Agents' Mutual: The Next Big Property Portal?
Agents’ Mutual plans to launch a brand new online property portal called onthemarket.com at the beginning of next year.
The new portal aims to:
Open exclusively to office-based estate and lettings agents- Give each firm an equal voting right
- Become as large and recognised as Rightmove and Zoopla
- Launch in January 2015
In addition, it has £7.3 million in development funds and £10 million annual listing fees already contracted to its service. It is also endorsed by both NAEA and ARLA.
The new portal will offer 3 types of membership:
Gold
This involves a 5 year listing fixed at a very low level compared to Rightmove and Zoopla. The package is designed to fund the overall development of the portal through:
- A loan note subscription of £2,000 per each of your offices (£1,000 for lettings-only offices) which is to be repaid within 6 years or earlier if you choose. The loan notes also pay interest at 7% per annum.
- An upfront subscription cost of £600 which is non-refundable. This will go towards running costs during the portal’s development. If you opt for the gold package, you will also receive a 15% discount on the listings rate.
Silver
The silver membership doesn’t require any binding commitment, which is its main benefit. All Agents’ Mutual asks is that you confirm, with a letter of intent, you’ll be willing to enter into a contract when support for the portal reaches 4,000 offices.
Bronze
Full details of the bronze member ship will be released closer to the portal’s launch, however it will not require a long term commitment but listing fees on this package will be slightly higher.
Will The Portal Succeed?
The new portal idea has received some criticism from industry commentators. Simon Baker, the head of Property Portal Watch, states that Agents’ Mutual needs to offer agents something that Rightmove and Zoopla do not. He believes the portal needs to differentiate itself and make its main benefit inescapably clear and worthwhile if it is to gain any form of traction. Baker also claims that it is ‘up to agents to experiment with their advertising and marketing’ to find out which portal will gain the most leads and sales for the same price.
That’s where the portal will struggle – it is untested and isn’t guaranteed to bring you the same amount of leads and sales as Rightmove and Zoopla. They both have the advantage of brand power, as people searching for property online will invariably use them as they are so well known.
As part of its core sign-up requirements, Agents’ Mutual will only allow its members to feed into one of the major property portals. So agents loyal to Rightmove and Zoopla will be reluctant to drop a portal they’re so accustomed to using.
However, if support continues to grow from now until January, there’s no reason why onthemarket.com could become a portal to be reckoned with.
