The challenger portal scheduled to launch in less than a week’s time on July 1 has secured the support of 10,000 agents.
As recently as March, just before the Coronavirus lockdown, Homesearch had only 4,300 agents on board representing some 1,400 agencies; many of these were using its different free or paid-for data services.
Now with 10,000 agents signed up - for free - the portal says it already has over half the industry on its books.
“We believe that the traction we’re seeing is proof that agents have wanted to see something new for a long time, which keeps us focused on making sure that we deliver both the product and ongoing business support they need. We’re really thankful to those who have helped us hit this milestone so quickly” says chief operating officer Sam Hunter.
He adds: “Given the number of agents 'signed up' our biggest challenge remains getting their feeds set up as quickly as possible. Will we have all 10,000 feeding on July 1st? No, but we will work with agents and their CRM providers and get through the list as fast as we can.”
Currently, Homesearch is a property intelligence platform, with 28 billion pieces of data on all 28.8m homes in the country; in the past three years the company has reinvested over £3m in data and engineering, and it says that last year alone its software delivered over a billion pounds worth of market appraisals to agents using its services.
Hunter has told Estate Agent Today that “we're able to give the public access to more information than they've ever had before, and at the same time make sure that any time they want to act on their research, there’s a recommended local agent there to help them the rest of the way.”
He adds: “We’re also in a unique position to be able to offer agents not only leads of a potential buyer, tenant, landlord or seller, but deliver buyers and tenants the homes they may want to move into that are yet to hit the market; as well as match the would-be seller or landlord with the would-be buyers or tenants currently active in the market.”
After a short delay - the portal was first scheduled to launch on June 1 - it is now ready for its debut with the public and agents on July 1.
There has been a flurry of other free-to-list portals in recent years including OneDome, Residential People, OpenBrix and Property Mutual, although in terms of publicity and attention Homesearch would appear the most high-profile.
You can read about each of the challenger portals on this Property Natter story published earlier this month.
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Hats off to Sam, he's done a brilliant job under intense pressure. Hope the Ellwoods will reward his hard work and loyalty by giving him a pay rise, giving him a seat on the board of the company and giving him a chunk of shares. It would only be right.
I have been party to many of the online seminars with Sam & Giles and these guys are passionate, personable but above all else provide us agents with a "face" to deal with. It is quite incredible what they have done in the past few months and I am excited what the future holds for us, them & Homesearch.
Yet to hear how consumers feel or need yet another portal.
Vendors don't care about agents.
Angus is right - Vendors dont ''need'' to care about agents. If they want a prototype, they dont care who is selling it.
The vitriol somewhat deserved against Rightmoves incredible arrogance is likely deserved.
However the lack of any Agent talking about value for customer is also disappointing.
What value exactly?
Why am I as a vendor going to feel like I benefit froM being listed on this site over RM OTM Zoopla etc.
Why would I think my agent is smarter than the pack ? As an example
Exactly, what benefit?? you just want to sell your property and expect the agent to do that for you, why would you care about what Portal the agent uses its irrelevant. I have never discussed what portals I use when on a valuation only if asked I advise that I will list their property on with OTM and Zoopla, but have a list of potential buyers that may be interested before I list it.
I really don’t understand why estate agents need all this data. Buyers just want to buy and negotiators just want to do a good job and sell properties. If you’re looking for a free market for all, with no unnecessary clutter or gimmicks, I would recommend looking at yannups.com. Less is more…
Agents need to forget about portals and start doing their jobs it just goes to show that they are brainwashed by the likes of RM.
Angus Brut, have you taken five minutes to understand what the Homesearch offering is? unlikely. Have you taken the time to understand that the real estate space has moved towards an automated and digitally efficient way of doing business, unlikely.
Maybe if you took the time you would realise that the new portals have several advantages over the twenty year old Rightmove portal.
I will try and keep it simple, in 2001 when Rightmove began, the Clio V6 Renault Sport also came out, by 2005 that version of the Clio was obsolete and no longer in production, nineteen years on Rightmove is still that Clio V6 Renault Sport.
The consumer of property in 2020, buyers and sellers and tenants and landlords, do not want to ride in a Clio, they quite like the idea of something that is technologically of 2020's - the new portals.
Woolworths were a great brand they became old fashioned, Mothercare, Thomas Cook, Debenhams, Beales, Carphone Warehouse, Laura Ashley, all dinosaurs.
So back too your point Angus, why would someone from Gen-Z, those people who make up half the population of the globe see the benefit of an agent utilising a new portal, rather than a portal that has failed to evolve, for me it is a not difficult to see.
In 2001, Rightmove was the portal, in 2020 it is one of many, and given it has alienated a vast swathe of agents, just because it has its 'stickers' sitting in many agents windows, like Thomas Cook it may wake up very soon to a day of reckoning, where it's customers - the paying agents - decide to place their inventory on a new cheaper more efficient site that performs, so 2001 Clio or 2020 Audi E-tron Sportback? I know where I am putting my money.
Great work Homesearch , this offers new opportunities to Agents worried about paying extortionate rip off fees to RM and Co . Think about it with this branding you are only promoting yourself s and not RM and. co and surely the single most important thing is for us to promote our own brands increase market share and win more instructions , and not to promote RM and co . If you have nt spoken to the Homesearch team yet it’s probably one of the most important calls of the week to make , get behind this one and see what a difference they offer it’s refreshing !
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