Online letting agency easyProperty is urging landlords to ask for reduced fees if their agent advertises their home to rent on the new OnTheMarket portal.
If your letting agent is represented by OnTheMarket, this should be of serious concern. Advertising on Rightmove, Zoopla & Primelocation is the single most effective way to get your property to market quickly says a blog on easyProperty's website.
It urges landlords to ask a series of question of their letting agent, including whether the property they own and want to let has been removed from Rightmove or Zoopla, if so why were they - the landlord - not informed beforehand, and why hasn't the massive loss of marketing power been explained to me as a customer
The agency also says landlords should ask whether their fees will be reduced thanks to the reduction in portal costs that you, my agent, will pay as a result of removing either Rightmove or Zoopla.
As an online agent, easyProperty is banned from having its inventory listed on OnTheMarket, which has previously described online agencies as parasites.
Last month easyProperty chief executive Robert Ellice - himself a former high street estate agent - wrote to OTM chief executive Ian Springett, accusing his portal of prioritising profits over consumer choice, of manipulating the market, and of trying to stop the industry from moving with the times.
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Comments
Rightmove have increased their prices every year without fail, none of these increases have been passed to our landlords. If we increased landlord fees each year then they would be as unhappy as the agents are with Rightmove.
As agencies have taken the hit on these increased and not passed them on to their landlords, if they are now benefiting from a reduction in costs they should do so without decreasing landlord fees.
If easyproperty is performing as well their publicity why is their CEO reduced to publicly slagging off his completion....all is not as well in the "easy" camp it appears!!