Since I wrote about Houser, the site has launched as promised and as promised it has already caused a fair bit of disruption, albeit not in exactly the way I anticipated!
It seems that a number of agents have taken exception to having their properties listed on Houser without their consent and are very aggrieved at the way in which they have been treated when requesting their removal.
Given that it was me who broke the news that Houser was coming, I suppose it is to be expected that I have been approached to talk to Rocky Mirza and ask him to adopt a more diplomatic, less confrontational approach.
Despite my personal lack of diplomatic skills, I felt this was fair comment so I have spoken to Rocky and I am happy to report that he has agreed to stop asking agents to go through an onerous process to remove their properties and will in future respect the wishes of agents whatever they decide to do without criticism or comment.
By the way, according to Rocky, he has had a total of less than 60 removal requests from agencies so far, not the thousands that have been suggested by some unofficial and mainly anonymous industry commentators.
It's interesting really and reminds me of a passage from Barrack Obama's brilliant book: 'Dreams from my Father'. Obama talks about his days as a community organiser in Chicago and recounts an incident in which he called upon the support of someone whom he thought wielded a lot of influence in a vital section of the community.
The reason he believed this person commanded so much support was because they turned up at every meeting and had more to say on every issue than anyone else. However, when it came to the crunch, far from being the leader of thousands, they didn't have virtually any followers at all. Barrack Obama learned a valuable lesson from this experience, and after that always took care to check the credentials and credibility of those he dealt with, a lesson we can all learn from I feel.
When Rocky first approached me I was impressed with two things, the features/functionality of the site, some of which seemed really good and the way in which he claims he can drive traffic to the site. I am the first one to admit that on launch, the homepage is far from perfect and the basic search needs some work, but nevertheless I still feel the site has potential and a few gremlins are inevitable. That said, I admit I am not qualified to comment on the technical feasibility of his claims.
Time will tell if Rocky has the capability to fix the issues and deliver the traffic, he originally claimed it would take just three months from launch for Houser to become a real force, we shall see. However, notwithstanding the specifics as applied to Houser, I think the most important point is one that has been drowned out by the general portal noise.
The point is that agents' data is a valuable thing in its own right and the 'freemium' model that Houser is championing is a viable way forward and can give long-term free listings to all agents, with added value for those who want to pay. Some people have cited Globrix as a failed example of this business model but in reality did Globrix fail, or was it just bought out and buried
Some food for thought as the Great OTM Juggernaut hits the road this week
Happy New Year
*Simon Shinerock is Chairman of Choices Estate Agents. For more information on Simon, see his LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonshinerock.
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