Words: Ashley Rigg
Published: 15th December 2009
Bramzell buys out Property Index
Lee Bramzell, managing director of PropertyIndex.com is set to buy the property portal from its founder Darren Richards.
Richards who sold UK Dating site.
Dating Direct for £30 million in 2007, ploughed £5 million of his own money into the venture but decided to put the company into administration on 9th December blaming poor performance on the UK portal side of the business for his decision.
Although the company is still legally in administration, Bramzell has the licence to run the business while the final details of the management buy-out are put in place. All client accounts are being run as usual and the company is committed to delivering leads as normal through its large network of distribution partners. Eleven staff members are joining Bramzell in the new company, cutting the payroll approximately in half.
Richards: UK move was a mistake
Speaking to Global edge from his home in Tenerife, Richards said he regretted the company’s move into the UK portal market where he chose to compete head-to-head with Rightmove and a number of other well-financed competitors.
“We extensively researched the UK market and agents told us they were unhappy with Rightmove and would welcome a cost-per-lead model. Unfortunately UK agents often say one thing and do another….The overseas side of the business was profitable, if we had just focused on this area, I wouldn’t be speaking to you now”.
The task ahead
Bramzell’s first task will be to reassure overseas property clients and distribution partners that it is business as usual and manage the media fall out. That’s the easy bit. The big strategic task is exiting the UK market quickly at minimum cost so that is does not undermine the viability of the core business, which is delivering leads to overseas property agents.
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User Comments
Having worked with Property Index now for just 10 weeks we are very happy with the level of service and the quality of leads that are coming through.
Cost per lead makes sense to me and we've always found the email addresses and telephone numbers to be genuine.
We do manage our portfolio within the portal and change our properties regularly to meet client demand.
Thank You Property Index for all the clients you've driven our way so far. Long may it continue.
Jocelyn Honeybunn
Luxe Villas
www.luxe-villas.com
Jocelyn Honeybunn,
Luxe Villas - Spain
I'm surprised there was ever any support for cost per lead. The vast majority of leads we get from Propertyindex are dreadful. Very few are worthwhile or even worth responding to. The one enquiry that did translate into a viewing was disasterous when it transpired that PI had not been updating via the xml feed and the PI advert was over a year old and did not reflect an extension to the property and a correspondingly new price. This was not apparent until the buyer had flown out here, liked the property, but then was confronted with the higher price it had been advertised at by us for nearly a year.
We also had reservations for a time as to whether the leads we were being charged for were even genuine as many had fake or no phone numbers and were often for properties that we never had any interest in, as they were oddities. We spent more time contesting leads than dealing with genuine ones.
Peter Ellis,
Croatia Property Services
What a shame for their overseas clients (myself included). I sincerely hope the new ownership dont change a thing ...."why fix it if it dont need mending?"
From a very happy PropertyIndex overseas customer.
Kelly Macfarlane,
Didim Sun Properties
