The head of a prominent regional letting agency has described Agents' Mutual's new portal as being led by a cartel of industry organisations who don't seem to believe in free markets and whose actions will lead to the strengthening of power with Rightmove.
Sally Asling, director of the online-only SurreyLets, says that despite being a member of ARLA, The Property Ombudsman redress scheme and having 100 per cent recommendations on a review website, she has been refused membership of Agents' Mutual, which she nontheless describes as a concept she supports in principle.
The AM portal, to be called OnTheMarket, banned online letting agents, calling them parasites.
Chief executive Ian Springett has also declared that better value online estate agents are not permitted to list their properties on his site. OnTheMarket.com is not helping the consumer here says Asling.
Asling also says that if clusters of agents drop' the same portal - to abide by another Agents' Mutual rule - they may open themselves to a complaint to the Competitions and Markets Authority, the successor body to the Office of Fair Trading, on the grounds of alleged anti-competitiveness. Potentially this rule could be considered as creating a cartel.
Asling has written to ARLA asking why it endorses Agents' Mutual - a product that does not act in the welfare of its online members who pay same rated membership to the organisation which claims to be committed to fully representing its members as a professional body'.
On her website's bloig, Asling concludes: I dislike Agents Mutual' s current business model, although wholeheartedly support the concept. Like most agents I am sick and tired of the portals imposing price hikes over us. .... I can only see the current idea serving to strengthen Rightmove's position as the leading property portal as more agents are likely to ditch Zoopla than Rightmove. .... As more agents become online in the future, [Agents' Mutual] will just be known as the corporate monopoly'.
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Comments
I think, more and more, it will all end in tears. The amount of people coming out against AM/OTM in recent weeks speaks volumes. Maybe they are only interested in playing second fiddle to Rightmove, but I don't think Zoopla will be as easy to shift as supporters of OTM think. I've been very unsure from the start and nothing I've seen recently has led me to believe it will be a success.
What gets me is how AM is so obviously wrong and how much in denial its supporters are, next year we will see how it all pans out but I'm betting it ends in tears and no one learns anything :-)
And in other news bitter uninvited elf asks for ban on Christmas parties
Maybe....AM don't care about RM as much as they have made everyone believe. Perhaps they may just be interested in becoming number 2...