Agent portal to take on Rightmove

Another property portal has launched with the intention of taking on Rightmove in the UK property portal market. Radar Homes is aiming to break Rightmove’s virtual monopoly by offering agents who sign up a shareholding in the business.

Radar is run by three former estate agents, Mark Flynn, Julian Partridge and Jon Williams who will be encouraging agents to stop using Rightmove because “it’s time to stop feeding the hand that bites you”.

Radar will begin by focusing on the West of England and will charge £100 for a one-off share purchase between now and January 1 and £200 thereafter. This fee buys a share of the business and pays for setting-up feeds from software providers. Agents will then be charged £45 per month per branch for unlimited property uploads.

Commercial suicide on Ground Hog day

Although I wish Mark Flynn and his colleagues the best of luck, they are entering what former REA Group CEO Simon Baker calls the “most competitive property portal market in the world”. Cutting agents in with a shareholding is a nice idea but it’s been tried before by Look4aProperty.com who spent millions and failed to make any impact in terms of visitor numbers.

It is relatively easy to launch a property portal; the difficult thing is the marketing. Rightmove is the number one player in the minds of most consumers and this “thought position” is incredibly difficult and expensive to shift. The search engine ranking algorithms are also heavily biased towards established players and a “me to” consumer offerings like this are difficult to get links to.

There are many portals vying for Rightmove’s position with considerably more marketing budget and resources behind them. As much as many of readers would like Radar to succeed, I believe the project is doomed to failure. Like the zombie businesses that have gone before them, they’ll make a big media fanfare initially and then bow out quietly when the money runs out.

Further coverage on Estate Agent Today.

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