Radarhomes – the portal owned in majority by property agents

Here’s a quick overview of the main talking points from the Midlands Steering Committee meeting, which took place on December 5th 2011.

Pete Henderson gave a progress report for the region and outlined the three lead streams now in operation.

Jeremy Harford-Tapp gave a presentation covering Mobile Websites, iPhone apps, telephone tracking and Radar ‘back office’ admin software system.

Areas covered by general discussion were:

• Marketing and advertising with specific Solihull region ‘agent lead’ marketing strategies discussed.
• Future Internet Marketing Seminars.
• QR codes, the way forward or not?

Coffee and sandwiches were a plenty (one person had ‘Fish Finger’ sandwiches but we’re not at liberty to divulge who).

RADARHOMES – WORKING FOR YOU

The city of Exeter in Devon, the home of the Radarhomes HQ, has been branded one of the most expensive places to rent housing in the UK, says a report carried out by the housing charity Shelter.  In addition, the report also suggested 55% of homes in the UK were unaffordable.

Looking specifically at the South West region, the report suggests that 85% of homes are unaffordable, which is an extraordinary figure, and one that justifies BBC Spotlight’s recent and lengthy stories on the very same subject.

The report will have no doubt been carried out in an attempt to raise awareness of the rising cost of rents throughout the UK and the overall lack of affordable homes, which is a hot topic as local councils and the government target new builds.

In another report by the research group Centre for Cities, it has been claimed that councils are not providing enough land on which to build cheaper housing.  It has been suggested that local authorities should handle the protection of green belts, presumably to be able to free up the land required.

“Greenbelt barriers to urban expansion as one of several major protectionist political-economic barriers to housebuilding with negative effects on the supply, cost/prices, and quality of new homes.”

The CEO of Centre for Cities, Dermot Finch told the Press Association: “It’s a myth that the entire green belt is a picture postcard rural idyll. A very small slice of it could be used for housing. We are not suggesting cities should concrete over their green belt, and we are not advocating car-dependent urban sprawl, but we do need to free up more land for new homes, especially in our most buoyant cities.”

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We welcome Shouler & Son of Melton Mowbray as the latest member agent to join Radarhomes!

Chartered Surveyors, Auctioneers, Land & Estate Agents with over 160 years experience in business, Shouler & Son are our first member
agent in the Melton Mowbray/Leicestershire area.  This is an exciting first step for Radarhomes in Leicestershire as our Regional Sales Manager, Pete Henderson, and everyone back at Radarhomes HQ will look to work closely with our current and future members to strengthen the brand in that area.

A little more about Shouler & Son …

An uncertain future for the farming industry in the 1840s, with mechanisation beginning to change old practices, was the climate in which William Shouler, then aged 21, announced that he was setting up business as Auctioneer and Appraiser in Woburn Sands. Three years later he left the area and established himself in his wife’s home town of Melton Mowbray.

For the last 160 years William’s successors have guided their clients through periods of development and stagnation, expansion and recession, in a world of property where expectations and regulations are constantly changing. His great-great-great-grandson Ben has recently become a partner in the business and his duties included assisting his uncle, Simon Shouler in the auctioneering of all effects that pass through the firms Auction Room in Melton Mowbray.

Jeremy Harford-Tapp gave an in-depth progress report on the progress of the Radarhomes Portal and the performance of our Search Engine Optimisation program with particular regard to improving agents’ own Google rankings as well as Radarhomes’s ranking.

Also covered was the Facebook App, the Lead Profiling/Qualification program, the designated phone numbers and phone monitoring systems, Staff Profiles and the Deep Linking on agent sites.

• Areas covered by general discussion were:
• Marketing and advertising
• Sales techniques and strategies for recruiting new agents.
• Software systems and suppliers.
• Agent recruitment in Leicestershire.
• A5 flyer handouts for agents.

This was a very positive meeting with all agent members contributing some great ideas and strategies for us to pursue. (And lovely cream tea).

Present at the meeting on Tuesday 6th September at Radarhomes HQ in Exeter:

Lyndon Bent – Bradleys
Paul Beevers – Heather & Lay
Ross Kieran – Ocean
Malcolm Prescott – Webbers
David Gibson – Whitton & Laing
Roger Wilkinson – Wilkinson Grant
Radarhomes Team Present: – Jeremy Tapp, John Moss, Daniel Miller, Patrick Tucker and Lisa Reid.

