Specialist
Director at Hunters Property Group Ltd
Agenda
- Portal pricing trends and YoY increases
- Evolving agent budget and portal share of total spend
- Competitive dynamics – Rightmove (LON: RMV) vs Zoopla and OnTheMarket (LON: OTMP)
- Lead quality and conversion trends
- Portal instruction volume growth and pricing
Questions
1.
What’s your overview of the estate agent market around transaction growth rates and government support measures, particularly relating to stamp duty? When could transactions fall away in 2021, if at all?
2.
What’s the average sale completion time in the property market?
3.
How expensive is a local authority search?
4.
What’s the normal rate at which transactions fall through?
5.
How do you think the profitability of agents will trend in the mid-term, particularly around average commission rates?
6.
How low do you think agent fees can sustainably go?
7.
Would some of the commission fee get paid out to the agent that sold the property and closed the deal? How much of the costs of selling a property are captured by the listing costs of a company such as Rightmove or Zoopla?
8.
What do you think is the typical growth margin profile that agents might target when selling properties?
9.
What sort of pressure do you anticipate on agent P&L? Could that come from factors such as acquisition of instructions, portal spend or cost across other marketing channels? Could any P&L changes lead to agents pushing back on YoY price increases?
10.
Could you outline some of the regulatory changes being proposed and what kind of impact they might have on the industry?
11.
Is a specific regulation a requirement that estate agents must have certain qualifications?
12.
What share of the agent market do you think would be impacted by regulatory changes requiring qualifications? Could it cause any agents to sell to one of the bigger players?
13.
How big do you think social media and alternative channels could become? You mentioned some players are using social media pretty effectively in the new-build space. Could that become as big a channel as Rightmove or Zoopla?
14.
Could you compare Zoopla and Rightmove’s lead generation potential or capabilities?
15.
Could you estimate the overall conversion rates on leads? Would it be around 5% conversion into meaningful enquiries or viewings, or less than that?
16.
I’ve heard pre-portal marketing spend was actually higher due to the cost of print media and that portals have helped agents make savings on marketing. Is that still the case?
17.
How far away do you think marketing spend levels are now vs paper-based marketing? Do you think the portals will keep pushing prices up until they reach that older point? Alternatively, would you assess marketing spend in relation to the profitability of these businesses, which has come down in percentage terms as commissions have been squeezed?
18.
What other products are the two portals selling into agents effectively? How useful are they?
19.
Do Rightmove and Zoopla account for a lot of instructions?
20.
Is it usually just the agent who sold the house who gets the next instruction?
21.
Does Zoopla generate more instruction leads than Rightmove?
22.
Do you think Boomin is a viable competitor to Rightmove?
