The head of challenger portal Agents' Mutual says online estate agents are a bit of a con operating in a parasitic fashion - and they will be banned from AM when it launches next year.
Ian Springett, chief executive of Agents Mutual, is reported in the Daily Telegraph to have said the current online agents are only doing 20 per cent of the job a full-service estate agent does, but not getting the high prices, and therefore what you're paying might not amount to very much.
AM says it has signed up 2,350 offices and is targeting to more than double that figure by the end of 2014. Its contract obliges individual agent brands to use AM for five years, during which time they can list with properties for sale or rent with only one other portal, effectively forcing them to choose between Rightmove and Zoopla.
AM is reported to have £6m of funding and will generate £20m of revenue each year if it reaches its target of 5,000 branches before it launches.
Agents' Mutual is the brainchild of six agencies, Savills, Douglas & Gordon, Knight Frank, Chesterton Humberts, Glentree Estates and Strutt and Parker.
In recent weeks there have been frantic efforts by rival portals to secure the longer-term loyalty of their so-called member agents' including refreshing the appearance of the Rightmove homepage and the ongoing agent offer' to buy Zoopla shares with a 20 per cent discount.
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Comments
Wow, perfect. Fortunately, I found your website!
At least someone is sticking up forums traditional high street agents.
It is now quite clear that Agents Mutual will be the home of traditional high street full service agents and Rightmove for the online brigade.
Can someone tell me what Agnd beyond what the online companies do In my opinion, they do very little and it's their own fault they're under threat.
Springett seems to be doing now excatly what the 'onlines' have been doing for the past six months, using the press to take a swipe - with so many offices signed up I'm not sure he needs to but good luck to him...
Agents Mutual is doing itself no favours by knocking the competition. The more I think about their proposition the more concerned I am with how badly it will play with our customers. The whole thing smacks of protectionism and regression. The expression two wrongs don't make a right comes to mind. At least they appear to have excited some decent offers from the duopoly though.