June 16, 2009 by spfchris
Been sent this by Zoopla! today…
Whilst it is always unfortunate for those involved when a business faces potential closure, the recent news about Propertyfinder cannot be described as a surprise. Property marketing online in the UK is changing rapidly. Over recent months pay-per-lead sites like Zoopla.co.uk have started to gain significant market share from the traditional, subscription-based portals, as agents have sought to use more clever, targeted and cost-effective advertising methods. This can only impact on the first-generation of subs-based property portals; those of them that choose to change their models and align themselves fully with agent needs can survive but those who do not or cannot face a very challenging future.
Zoopla claim to be the UK’s fastest-growing and 5th most-visited property website with over 1 million visits per month. They don’t charge subscription fees and instead charge agents a flat rate of £1 per buyer/renter lead (and an optional £5 per vendor/landlord lead). This they say is around 20% of the cost per lead that you pay with existing major property portals.
Research of our agents
Prompted by this we were recently sent by Zoopla!….
“Whilst it is always unfortunate for those involved when a business faces potential closure, the recent news about Propertyfinder cannot be described as a surprise. Property marketing online in the UK is changing rapidly. Over recent months pay-per-lead sites like Zoopla.co.uk have started to gain significant market share from the traditional, subscription-based portals, as agents have sought to use more clever, targeted and cost-effective advertising methods. This can only impact on the first-generation of subs-based property portals; those of them that choose to change their models and align themselves fully with agent needs can survive but those who do not or cannot face a very challenging future.”
Zoopla claim to be the UK’s fastest-growing and 5th most-visited property website with over 1 million visits per month. They don’t charge subscription fees and instead charge agents a flat rate of £1 per buyer/renter lead (and an optional £5 per vendor/landlord lead). This they say is around 20% of the cost per lead that you pay with existing major property portals.
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Posted in Property News | 1 Comment »
and the winner is… Christoph Jaeger from Hamburg, Germany, Age 36.
the £25 estate
The property is valued at £1million. 46,000 tickets were sold at £25 each raising £1,150,000. From this £40,000 stamp duty, solicitor’s costs and marketing costs will be deducted leaving the couple with the £1m value of their house, without the need for an estate agent!
Posted in Property News | 1 Comment »
UPDATE…. We blogged on this last year, it was one of the first attempts to raffle a house that then came up against problems with the Gambling Commission and the dreams of Brian and Wendy Wilshaw were shelved for several months but…. it would now appear the issues are resolved and the draw has taken place!
… someone has won a 1m 5 bedroom house and estate! According to their website the draw took place on May 19th and the lucky winner will be notified soon…www.winadevonpropertywithfishing.co.uk
A huge and wonderful shock coming somebody’s way soon (not me, I didn’t enter!), nice one!
The story of the draw being postponed was previously published by the BBC in October 2008.
I am sure this will restore a lot of faith in this method of selling and achieving top price but I cant see it catching on and causing concern to our agents!
Posted in Property News | Tagged gambling commission, house lottery | 4 Comments »
May 19, 2009 by spffinancial
As I discussed back in December last year when rates were slashed to 2%, the Bank of England needed to keep something healthy up its sleeve if all these rate cuts did not do sufficient to help our ecenomy.
Well, what has happened since then (as it’s been a while since you have seen any input to this blog from SPF Financial)? Well, we had rates go closer to zero at the turn of the year, with some stability at 0.5% from March, where it has remained since. We have heard of £75bn being promised to be injected into the economy which is to help free up lenders coffers and get them lending again. Given this is expected to have been used up by June, now we have been promised another £50bn!
So there are the facts, what are you views on how this is helping? I speak to lots of property professionals, and mortgage lenders alike who are very positive that we could be seeing our housing market take a few months ‘trundling along the bottom’, with activity and confidence in the market starting to increase.
I have certainly seen a huge increase in activity since the start of the year, with First Time Buyers and Home Movers in the belief that now is an excellent time to move house/buy on up the ladder. Lets see how this additional £50bn injection helps lenders, and get some competition back into financial services to help bring loan and mortgage rates down even further.
