This advert dropped into my inbox first-thing this morning, with the screaming subject line: “Mal, don’t miss out on your next home!”
All I have to do to ensure that my FOMO is assuaged is to download the Rightmove App. No doubt millions of others received it today, too. And if I was a homehunter, why wouldn’t I do that?
This is vice-tightening that happens when a business is in its Imperial Phase. Even the scraps – individuals that have refused to download the app but searched for properties on Rightmove many years ago – are targeted to be recaptured into the ecosystem. No one is safe from the core messaging – “Use us or you’re an idiot.”
Rightmove has to keep feeding the machine. People registering for the App then come back into the system, look at properties and send leads. There’s no secret to the fact that RM is not producing as many leads, or quality ones, as they used to. The cost per conversion is much higher than it was, as people find many other ways to arrive with agents – social media, WhatsApp conversations, for example, and soon AI.
If you want to know what the latter looks like, search “Best estate agents in [my area]” on ChatGPT and see what comes back – this is how people will be discovering you in the future, and at ModelProp we’re working hard on how to help agents be there.
As important is capturing people earlier in their journey, before they hit Rightmove. We’re pioneering AI Assistants that do much, much more than Rightmove’s App – they’re provided by agents to buyers and tenants when they move in, contain everything that the new arrival needs to know about the local area, coffee shops, parks, schools, even how to report leaky taps.
Agents know their areas better than anyone – better, certainly, than Rightmove – and by branding a helpful, pocket-based AI that speaks in your language and is trained on absolutely everything that you know, agents can promote their uniqueness ahead of others. Some are even partnering-up with local businesses for exclusive offers, making their AI Assistant even more valuable for newcomers to (and long-term residents of) the area.
I'm not 'anti-portal', by any means - not only did I grow up helping launch them (Primelocation, Zoopla), I also think that they can help consumers with convenience and agents with innovation. I’m optimistic about the arrival of Jitty, for example, and also hopeful that CoStar can make a splash with OnTheMarket.
What I am 'anti-' is grotesque profits that are not invested back into the industry, which merely deprive agents of the ability to use fresh ideas to help their clients discover dream homes – and, then, for those profiting portals to not know what to do with all the cash, so they just shovel it out of the industry into shareholder pockets.
We’re looking to rebuild some of the hyper-localism that has always made agents unique – their knowledge, their relationships, their data – and enable that power to be distributed on a local level so that people look to agents once more for advice and info, rather than a Rightmove App that is simply trying to feast on their lead potential.
There’s lots to be done. But the arrival of this morning’s “Don’t miss out on your next home!” email makes it all the more urgent, all over again …
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