August 2007

Massive traffic but major price rises

IT IS Portal Comparison Survey time again and I am pleased to be able to welcome back Propertyfinder.com, while I have also included this time some figures from the relative newcomer ThinkProperty.com and Hotproperty.co.uk, the website and property magazine group. Look4aproperty declined to provide figures.

The growth in property numbers on the major portals has continued apace as Rightmove have recently topped the million UK properties mark on their site, as reflected by the figures in the table here, based on the latest statistics available.

Numbers on the other major sites have also grown significantly.

In comparison with the same position last year, the biggest increase in property numbers is by Primelocation who have increased their UK property stock by some 88 per cent with 137,000 more properties, a 64 per cent increase from Findaproperty.com (+124,000 properties), 25 per cent from Rightmove (but the largest numerical growth at +193,000) and 26 per cent by Propertyfinder with 62,000 more properties.

Fish4 also reported a growth — 30 per cent and 113,000 more properties. However, looking at the latest figures available from their site it appears that they have lost more than this increase recently as homes for sale are down some 59,000 and letting properties some 64,000.

Some of this may be due to the market but undoubtedly some is fallout from the Tesco Property website issue that has arisen in recent weeks. More of that later!

As far as visitor traffic is concerned, there are several ways of looking at it. I accept that some individual figures can depend on the way in which the site is built and configured.

Page impressions can give an idea of users but one site may hold all the information on one page that another site might serve on four pages.

Findaproperty.com have redesigned their site and they now serve information in a lesser number of pages, hence the decrease in page impressions year on year.

Time on site may reflect the interest of the site but it may also mean that the ways off the site are limited and certainly Rightmove keeps you on the site for more information whereas a site like Propertyfinder allows — indeed provides a link — to click through to the agent’s site.

Unique users are regarded as one of the major measures of a site’s success. Unfortunately Rightmove no longer provide a unique user figure but in May last year they were reporting some six million unique users in the month.

Findaproperty.com have climbed to 2.7 million with Primelocation at some 2.1 million and Propertyfinder at 1.9 million.

There is a definite link between unique users and visitor sessions and if one works back from the visitor sessions using ratios from previous years, Rightmove would seem to be running at between seven and eight million unique users.

That is quite remarkable but maybe we should expect this sort of traffic from one of the most visited sites in the UK.

What agents really need to know is what they get for their money — and how that compares with their off-line newspaper and magazine advertising.

I have estimated a typical cost per office per month and then calculated the total responses from the figures supplied for telephone calls, clicks through to agent sites and e-mails.

Fish4 charges on a per click/e-mail basis and so the cost there is a maximum of £1 per click with the majority of leads coming in at 30p — not dissimilar to the Google click-though rate.

With the subscription-based portals, the cost is in all cases in excess of £1 per lead — going to as high as £3.45 with Primelocation and £3.33 with Rightmove.

I must stress that these are indicative figures only and agents should work your own costs out from your own figures.

While we are talking of costs, the sharp-eyed among you will have noticed two significant increases that have come through this month.

Primelocation have increased their rates so that the Inner London agents are now paying £555 per office per month, an increase of some £75 per office per month. There has been no increase for provincial offices, which are charged at £300.

Rightmove on the other hand are costing considerably more for new joiners than this time last year.

It was then £300/£250 for sales and joint lettings offices and £100 for lettings and it is now £475/£400/£150 for new joiners. That is 50 per cent plus increases in one year!

The increase will not be the same for existing members but Rightmove are not prepared to release that information until they have consulted members.

It does seem that the market is polarising into two sections — sites, such as Rightmove and Primelocation, that charge what they consider to be a realistic figure still giving good value for money, and those that charge lower rates and are competing on price as well as service and value.

Propertyfinder offers a range of add-on products such as guaranteed top spot and enhanced logo projection that can be paid for on an ad hoc basis.

They are also proposing to introduce a new business-generating subscription level that allows agents to automatically feature all of their properties with each standing out from the crowd — hopefully with more detailed property views and subsequent leads increase. This is coupled with a guaranteed price freeze for new joiners until 2009.

Rightmove too have been introducing their Choice product. That starts as low as £50 per month but is not produced on a rate card.

