April 2008
Slowdown signs as activity still grows
THE first portal review of the year has usually given
some indication of the likely activity in the property market for the forthcoming
12 months.
For the last five years, the traffic in January has shown quite a considerable
year-on-year rise but in 2008 there were indications of a slowdown in the market
and particularly in the number of leads passed from the major portals through
to agents.
Nevertheless, the activity on the Internet is still growing and market leader
Rightmove shows no signs of wilting and is in as strong a position as ever.
On a year-on-year basis, property numbers have increased by some 20 per cent
but the majority of this growth took place in the first eight months of last
year and the final four months saw only limited growth.
Findaproperty was the exception in that their homes for sale grew by some 20
per cent or more, whereas all the other portals showed smaller numbers. The reductions
at Fish4 and Prime Location were in the order of 15 and 20 per cent respectively.
Rightmove continues to dominate, with over 1,000,000 properties with Findaproperty
now in a clear second at 450,000 UK properties — ahead of Fish4 — and
Prime Location and Property Finder slugging it out with some 280,000 UK properties.
The big mover over the last year has been Thinkproperty, whose property numbers
have climbed to just over 300,000.
They also claim some 300,000 overseas properties but in fact, the vast majority
of those are due to a portal tie-up in France and the overall selection of overseas
properties is actually limited.
The number of agent offices uploading to each of the portals continues to increase
(with the exception of Fish4).
Findaproperty dominate the trend with a 50 per cent increase in the year — testament
to their strategy of expanding geographically to selected areas, particularly
in the North of England.
The growth continued in the last third of last year with a 1,300 increase as
compared with the increase of 300 or so by Prime Location, Rightmove and Thinkproperty.
In fact, the Prime Location figure is somewhat misleading as they have actually
lost 250 firms in the latest period but have taken on a couple of larger agents
who make up the agent office figures.
Site traffic figures continue to increase. Unique visitors continue to climb
and Findaproperty have moved into a clear second on the figures provided. Rightmove
do not feel able to supply their figures any more and so to get an idea of relative
positions of unique users I look at the data from activity compilers Comscore.
That continues to show Rightmove in a clear lead with about double the nearest
sites but on Comscore it is Propertyfinder who are in second place with Findaproperty
closely behind, then Prime Location and Thinkproperty a more distant fifth with
about one fifth of the traffic of Rightmove.
Enquiry levels to agents have fluctuated despite the increasing use of the sites.
Year-on-year e-mail enquiries have gone down for Findaproperty, Rightmove and
Prime Location, but Prime Location has shown an increase in telephone enquiries
since the last survey — the only major portal to do so.
The cost to the agent of portal services have remained steady with no further
increases at the beginning of the year.
Prime Location and Rightmove charge the highest subscriptions with Findaproperty
and Property Finder in the middle ground and Thinkproperty and Hotproperty at
the lower end of the scale.
The table on Page 20 shows a comparison of the cost per response for each based
on an assumption of the cost to the agent. It is shown only as a guide as I would
urge agents to do the calculation for themselves based on the actual number of
leads and enquiries the agent receives. Also, you can value the leads as you
wish. I have had agents who say that a click through to a website is hardly an
effective lead, whereas others value the web traffic.
You too have to make the judgement on the value of the response. An £8
response from Prime Location that results in an instruction on a million pound
plus property may be extremely good value!
Fish4 have been out on a limb for some time now on their pay-per-response model
but it does seem as if this may well be the way of the future and the newcomers
into the market are certainly proposing alternatives to the subscription charges
of the established portals.
• Bob North is a business consultant and
a member of estate agency specialists GCG Consulting. He specialises in applied
technology, including website functionality and the introduction of IT systems
and applications.
Contact him by e-mail bobn@gcgconsulting.co.uk
or by phone on 07831 576073.
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