December 2007 / January 2008

Portal enquiries stall and start to slide

PORTAL use has slowed for the first time in six years in the latest portal survey, which covers activity in September.

Traditionally, that is one of the busier months of the year but in 2007 the property market was beset with a number of issues, including the rollout of Home Information Packs, uncertainty over interest rates and probably more significantly the Northern Rock crisis.

A decrease in enquiries to agents through telephone calls, clicks to agent sites and e-mail enquiries was a clear indication of a downturn in a majority of the major sites.

The portal statistics are shown in the accompanying table and I have been able to look at comparisons with September 2006, as carried in our December/January edition 12 months ago, and May 2007, as featured in the August issue. Both show the slowdown in activity.

On a year-on-year basis, the biggest decline in activity has been at Fish4homes – page impressions have more than halved and unique visitors have declined by over 40 per cent while full particulars viewed and e-mail enquiries have fallen by over 70 per cent.

Even Rightmove shows a small decline in particulars viewed and e-mail enquiries with telephone calls to agents slowing by as much as 17 per cent.

More significant declines are shown by comparing with the last figures available in 2007, those from May that we carried in August.

The one area that has remained at least static is Property Numbers. All, apart from Propertyfinder.com, have increased their property base — 14 per cent for findaproperty and 11 per cent for Prime Location.

The ‘newcomers’ – Hot Property and Thinkproperty — do show percentage improvements but of course they are coming from a lower base and their actual numbers are still lower than those of the original and established sites…but they are catching up.

Thinkproperty in particular are getting there in terms of property numbers but sadly not in terms of traffic and they are not prepared to disclose traffic figures at this stage.

The site traffic activity figures show a decline in virtually all areas for the established portals although Hot Property bucked this trend.

Fish4homes have had an awkward time in terms of traffic. They were hit by the Tesco property debacle and traffic has not recovered. Worryingly, their income-generating traffic of e-mails and click throughs fell by nine per cent and 13 per cent respectively.

Telephone enquiries – a barometer of immediate interest — are down on all sites, Rightmove and Fish4homes by 30 per cent each, Prime Location by 19 per cent and Findaproperty by 10 per cent.

Percentages do hide the real figures and Rightmove still have a massive following and traffic.

They have over a million properties, nearly 100 million full particulars viewed and they serve some 400 million pages. To put Thinkproperty and Hot Property in perspective, they serve 12 and 16 million pages respectively.

As the agency market goes into difficult or ‘challenging’ times, I am well aware that agents are looking at what portals cost and what they deliver as well as comparing their online costs with their off line spend.

I have seen evidence of some drastic cutbacks in local newspaper advertising and I am also hearing anecdotal evidence of cutbacks in the portal area.

An established agent advertising with the four major portals is looking at a nominal cost of £1,000 per office per month which may be absolutely fine in offices with high turnovers but in some of the smaller offices in both rural and suburban areas, it may well be too much and cuts are being made.

The table on Page 24 shows the nominal cost per lead received from each of the portals, but for an office to calculate the actual costs you incur you must substitute your own figures.

Thinkproperty have just announced special rates for new agents signing up before the end of January. They are offering a special advertising rate for 12 months (Feb 1 2008-January 31 2009 inclusive) of just £500 plus VAT – as compared to the rack rate they quote of £59 per office per month.

They have also announced that their property display for homes with three or more pictures will feature what they are calling a ‘video tour’ although in fact it is a slideshow with a zooming photo function. It does however look good and will in all probability draw more attention to homes where it is featured.

It is also change of appearance time in other portals. The biggest of them all is at Rightmove where they have updated the site for the first major change since it launched.

The new site has quite a different look and feel with a shortcut to the property search location at the centre of a prominent banner.

New Homes, Overseas Property and Holiday Lets are all more dominant in the display. I will look at the site in more detail in the next edition when I expect to be able to compare it with the Prime Location new site, which is to be launched in the very near future.

Rightmove are also continuing to develop their range of agent supporting products.

Their ‘choice’ products now will carry the OEA/OFT logos as well as featuring price reduction stickers if required.

The Market Comparable Report, which many agents have been using to present to vendors, is being replaced by a new ‘Best Price Guide’, which is included free as part of the core membership.

It combines access to 10 million Rightmove and Land Registry historic data reports so adding to the Land Registry prices with data on the actual property itself, making the valuation information so much more relevant.

Miles Shipside, Rightmove’s commercial director, said: “It saves you hundreds or even thousands of pounds you would otherwise spend with data providers and research companies (Hometrack charge over £100 per month).

“It gives you the potential to prepare your own branded Best Price Guide, helping ensure the property is marketed at the right price and sold more quickly. It is a vital tool in a tougher market. And it is also a great listing tool — exclusive to Rightmove members.”

Rightmove will also be back on TV with their seventh annual advertising campaign starting on December 26.

Meanwhile, the sneak preview I saw of the new-look Prime Location site looks good in terms of design and I am informed it has been reliably tested with agents, developers and consumers.

It does for the first time include web 2.0 mapping powered by Microsoft Virtual Earth and includes features on local amenities such as transport and the like. The mapping is available on full property details as well as the browse pages.

While the mapping gets you to the property, the actual property presentation is at the heart of the new site and users will see some welcome improvements. More will be revealed in the New Year when I look at both this and the new Rightmove site in more detail.

Propertyfinder meanwhile have been bucking a trend on pricing with a guaranteed price freeze from July 2007 to January 2009.

They have had success with their Business Maximiser product as Johannah Bailey, head of industry marketing, explains.

“In the last three months, 70 per cent of new memberships have joined on our new enhanced Premium package — Business Maximiser — which allows for unlimited uploading of sales and rental properties,” she said.

“All properties are displayed as ‘feature properties’ which have enhanced borders and larger photographs in listings, and enhanced borders and photographs in all property alerts sent to our registered user base of 110,000.

“The Business Maximiser package is popular because it allows the agent to ‘Stand Out From The Crowd’ – it is a great option for independent agents who need to compete cost effectively online and get brand presence in a crowded market place where the big brands often dominate.”

Propertyfinder also have branding and response tools on site like Agent Banners and Skyscrapers, Guaranteed Top Spot and Feature Agent. These are available to agents to purchase in one-month slots based on a postcode or area name basis.

Findaproperty continue their expansion in the North with the highest percentage increase in property numbers of the established sites. They of course had already introduced a new site although they did not choose to introduce web 2.0 mapping or the appropriate overlays.

Hot Property are the smallest of the comparable sites yet like Thinkproperty they are growing rapidly and in fact in September their unique user base was higher than Thinkproperty.

They also claim to be the fastest-growing site over the six months to the end of September. Comscore stats show them to have increased traffic by some 60 per cent.

They too re-launched the site in 2007 and managing director Shaun Luetchens said: “Following a three-stage upgrade to the HotProperty.co.uk site earlier this year, traffic has soared to nearly a million visits per month and leads generated for agents have increased by 60 per cent.”

Features released in the re-launch included more detailed listing information for each property, advanced mapping, Land Registry sold prices and personalised search information, as well as a complete redesign to make the site simpler to navigate.

Most recent developments include the addition of sophisticated search functionality that allows users to search by proximity to tube and school, brand new Hot Property Flatshare channel (www.hotproperty.co.uk/flatshare) and daily property news alerts direct to users’ inboxes.

There is no doubt that the market is evolving and that all the sites are all developing. No one can afford to stand still. To survive each will have to deliver success to the agents and to the public who utilise the site. The battle continues!

Click here for all the latest statistics on portal activity >>