Apologies: – Andy Goundry – Goundry Pearce in Truro.

Andy is currently on annual leave and was unable to attend. However, he wanted to make it known that he remains a firm supporter of Radarhomes.

Introduction

The 4th Radarhomes South West committee meeting was very much a meeting of two halves.  Firstly, the members and the team reflected on how we have got to where we have today and the current state of the business, as well as how and what we need to do to get Radarhomes into the public eye.  Although we had seen many of the members previously in individual meetings, Jeremy began by focusing on the traffic increases Radarhomes has seen since Homeflow took over the technical development of the site. All members mutually agreed that they had seen a substantial increase in lead flow.

“Members are instrumental in Radarhomes”

It was generally agreed that we need more help from the members, and that new members (and current where possible) need to be instrumental in promoting Radarhomes, as we know that without agent belief and support, Radarhomes will never succeed in its goal in giving agents a fairer deal.  Members commented that we need to educate all staff at branch level so that we can start to communicate the brand to vendors and home hunters alike.

Focusing on our core areas…

Members strongly agreed that we need to focus on our ‘core’ client base, i.e. our current client base in the South West, The South and East, The Midlands, and the North.  It was agreed that we should focus our efforts on delivering the best service that we can to current members of Radarhomes, and such members who have shown great faith to Radarhomes since our inception.

The effect of ‘pulling out’ of other portals

At one stage, Jeremy mentioned that members have the opportunity to list on a number of free portals within the Homeflow network.  This sparked a debate around the idea that members have ownership in Radarhomes; therefore members could be consolidating their exposure on other portals to save money.  Some committee members (particularly those from Cornwall) commented that, having ‘pulled out’ of other portals, they had not seen a dramatic loss in enquiries given that Radarhomes is delivering tangible results.

‘The voice of technology and innovation’

Since Radarhomes works closely with members, the idea of Radarhomes becoming the ‘voice of technology and innovation’ was suggested by committee members.  This was noted and is certainly something Radarhomes can work towards achieving.

Deep Linking

Radarhomes presented the page 1 Exeter Google rankings to members, and it was pleasing that most of the members already had the deep links in place, with the remaining members promising the links very soon.  It was agreed that the deep links, a simple text based link on an agent’s website to a location specific area on Radarhomes, are very powerful and that the end goal is to have every member deep linking to Radarhomes so we can attract more traffic and send out more leads to members.

New South East Sales Director – Patrick Tucker

Patrick Tucker was introduced to the committee as our new Sales Director for the South East region.  Patrick has many years of agency experience and has run a successful agency in the past, so is a fine addition to the Radarhomes team.

Patrick said:  “The internet is now the most dynamic and effective marketing resource for property sales and rentals and Radar Homes is delivering a uniquely different and compelling partnership proposition for estate agents across the UK.

“The South East England represents a huge opportunity to expand on the success of the strong-hold Radar Homes has built up across the South West.  Having worked and successfully run my own estate agency businesses in London and the South for over 20 years, I fully understand and appreciate the pressure agents in the region are under, working in the UK’s most competitive and fast-paced property market. 

Radar Homes has the experience and  capabilities to provide a wide range of technical and digital marketing support and resources that can be tailored to meet and grow with individual agencies needs and objectives.  I really look forward to developing the Radar agency network across the region.”

“Communication must improve”

Agents unanimously agreed that communication must improve, including more verbal communication and group meetings, and especially improvements to the email newsletters that are sent out monthly.  Members commented that they were too long and didn’t feature articles that would entice them to read more.  It was suggested that the newsletters should focus more on the members, including a spotlight on the latest members, as well as other news and achievements from other members.

The Radarhomes team agreed with these comments and we will work to improve communication moving forward.  Hence forth we will welcome news from our members nationwide to bring you closer to what other agents are doing.

New Radarhomes packages

In order to allow Radarhomes to invest more money into marketing, staff and innovation, members were presented with a draft version of the three different packages we plan to unveil soon.   Radarhomes plans to have three packages from a base package up to a ‘Premier’ package, where the latter two packages will feature products that we hope agents will get real value from.

The packages were well received and we will announce more soon.  (Please note current members will be offered these packages when they are released but are not obliged to upgrade from the base package.)

Conclusion

Committee members went away feeling more enthusiastic with renewed enthusiasm in Radarhomes.  It’s clear that we have turned a corner this year and we are delivering real value to members, and we intend to continue to build on this excellent start to the year.