Resistance Persistence

First up - an apology.

This blog is part of edition 094 (!) of the weekly Property AI Report (PAIR) Newsletter and it's late.

Today is Sunday 20th July and we always aim to get this out on Thursdays. Sorry that it's been inconsistent over the last couple of weeks particularly - there's one major reason for this ...

... which is my second point: I've now completed 35 of the 60 Rightmove Resistance Tour dates, covering places from Truro to Liverpool to Derby to Swansea to Ipswich.

That has meant that I've been less able to write these articles, which are important to me, properly. We could have just pumped out editions with AI-generated stories exclusively in them but I always want to make these personal and interesting. I hope that the fact you're still reading this far down already means that I succeed more often than not!

These last 25 Tour dates are going to be completed over the next three weeks. It's going to be intense and I'd love to see you at one - do register at modelprop.ai/resist. But a couple of other things have also become evident over the weeks that I’ve been on the Tour;

1. Agents are afraid; I’ve had agents representing hundreds of branches tell me that they’d love to attend a meeting but are genuinely worried what being there could do to their Rightmove fees going forwards. “If Rightmove knows that I’ve been there, they might put my fees up …” goes their consideration. This ‘Punishment Beating’ fear runs deep – RM has proven itself very willing to punish those that have the courage to leave, only to come back later, with sky-high re-entry fees. This is not a healthy place for an industry to find itself.

2. Agents are busy; coming to a meeting even half an hour away can be difficult for smaller agencies with huge calls on their leader’s time (not least servicing enough clients to be able to pay Rightmove!). Hosting only physical meetings (as we have done to date) means that those who genuinely can’t make it – but would like to – aren’t able to participate. I want to flip that, too.

3. Agents are angry; the overriding emotion from the 35 meetings so far has been fury. Fury that one company has come to dominate the landscape so much, fury that there has seemed to be no stopping its relentless ‘take’ from their wallets, fury that they can’t afford that extra branch, employee, growth strategy because they are giving more away for less to Rightmove.

   
   

We’ve listened to these issues, painful as they are. To help, we’re launching a one-off, secure, anonymised Zoom meeting which you can register for here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_NksPK-brRtiKyIq70pMcuw

It will take place on Monday 28^th July at 1230. It will not show anyone’s presence to anyone else. It will be secure, on-demand, enable anonymised questions and provide powerful answers.

I’ve been lucky enough to be part of this industry since 2000. Building portals in this space and enabling agents and consumers to better understand and harness tech has been one of the great joys of my life. Now we’re in a new phase – the AI age. It offers brand new routes to success and I want to help agents understand it, harness it then deliver on it.

Come along to the anonymous Zoom meeting on 28^th July and learn more. And don’t let Rightmove be the story going forwards – it’s going to swing back to you.

Finally, let me apologise in advance if I’m a little late on this PAIR Newsletter over editions 095-097 too – covering these last 25 meetings (including Aberdeen!) will require a lot of driving. Everything will be back to normal by 098 – just in time for the century celebrations!

Thanks again for being part of our journey and I hope to see you in person, or on Zoom, in the next three weeks!