Thinking of making a website like Rightmove etc

noitsnotme

DefenderUK said:

I must say that I'm surprised by the response, i thought the 'moneysaving' people on here would have been all for this idea, I do get that its going to be megga hard to do but I am surprised at some of the people on hear thinking that an agent is good value for money though...

It’s not about the agents.  It’s about giving you feedback on what is most likely an unrealistic idea…. unless like I said before, you have half a million pounds or more ready to throw at it.

Its not dissimilar to the countless people that have been on here over the years saying they were going to create a new website to compete with eBay because eBay’s fees were too high.  Most never materialised and the handful that did lasted about 5 minutes.

Smalltownhypocrite

It doesn't exist simply because people don't want it.

English buying and selling is already an epic !!!!!! show without removing the very little rules, regulations and legitimacy we DO have. 

That is why everyone uses Rightmove when looking. There are tonnes of other website listing house but people always use RM. Most people actively avoid PurpleBricks which essentially exists for the purposes of listing your own property because most people simply do not have the first clue about selling houses, the process and organization behind it and are also far to invested in their own house to be even remotely impartial about its value or state and not get offended easily. 

saajan_12

DefenderUK said:

Hi saajan, I think you are right about the site not having visibility to begin with and so people would not list there, but I thought that my angle to overcome this would be to promote the site as an additional free ad space in addition to their chosen portal rightmove/zoopla etc sort of an extra freebie

That's still not free to get photos and floorplans (included with agents but you can't reuse them) and put the effort in to format a listing for this website for no real audience. You'd have to actually incentivise people to bother initially - that's how all new players gain market share. 

DefenderUK said:

Section62, The big boys would'nt be able to offer free signups though as it would destroy their business model, although I do wonder why nobody has challenged them so far...

Well what's your business model in terms of income if you're not charging for people to advertise? 

born_again

I guess OP is looking at something like

https://hiizzy.com/

https://rello.co.uk/

lfc321

I think this idea could definitely work. But, as others have already said, you'll need a healthy marketing budget to get it off the ground. It is worth looking at others who have tried to challenge Rightmove.

According to this source*, OnTheMarket has an annual marketing budget of £45 million. They are probably (?) the third best-known property listing site. I'm pretty sure their brand recognition is lower than Rightmove and Zoopla. According to the same article, Rightmove's annual marketing budget is only around £15 million - but they have the advantage of already being the market leader and the go-to site for most house hunters.

So I would think you should probably plan on an annual marketing budget closer to OnTheMarket's (maybe £50 million-ish?), at least for the first few years.

Good luck!




*https://www.onlinemarketplaces.com/articles/uk-roundup-rightmove-zoopla-and-onthemarket-all-make-announcments/

Tabieth

If I were buying or selling, why would I go to your proposed website rather than Rightmove? What’s the USP?

Uriziel

What will you do when someone gets assaulted inside a fake property posted on your website and there is no link whatsoever to the person since it was just a private individual? Will you be happy to take full responsibility and be liable for negligence and not having stringent processes in place to keep users safe?

DefenderUK

user1977 said:

DefenderUK said:

Hi user1977, yes i've run a profitable website for about 12 years now, do you have any good ideas or suggestions for my new idea ?....

No, you probably want to be asking somewhere else - we are generally people with experience of using Rightmove etc as punters rather than in running multi-agent platforms.

But what do you think you're going to offer that the likes of Zoopla or Onthemarket (which are both sizeable competitors to Rightmove, without yet supplanting them) can't?

I think you are right, this forum is more for consumers and not entrepreneurs like myself, I think I've learned something today...

                    Mnaaaaaaah...

Chief_of_Staffy

DefenderUK said:

Hi guys, after trying to list my property on rightmove or zoopla I was shocked to find that it's all a bit of a closed loop with estate agents, you can't actually list without paying an estate agent.

Since then i've been thinking about making a website for us normal people to post our properties without paying a ton of cash to do so, I'm just after your thoughts and ideas, I know it would be hard but what do you reckon... ?

Rightmove, the site which for 25 years has been unable to implement a Save Search facility where the criteria includes Detached, Semi, Terraced and Bungalow; nor an edit facility so that you can modify your saved searches as opposed to deleting them and creating them from scratch (the former point notwithstanding).3

So yes, a monkey could code better than Rightmove, but your real challenge is marketing and uptake. For that, nowadays, you need dedicated resource with a lot of experience, assuming you don't have a huge online presence. The days when you could create a site and people would discover it and sign up are long gone.

lincroft1710

DefenderUK said:

user1977 said:

DefenderUK said:

Hi user1977, yes i've run a profitable website for about 12 years now, do you have any good ideas or suggestions for my new idea ?....

No, you probably want to be asking somewhere else - we are generally people with experience of using Rightmove etc as punters rather than in running multi-agent platforms.

But what do you think you're going to offer that the likes of Zoopla or Onthemarket (which are both sizeable competitors to Rightmove, without yet supplanting them) can't?

I think you are right, this forum is more for consumers and not entrepreneurs like myself, I think I've learned something today...

                    Mnaaaaaaah...

And I hope that something is that your idea is a complete non starter!


Don't forget, the "consumers" on here would be the very people who would be using online tools such as the one you were hoping to create. If potential users aren't interested........