engines scraping/indexing properties. It has led one of the Multiple Listing Services (MLS) to issue some guidance on the issue.

Put simply, the MLS defines the practices of what it calls 'benign' scraping and 'malicious' scraping. '...benign if they provide intended benefits to the consumer and the buyers and sellers whom the REALTOR® serves, and are not in conflict with the MLS Policy. They are deemed malicious if they utilize the listing data in a manner foreign to the original intent of the REALTOR® and the property owner, and are incompatible with the MLS Policy. The practice of “scraping” or “indexing” by search engines for the purpose of displaying or indexing the data for consumer property search, and which ultimately direct the consumer back to its source, is benign, and is in sync with the REALTOR’S® intention when displaying listings on the Internet. When a third party, e.g. a search engine, through “scraping” or “indexing” misappropriates and uses the listing data for purposes not intended by the property owner or REALTOR® , these practices become malicious and should be prohibited...'

Quite obviously you cannot cannot level the charge of malicious scraping against Home.co.uk as it refers the user back to the original source, i.e. the agent and the killer line here is what was '...the original intent of the Realtor ... when displaying listings on the Internet...'.

So really we need to add another category of negligent scraping. Indeed, if search engines/portals are scraping then surely they have a duty to ensure that information is accurate and updated frequently, I would say at the very least daily. It is no defence to fall back on the free marketing argument if the information being displayed is incorrect.

In a nutshell, there is no legal grey area, it is black and white really - it is basic copyright infringement. But with so many adopting this practice it has become acceptable (and indeed profitable) when search engines/portals get it right.

If agents still do not want any intrusion from search engines (and you have to agree that you would be mad not to) they can very simply insert a line of code to go into their website to prevent any search engine indexing/scraping their site. Pointless moaning about it, if you don't like it, turn it off!

Zoopla is the mystery bidder for PropertyFinder

2009-06-30T23:16:00.003+01:00

You could have had odds of 4/1 as second favourite Zoopla is reported as being the mystery bidder in the quest for PropertyFinder.

If the deals go ahead, pundits are already saying it is a good deal for all parties, but does this mean a change in direction for Zoopla?

Yes, PropertyFinder is a good brand and makes a good acquisition, but surely Zoopla want to continue to build the Zoopla brand. As we mentioned a while back, despite having pot fulls of cash, Globrix has shown how difficult it is to get your 'brand' established in this market. So why not try and bypass the years of brand building and jump the que? Excellent idea, but then what do you do now you have two brands, one well established and the other still at the beginning? Running them alongside one another has proven problematic.

Playing devil's advocate, why not just ditch the 'Zoopla' brand and integrate the Zoopla business model into PropertyFinder?! The alternatives are less attractive from a brand point of view.

Of course, Zoopla may see this as the first as many acquisitions, but then they become no different to News International, the REA Group et al and we are back to square one.

Due diligence is no doubt still underway, but as the lawyers and accountants argue over why so many paperclips were purchased, what will happen to the staff, the management, the business? Watch this space.

I haven't been invited to join the new board yet, but I guess they are waiting until the deal is sealed to announce such a high profile appointment.

PropertyFinder and a mystery bidder

2009-06-26T13:16:00.002+01:00

Property Portal Watch breaks the news that the management of PropertyFinder have failed in their bid to take over the company.

But not all is lost (just yet). The post announces there were three bids and now the group have entered into due diligence and exclusivity with one of them. For those of you unfamiliar with company purchases, due diligence and the like, the highest bidder (99 times out of 100) will conduct due diligence, which is effectively a detailed examination of the business, its books etc. At the end of an agreed period and some further bartering a deal is either concluded or not. It is time consuming and tedious, I know, I have done it.

Anyway, the more interesting question remains, who is the mystery bidder and what will they do with it if successful, strip the assets, keep it, other?

There are a few likely candidates and to make it a little more interesting, how about we run a book as follows:

DMGT - 2/1
Trinity Mirror - 5/1
GMG - 8/1
Zoopla - 4/1
Rightmove - 4/1
The Owl - 100/1

Good luck

The greatest form of flattery

2009-06-23T17:16:00.002+01:00

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" so the quote goes.

A new network for estate agents ageants recently popped up on the radar and has been advertising in the industry press. Naturally, I thought I ought to have a look, especially as it is built on the same platform as Juicy Red Apple and has a similar set up.

I duly signed up and to my amazement, I was banned within minutes!!

From memory, my initial bio and first page congratulated them on their site and made a point that it was good to see others entering this space. No issue there I think. I did link to JRA, but where is the harm in this? The next moment, I am banned without notice, like a common spammer!

Despite my emails asking for an explanation I have not received any communication whatsoever. Perhaps they will care to comment on this blog. Afterall, I am still big enough to link to them!

Tepilo - Sarah Beeny chat

2009-06-18T09:29:00.002+01:00

Sarah Beeny believes buying and selling a house ought to be easier and a task one can do on their own. Having spoken with her about her new project, Tepilo, I would tend to agree with her.