Posted in Banking | Tagged spf financial, stimulate economy | Leave a Comment »
Forest Edge Property Network (In association with Property & Land Exchange)
DATE: Thursday 14th May 2009 and then every 2nd Thursday of the month thereafter
TIME: 7:00pm onwards
VENUE: Totton Masonic Hall
ADDRESS: Lexby Road, Totton, Southampton, Hampshire, SO40 9HD (On site car parking)
Invite to all property professionals to join a new networking experience in Totton (Eling) on a monthly basis.
Come and have a chat with other likeminded investors, landlords, Mortgage IFA’s, Estate & Letting Agents, Overseas Property Professionals, Land Agents, Tax Specialists and many more!
Please confirm you will be attending by telephone or email:
forestedgepropertynetwork@gmail.com
023 8066 1166
Matthew Holland
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Posted in Property News | Tagged Network | 1 Comment »
I have just read an article on the times website.
http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/article6223112.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1
Having just written about positive signs in the sales market, I do hope that moves like this by the Government don’t slow the steady progress within the property lettings sector.
Whilst this green paper appears to be a good idea and will cause concern to a very small number of landlords, it is the vast majority of good landlords that will have another hurdle to overcome.
Another situation of a minority causing problems for the majority.
The same situation is happening for the letting agents who are all having to join or re-join various governing bodies to protect tenants deposits. Again this is a good idea and needs to be done but it has been brought about by the unprofessional acts of a few companies.
Just a thought……. Home Information Packs? How have they worked for the home buying and selling process???
Hope to have a comment or two on that one!
Posted in Property News | Tagged Landlords, Letting agents, Times online | 1 Comment »
Having spoken to numerous estate agents over the last few week there seem a consensus of opinion that we are now at the bottom of the market.
How long we stay here is the unknown, lenders are starting to introduce some better products/rates and the buyers are returning to the high streets in search of a new home or investment.
Most property websites and blogs are reporting a similar situation and the Nationwide has said that their statistics fall in line with the easing of the fall.
Let’s hope that more positivity will be seen throughout our region, and life as an estate agent will become a little easier day by day, here’s hoping.
Posted in Property News | Tagged House Prices, Nationwide | Leave a Comment »
April 29, 2009 by spfchris
We’ve been ‘off the radar’ for a while but are now back… refreshed and still as enthusiastic as ever, despite all the doom and gloom attached to all things property! We have been very productive behind the scenes and lots of new and exciting things will be happening with Southern Property Finder in the coming months to the benefit of our agents.
So… on the subject of “Green Shoots” – heres five recent snippets:
This graph from wheresmyproperty.com bottoms out and starts to upturn at the end (which we like!)…
“Don’t be fooled by talk of green shoots – prices have further to fall if the market is to reconnect with first time buyers” Richard Donnell, Head of Research, Hometrack - read full article (pdf)
Nationwide - House prices show slight increase in March lots of comments on this story on the Guardian – interesting read
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Posted in Property News | 1 Comment »
February 18, 2009 by spfsales
One of southern property finders valued clients has launched a green marketing campaign.
The Flat Agency in Southampton is giving away a mountain bike a month to a customer who has taken a property through them that month.
January’s winner Paul Lacey said
“I am delighted to have won the bike, I will use it regularly to get to work in central Southampton”
He was delighted with the service he recieved from TFA and the bike is the icing on the cake!
Happy riding to him and well done TFA on a green marketing initiative.
Posted in Property News | Tagged The Flat Agency | 2 Comments »
January 21, 2009 by spfsales
I recently had a long discussion /debate with a highly regarded estate agent Mr Adam Sparks of SparksEllison in Chandlers Ford, Hampshire.
We discussed in depth the domination of Rightmove and his opinion that an agent just needed said portal and a good website of their own.
He was very open and shared his RM stats with me along with his own website.
On first viewing he was impressed by the amount of times his property had appeared in search results, my opinion was to see how many of those people actually opened and viewed more details on one of his properties.
Of the 106k people whose search results he had been included in, had produced 55 requests for further information or a viewing, meaning that he gets one enquiry for every 2000 search results he appears!
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Posted in Property News | Tagged Adam Sparks, Chandlers Ford, Google, Rightmove, Sparks Ellison | 6 Comments »
![Mar. [Explore]](http://static.flickr.com/4083/4950621171_7bcd1ab457_t.jpg "Mar. [Explore]")