That is because some prices vary dependent on how many properties an agency has.

Rightmove prefer to sit down with agents and look at their overall marketing spend including newspapers, and see how they might want to change the balance more towards internet.

Miles Shipside, Rightmove’s commercial director, said: “The whole aim of Choice is to look to give agents options to spend their existing marketing budget where more and more home movers are looking — the internet and Rightmove.

“This is part of the transition between traditional media and on-line, and having the ability to differentiate your company and property on line, similar but more flexibly and targeted than you have been able to in the newspaper, and at much lower cost.”

Ian Springett, managing director of Primelocation is also a keen advocate of looking at total advertising spend.

He said: “Our ability to raise price, with almost no loss of customers, reflects customers’ growing appreciation of Primelocation’s value to them.

“The increase allows us to reinvest in marketing, which both drives more applicant leads and builds awareness of Primelocation among vendors — something agents tell us is important to them.

“It also allows investment in the website and supporting services —again important to our customers.

“Above all, Primelocation focuses on delivering high quality leads. In central London, where our monthly charge is now £575, property values have increased enormously over the past year so that the average property value is now some £1.2 million.

“The market is hot. Agents do not have time to waste on large volumes of poor quality, vague enquiries. They want focused, qualified applicants.

“By matching our marketing to the type of properties we have and giving users precision searching tools and alerts, we deliver those applicants.

“While our pricing outside London is much lower, reflecting lower property prices, the principle is the same.”

Findaproperty.com are sticking to their mid-market position in charging and are concentrating on their expansion in the North which partly explains their 65 per cent year-on-year increase in properties.

Their sales director Jon Notley said: “We have been delighted with our progress so far in the North and North West.

“In the past eight months, we have launched in the Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and Merseyside areas and have already established ourselves as the clear number two player in all three markets.

With further regional launches planned, we look forward to taking our successful combination of high enquiries, transparent reporting and dedicated customer services to the rest of the country.”

Fish4 remain committed to their PPC format and ‘by results’ model and they have had some success at signing up agents to utilising it but as I write there is confusion resulting from their support of Tesco Property Market and I am getting reports from many of the software houses that agents are withdrawing their support of the direct Fish4 feeds.

Of the major sites, only Fish4 was drawn into supporting Tesco Property Market and they soon found out that their customers in the main did not want them to do so. They have announced that they will be withdrawing from their arrangement with Tesco but they are contractually committed for some time yet.

Agents can ask Fish4 to take their properties off the Tesco site and from the spot checks I have been carrying out in the Southampton area virtually all the properties for sale through ‘regular’ estate agents have been withdrawn.

However, there are still properties provided by Smartnewhomes and those for sale by owner sites that advertise on Fish4 such as Houseladder.co.uk, Buyitprivately.com and Mypropertyforsale.co.uk.

I even found a home for sale under the Tesco banner, so the public have been starting to try the service.

Of the six properties I looked at (randomly) there were one each from Movehomeonline, Mypropertyforsale, Houseladder and Buyitprivately; one from Smartnewhomes and one from Tesco Property.

Agents need to be aware — there are, as there ever were, quite a number of private sellers about!

I fear there may be further agent backlash as these and other ‘quasi-agent’ FSBO sites are exposed as advertising on Fish4, Hot Property and the like.

Ian Springett of Primelocation said: “It is (and has always been) our policy not to carry FSBO sites on Primelocation.

“We also exclude any fixed price ‘property marketing’ services and, in general, anyone who is not a bona fide estate or lettings agent or new homes developer.”

No one should ignore the Tesco site as in many ways it is the next generation site.

It is using Microsoft Virtual Earth mapping and they have an innovative way of indicating the number of bedrooms, house style and price range. Also using web 2.0 technologies, they are able to show an overlay of useful local information.

Hotproperty.co.uk are about to launch their new 2.0 site — something that will become more of the norm as the years go by.

It will be a challenge for some of the larger sites that have stayed mainly with their original design!

Findaproperty.com have confirmed that they are looking at utilising 2.0 but the others, I suspect, are rather hoping it won’t be necessary to make the transition. We will see!

All the latest statistics on portal activity in our regular comparison survey table >>