PropertyLive, the portal set up by NFoPP, is to close.
The announcement was made yesterday and brings to an end an expensive project for the NAEA and ARLA. The cost is thought to be upwards of £2m.
Some members may also be surprised at the timing of the closure. Just one week ago, on January 7, they received an email announcing the relaunch of the site: “It is with great excitement that we announce the brand new PropertyLive brought to you by the NAEA and ARLA.”
The email went on to eulogise the site’s “fantastic new features" including its crisp visual interface, effortless navigation and its search optimisation, all making it “a website for you to be proud of and a valuable resource for your business”.
However, the final relaunch proved another false dawn for a site that seemed doomed from the start four-and-a-bit costly years ago.
PropertyLive launched – or rather rel-launched from an earlier model – in October 2008, but even that was bodged.
Journalists had been specifically invited to go and see the live launch at the Agency Expo show in London, but instead, there was just a demonstration. Glitches meant it did not go live for another week – and as soon as it did, the site went down.
Despite NFoPP members rooting for its success – and despite the City taking news of its launch so seriously that shares in Rightmove briefly went down – PropertyLive never lived up to expectations.
Billed as a free alternative to the paid-for portals, agents complained it gave them few leads, with very low levels of public awareness.
An attempt in 2010 to get agents to pay a suggested £840 per office per year in order to promote the site, was roundly rejected by NFoPP members. At the time, NFoPP had been losing in the region of £1m a year.
Yesterday, in a joint statement by ARLA managing director Ian Potter and new NAEA managing director Mark Hayward, a restructure of staff at Arbon House was announced.
No redundancies are expected with a communications department to be beefed up and given a new head of communications.
The statement said: “Following recent changes to its management framework, the National Federation of Property Professionals – NFoPP – (which includes NAEA, ARLA, ICBA and NAVA) today announced it is embarking on a restructure of its staff. This reflects a change in focus to promote its core brands and advocacy role within the sector.
“As part of the restructure, NFoPP’s property search website, PropertyLive, will be closed by the end of January. This move will enable NFoPP to redirect investment towards those brands and marketing activities that deliver the most benefit to members. Every endeavour will be made to integrate staff into several new roles being created.
“The Federation is exploring opportunities to distinguish properties available to buy or rent from its members on other portals, ensuring its resources are focused instead on driving industry reputation with and for its members.
“A full and open consultation is under way with all staff at Arbon House and the review is expected to be completed over the next few weeks. The overall objective is to better deliver on NFoPP’s strategic priorities.”
Comments
"This move will enable NFoPP to redirect investment "
Shame it wasn't redirected a bit sooner. Possibly up there with Gerald Rattner in terms of business prowess.
What a waste of our membership fees.
What ever happened to the Managing director of NAEA position? Oh, yes. It was granted as a title to one of the 'nobles' in a way not seen since Henry VIII
NFoPP needs new blood, strong leadership and vision or IT WILL DIE.
(this is a statement of opinion - not a threat!!)
I think credit should be given to Ian Potter & Mark Hayward for quickly resolving the main issue with NFoPP that it tried to replace ARLA, NAEA et al thereby confusing the public. Now we can get back to ARLA promoting letting agents, NAEA promoting estate agents & RICS promoting surveyors thereby re-establishing their individual identities.
They have also bitten the bullet and got rid of PropertyLive which, in spite of all the efforts, never managed to establish any sort of impact with the public and was haemorrhaging money.
£2m wasted on a website that never lived upto expectations; methinks someone saw the gravy train pull up and jumped on board. We used it for over a year and had not one response from it.
NFoPP are making the same errors that the big corporates make when they come to a new town; they may be known by 99% of the people within the industry but only by 1% of the general public have heard of them; they may be big players in the industry but Joe Public doesn't know that.
£2m would have been better spent on a public awareness campaign, at least members may have got some benefit out of it.
A real shame.
If there had been just a vestige of marketing expertise at Arbon House in getting the membership on board it could have been a success.
However, farewell to PropertyLive and good luck in the return to concentrating on the core businesses of ARLA and NAEA, they should never have been left to 'wither on the vine' during the last few years
Agree with all posts so far, and would add that in my opinion it never had enough support from agents.
The site was looking good but the best website in the world counts for nothing if it has no visitors.
NFoPP could never hope to compete with the likes of Rightmove et al without an un unbelievebaly large marketing budget.
Disappointed that this didn't get off the ground. As a letting agent the costs of the big portals is a major monthly expense. However, cannot understand the narrow mindedness of some agents who believe that an industry funded portal should be free? Do they think the current portals marketing via the web, on TV and via third-parties is cheap? It's horrendously expensive. Surely the aim should be to design an industry funded portal that is cost effective for agents?
This comes as no surprise to us as members of ARLA that also sell property the short sighted organisation would not allow me to upload properties for sale, only lettings, so I steadfastly refused to upload anything. Not only that, the public had virtually nil awareness of its existence, so poor was the marketing of this portal. This should have been the nail in Rightmoves coffin if it had been promoted by business people instead of happy back slappers!
Sounds to me as though they have made the very modern, common error of confusing the meanings of the words waste and invest.
These two words can not simply be juxtaposed to cover up a 'cock up' if I may use very old English.