Sarah was speaking to me from her office 'shed' the other day. We were discussing the rights and wrongs of the world of real estate and she hit on a few key words that readers to this blog will be familiar with, namely 'simplicity' and 'its not rocket science'.

Sarah makes the point that as an individual, one is happy to hand over what is probably at least a month's wages to a complete stranger to perform a task that you are not certain they can perform. She goes on to say the buying selling process is not rocket science (more synergy) so why not do it yourself. Tepilo is thus a step by step guide and medium to help you sell your house. Sarah says the site is all about simplicity and providing the user with a straightforward simplistic system to sell your own home.

The site looks good on the face of it, but before it launched I asked Sarah how she was planning to generate revenue from it? The 'free' commission word popped up and I challenged her on the viability to maintain staff, overheads, marketing with no revenue. Indeed, there is no advertising on the site either. So where does the money come from I asked? Does she have very deep pockets? There are others involved I understand, but Sarah explained that this was a long term project and not a quick money making scheme. I appreciate that, but I still can't see how it can function without revenue.

Agents will no doubt cry that you need them to deal with the lawyers, arrange viewings and moreover what about the valuation?! Well as Sarah says, it is not rocket science and punters now have sites like Zoopla to help them. Valuing your house is actually very straightforward. The Zoopla functionality needs to find its way onto Tepilo. Indeed, the American model upon which Zoopla is based is now synonymous with valuation and realtors will actually publish the valuation from the website by way of benchmark. As for legal advice and the like, this is all catered for within Tepilo and you can of course use your own. Again, it is not rocket science.

The site looks good, but I would want to see more, step by step web 2.0 style screens, more colour, pictures and examples of how I should do it, larger font size. Video uploads and a video to show me how to do it, a blog, podcasts and all the other goodies. I am sure these are coming in due course.

Private selling is still a very young and small market, but the more Sarah Beenys that come along the better. Agents who poo poo this market, continue to ignore the Internet and continue along the path thus travelled will come undone when entrepreneurs like Sarah find the magic formula for property selling in this country.

I must say I like Sarah and she strikes me as a good person, personable, passionate about the consumer and all round champion of the people. I wish her venture the very best. I will do a follow up interview when Tepilo has been running for a little while.

Asda Pods and Property Portal shuts down

2009-06-15T16:11:00.004+01:00

Property Portal Watch posts that Homesinstore, Asda's online property venture is shutting down.

You may recall I offered readers a bottle of champagne back in July and August of last year if they could find an in store Asda pod and send me a picture (Asda's offline marketing to support the online venture). Well, I never saw a Pod and truthfully, I don't believe they ever existed. Along with claims made by Asda of 4 million visitors per month it was all hot air.

I have met those who were taken in by Asda as they were 'a large supermarket'. Monitoring their site over the months soon led one to realise that they were struggling for content. Why? A number of reasons, but surely this is evidence of the simple fact there are too many portals.

Maybe Asda can find a real estate agent prepared to buy a redundant system. They are out there, just think Spicer Haart and Tesco!

Parklet.co.uk

2009-06-08T06:04:00.000+01:00

What a great idea.

Parklet.co.uk is a portal for parking spaces and garages to rent. Great for commuters looking for a safe place to park and as the founder of parklet points out in an interview with property portal watch it has added security for the the home owner who has let out his drive during the day as it provides the impression someone maybe in.

With an average annual revenue between £1,000 and £1,800 to be made it is worth considering.

PropertyFinder to close - management buyout being considered

2009-06-02T06:04:00.000+01:00

All eyes on PropertyFinder.

REA Group, owners of PropertyFinder are apparently courting the idea of closing PropertyFinder.

On the back of this news, there are various reports which suggest a management buyout is being considered.

So what will happen? If a management buyout goes ahead we could see the first major portal to switch from a subscription based model to a performance based model. Indeed, why Zoopla have not snapped up PropertyFinder just to eradicate them from the picture is a little puzzling.

I see this as a huge opportunity for a new team at PropertyFinder and I hope they manage to get it together for the deadline, which appears to be the end of June. Bang goes their summer holiday!!

By the way, I would like to point out that rumours regarding the Property Owl Blog being sold for two million are exaggerated.

National Association of Estate Agents and commission payments

2009-06-01T06:04:00.000+01:00

I came across a great post from Housing Dabble which I can't do justice by paraphrasing, so here it is in full for discussion:

'...Last week there was some controversy surrounding the ‘shock revelation’ that agents are profiting from their delivery of Home Information Packs to their clients. One of the groups lining up to condemn the practice was the NAEA who warned that their members could be fined or even expelled for taking undisclosed commissions.

The NAEA told Channel 4 News: “We can take somebody in front of a disciplinary panel. If they’re found guilty then we fine them up to £1,000 per breach. If it’s very serious we chuck them out.”

