OnTheMarket announces 243 new listings agreements in past 10 days

Not hard to sign up agents now it’s FREE. And in many case they literally can’t give it away.
I wonder how their loyal agents feel knowing they have paid thousands and supported this flawed business which now gives it away to new agents.

Ah yes! wouldnt it be interesting to know the deals that the 243 new listings have signed up for

I have been offered FREE listings by OTM for at least 12 months and FREE shares. I said 'thanks but no thanks'. Even free isnt good value with these clowns.

Haha sorry you guys above are funny - you will have received your annual price hammering from rightmove, your sitting in your offices moaning and cursing about how they have got you over a barrel speaking to other agents in the town saying this can't go on blah blah blah we need an alternative blah blah blah. Then a company comes along trying hard to break the status quo trying to give an alternative trying to build numbers through cheap listings even offering free shares so that if agents embraced the change they keep asking for then they would get a cheap portal with a soaring share price majority owned by agents, cheap fees and the satisfaction of watching Rightmove wither on a vine. which would be so satisfying after the years of punishing price rises. And all you can do is belittle and snigger at there attempts and in 12 months time the next increase will land from Rightmove and the whole "we need an alternative" convo' will start again ...... if you never change guys -never take a chance this cycle will never end - Open your eyes.
PS if somebody offers you Free Listings and Free share (Which are rising daily) why would you say No? What could you possibly lose? Call me cynical but are you agents ... or maybe secret agents from rightmove / zoopla?

• Rob Davies
• 23 February 2018 13:54 PM

OTM has made bad decision after bad decision - you can't blame people for criticising it for not performing or not living up to its early boasts of world domination.

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• Ben Hollis
• 23 February 2018 20:45 PM

Ha. I’ve never been referred to as a secret agent before. You’re welcome to visit me at my independent agency anytime you like.
OTM’s ethos and ethics are aligned with mine. They made promises to their members (rules on pricing and joining criteria) which they have Uturned on. When I met with the OTM rep this week I had one simple question: “I always act in my clients best interests, how would joining OTM genuinely benefit them?”. She said she had no answer to that.
And then there’s the argument on how they are actually making RM stronger... happy to explain that if needed.
ben@lancasters.org

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OTM's One Portal rule strengthened RM's position making our reliance on them even greater )-:

Oh dear Marcus, either you have never used OnTheMarket or you work for them, I would rather pay rightmove prices and get a return for my money, OTM has an appalling level of traffic, and I bet your life as Ben pointed out OTM are pulling new members in on a she string just like before when they had the £50.00 under the table offer, in the end Spiggott will line his pockets at the expense of its members

• Marcus Parkinson
• 23 February 2018 17:05 PM

Hi mr wizard look I would never say otm is a rival to Rightmove at present it’s clearly not and I’m not even saying it’s the answer to all our woes but at present what else is out there that is little agents can pin our flag too ? These relentless increases are never going anywhere while agents just follow the rest of the herd like
Disgruntled brain dead sheep. Until everyone commits to something different then we’re all royally screwed. Believe me if enough people move to company a - b - c the public will follow because frankly they couldn’t care what site it is as long as there’s plenty of upto date houses to view. When otm came along too many of us have said we’ll move to it if it gets bigger and of course it hasn’t grown to it’s full potential because we all end up sitting on the fence. If enough agents take a leap of faith away from Rightmove at the very least it will probably force them to be honest with there pricing. But the apathy we all show whilst muttering our discontent will just lead to more of the same.

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At the OTM presentation I attended, where we were asked to gauge how we would comply with the One Other Portal rule, all the London based firms resolved to abandon RM and the all the country agents resolved to abandon Zoopla. This spoke volumes about their respective effectiveness in those areas at the time. The subsequent strengthening of RM's position has come from our inability as a profession to coordinate our efforts to resist the remorseless raising of RM subscriptions and support an effort to offer an alternative.

Find your unhappy!

Our reply to OTM’s offer:

Thank you for your time last week, and your kind offer of all offices Free for the first year. At this time I’d like to politely decline. There are three main reasons for this, as we discussed:

1. There is no significant benefit to our clients. Any agent that ditched Zoopla and joined OTM showed they put their own financial interests above the interests of their clients.
2. You are just making Rightmove stronger, not weaker. For example, if an agent is paying £1,000 a branch to Rightmove and £300 a branch to OTM, Rightmove have established the agent has a £1,300pcm online marketing budget, can then up their fees to £1,300 knowing as the stronger site the agent will either find the extra or drop OTM. You used to work for Rightmove, you know this is how they calculate their fee increases.
3. Personally I don’t like the broken promises. You’ve lost my trust. Originally OTM guaranteed non high st (industrial estate and online) and corporate agents would never be allowed to join - they now are. You also promised clear and transparent pricing that wouldn’t alter from rate card - within a year you were offering me 80% discounts if I didn’t tell anyone, and now free. Having friends who own agencies who signed up with you at the start, you have not rewarded their loyalty and refunded their higher paid fees. Loyal agents have paid you more, and you’ve kept it.

So at the moment I feel that any agent advertising on OTM, even for free, are demonstrating they put their own interests above their clients and are shortsightedly contributing to their own later Rightmove fee increases.

Kind Regards,