According to the rule book – Rule 11 states: “Duty not to accept secret commissions: Neither a firm, nor any principal, director or employee of the firm shall accept from any person in connection with the affairs of a client of the firm any commission, discount, rebate, or other profit unless the details thereof have first been disclosed to the client.”

There has been much debate over whether adding commissions to additional services is good practice, the reality being that many Estate Agents wouldn’t have survived the last eighteen months were it not for additional income generated from the services provided such as HIPs, Conveyancing, Financial Services. Why shouldn’t they generate income in this way?

The matter that stood out to me however is my memory of the NAEA writing to HIP providers prior to launch in their search for HIP partners to recommend to their members. This process led to the production of an approved partner list and LMS topped the list as THE preferred Partner.

An excerpt from the questionnaire is as follows:-

6. Benefits to NAEA and its members

What can you company do to provide a price benefit to NAEA members and at what level?

Is your company prepared to offer a commission to the NAEA and if so at what level?

Is your company prepared to offer white labelling of the HIP with the NAEA logo. What format would this be in and how would you envisage this operating?

I draw your attention to the second question where HIP companies were teased on the issue of offering the NAEA a commission for their involvement in recommending the NAEA to their members. Hold on a minute…

How they could begin to think that it was a good idea for a professional body to earn from making recommendations to their members about using certain HIP providers, particularly if that criteria had influenced their decision on who those providers were to be and bearing in mind that it would breach the code of conduct they insist their members follow.

It all seems to me that the NAEA have showed again why they are not respected amongst a large proportion of Estate Agents. Despite the hopes that the NAEA could help improve the reputation of the Estate Agency industry if they would drop the old boys’ network approach, they seem to continually fail to effectively represent their membership or to have any understanding of how they can lead the property industry in to better times...'

Anyway, I am off to meet a HIP provider in the services to collect a large brown paper bag stuffed full of cash.

iammoving.com - moving house

2009-05-28T06:04:00.000+01:00

I have always loved the idea of the iammoving.com type site, but never had an opportunity to use it so when a friend asked whether I could help in this department I jumped at the chance.

The site proclaims to allow one to '...inform over 1500 organisations that you are moving home online for free with [their] change of address service...' It lends one to believe that you simply enter your details click on the provider and they do it all for you.

What a great idea! I drew up a list with my friend and then began to enter the details into iammoving. As she is moving to a new property we first had to overcome the hurdle of the address not being updated within the website. One email later we were reassured by the team at iammoving that we should just put the postcode in and it would be fine!

Ok, moving on through the process the first two on our list went without a hitch, we just clicked on Boots and a message said just click send, we did, another message saying all done, absolutely brilliant!

Then reality dawned. The first official site, Council Tax, the message said 'download, print and send'. Oh great, now I have to print off a form and post it!! This happened for 50% of organisations.

Whilst disappointed, we were happy that at least we had achieved around a 50% success rate. That said, the following day she received a number of emails confirming details sent and also a few asking for more details, confirmation by way of a form etc etc.

What should have been a simple task has now been complicated by a middle man she is stuck with. Sadly, the telephone would have been far quicker!!

All I can say is what a shame and also bad marks for misleading people.

Moving is stressful enough!

Tepilo - Sarah Beeny new project

2009-05-26T17:29:00.004+01:00

'Tepilo is a brand new service, created by Sarah Beeny, that will change the way you think about buying and selling your home' or so they say!

It is all cloak and dagger and strictly need to know at the moment and the Owl doesn't need to know apparently. Anyway, I love the fact Sarah is onto another project and you will know I am a strong advocate of online entrepreneurialship. Let's just hope it is easier on the mind than the last project, Completing Chains. I wish them luck when they finally reveal the secret.

Taken from a JRA post, Hablib is also another site with a holding page that claims to change the world, well at least change the property market. Heard it all before, but this project is headed by Anton Kreil from the TV series Million Dollar Traders. Anton's blog goes on to say that this will be a site for private sellers with an element of social networking, which sounds like a great idea in principle. Indeed, they are looking for volunteers to test and are paying individuals £25 so have a look at his blog.

The holding page states'Hablib is a free residential property platform empowering users to take control of their own destiny when profiling, selling or buying their home.' Now there lies an immediate problem, the word 'free'. How are they going to make money?! Advertising alone for a newbie in the over populated world of online property sites will not even pay for their hosting. Whilst the social networking element is a nice twist, the private seller market is too small to target to a niche within that market.

Why do we all think we can 'change the face of the industry, change the world, revolutionise' etc? Do users/the industry really want/need this? No. Users need simplicity - one site that does everything very simply. I fear we are muddying the waters in the UK online property game and hopefully someone will come along and just 'revolutionise the world...' oh God here we go again!

Help Sarah - where are you???

PS. I have just read Housingdabble new posts (as the above was sparked from their post on JRA and they share my views in my penultimate paragraph above, which I wrote before reading his blog. Just wanted to point out that great minds think alike and I was not copying his thoughts!!)