OneMove.TV is set to launch any day now with "small town Canadian" Julie Madison and the very cosmopolitan Georgina Burnett playing host to industry news, gossip and entertainment. Sign up to the service before December 15th and you may be a lucky iphone winner.
I know I'll be watching!
Not sure what to make of this, but the company's shares are trading relatively stable today which would seem to indicate that it's really no big deal - at least to the City. But according to the just released investor note, Rightmove PLC is planning to form a new parent company in order to reduce "the nominal value of the share capital" and to "increase the Group's distributable reserves." These reserves will be available for "the declaration of future dividends and other returns of capital including share buybacks."
Now I really don't know the ins and outs of the above statement, but any reduction of 'nominal share value' for whatever reason would make me nervous or at least slightly edgy if I were an investor or stakeholder. The question is timing. Why now? Why the need for a new company or corporate structure now? The proposed changes are subject to Court and Shareholder approval. Hopefully these questions and a lot more will be answered at that time
Coming from the land of Page 3, the video is actually quite tame. In London I see way more T&A daily in a bunch of different tabloid newspapers and often pay very little attention; but in Florida, things seem to be a whole lot different.
Shaun McLane, an Orlando based agent and blogger posted a video and blogged about using sex to sell real estate. The New York Times wrote about this; Curbed had a competition to find the sexiest agent, and we even did our part (but got overwhelmed with responses). So the point is, Shaun (who has left us many comments in the past) posts the controversial video and asks the hypothetical question does sex sell real estate. The honest answer is yes it does, sex sells everything, but it doesn't have to be pornographic.
The problem with me watching Shaun's video is that it showed a lot of T&A (which I enjoyed watching), but it didn't show a lot of houses. If I came across the video elsewhere, to be truthful, I probably wouldn't make the connection between the sexy women shown in the video and the houses Shaun was trying to sell, which would be the whole point of making the video. If I had seen the women in the houses, or if Shaun was attempting to attract me to a certain lifestyle, it would probably have made a difference. My memories of Florida (I've been to Miami, but I've never visited Orlando) is women, beaches, bikinis and a fabulous nightlife. My first impression of Shaun's video reminded me of a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue or of a calender that I would see in a construction office. The point is it wasn't sexy enough to sell me real estate, but it was controversial enough to get Shaun fired from his job as an agent with an undisclosed brokerage in Orlando.
From Shaun's most recent blog post:
The video has been making its rounds, and I decided to share it with a few of most closest friends in my office. One of them decided to forward it to our team leader, who then forwarded it to my broker. I received a call from the team leader saying she wasn't happy with the video. She said she didn't really know what to say, and that the video looked very professional, and the music was "nice," but she didn't think it was acceptable. Later last night, I missed a call from my broker, and she left a less-than-nice voicemail disapproving of the video.Jay Thompson, The Phoenix Real Estate Guy commented on Shaun's situation, stating that:
Fast forward to about 30 minutes ago. My phone rings, and it's my broker. She stresses how unhappy with this video she is. She admits that she, and the others in the office got a good laugh from it, but she did NOT want the video associated with her office. Well, if you watch the video, it makes no mention of her office, but she said that wasn't good enough.
Twenty minutes later, I get an ultimatum: "Take the video down, or I'll have to let you go."
The video is still up, and I no longer work for this broker.
the broker has legal obligations and liabilities that a lot of agents seem to forget. The "I'm an independent contractor" argument isn't valid in *many* of the places agents tend to use it.Describing the video as 'out the box' Jay offered further commentary on Sellsius:
just because someone is an independent contractor does not give them carte blanche to do whatever they want, particularly when it comes to advertising (which ostensibly is what the video was). At least in Arizona (and maybe different in Florida), the designated broker has to approve all advertising. They are liable for it, so they have the right to approve/deny it. It’s the broker’s ass in a sling, not the agents, if anything goes awry with state or fed regs.In a related comment on Future, Shaun agrees that his video could have been "less blatant," but that it was meant to be "over-the-top." Nevertheless, Shaun's argument is that the whole thing could have been avoided if he had been approached differently. Shaun intends to open his own brokerage in a few weeks and we wish him best of luck. If you're ever in Orlando and feel like buying some property, why not stop by Shaun's office. All round, he seems like a pretty decent guy, somebody I'd probably do business with.
Would I have fired Shaun? I don’t know. I would have had aand long chat, with a mutual exchange and discussion — listening to his side and explaining mine. Maybe I’m way out there, but I think we could have come to an agreement where both of us were happy.
Take a look at the new Rightmove, which some argue is a response to the growing threat of the new players in property search. The one thing Rightmove has - that all the other players want - is traffic, a captive audience and a huge marketing budget (actually that's three things). What Rightmove lacks and most of the other players have is the ability to innovate - and to innovate quickly
This is hot and they're calling it Statistics, I didn't notice it this morning. First glance is very impressive. DotHomes is offering users the opportunity to compare property prices and "percentage return" for postcode specific queries. The percentage return graph compares FTSE 100 with the percentage return and timelines BoE interest rate changes. So far, it's the closest thing to Zillow outside of the United States. DotHomes have yet to release exactly how the percentage returns are calculated
The DotHomes percentage returns is unique in that it plots valuation data - as given by "interpolated hedonic sold-price data" coupled with asking price data and is not not plotted by sold-price data as given by Land Registry.
"Land Registry data includes no mention of property characteristics. So, if five 3 bedroom houses in 2003 and two basement studio flats are sold in 2004 then obviously the Land Registry average for the area will drop massively. This does not mean that prices have actually fallen. (Also, Land Registry data only runs from 2000.) ... It also rather happily provides property ROI plots (with rather interesting comparisons against other assets)," according to BytePlay Executive and co-founder Douglas de Jager.The new service is not yet available on their South Africa website, but it's sure to be a hit with property professionals as well as webmasters and especially bloggers as DotHomes allows statistics to be embedded in websites.
Been a busy weekend for the search engines as Nestoria announced the latest edition to its arsenal of powerful webmaster tools.
Clive told us back in the summer that Fiddy (aka 50 Cent, aka Curtis James Jackson III) was looking to sell his Connecticut mansion, which was previously owned by celebrity jailbird Mike Tyson.
However it seems like Fiddy is experiencing some difficulty in moving the property, similar to his recent GUnit numbers on soundscan. So what does the innovative hiphoppreneur do? Of course enlist the help of friends and the good folks over at MTV were kind enough to oblige with the dedication of an upcoming CRIBS episode, premiering November 29th at 10:30p.m. In the meantime, peep some raw footage and wait!
With growing interest in the German property market, and the increasing influence of Spanish real estate; Nuroa.com presents an opportunity for property searchers to search in 3 different languages including Spanish, German and English. The site seems pretty comprehensive, giving users the opportunity to learn about local markets by including local blog posts and property guides in the search results. Surprisingly Nuroa's search results aren't displayed on a map, which is very unusual for a vertical search engine.
Certainly somebody in his department is guilty of something. As the head honcho, Darling ultimately has to take full responsibility. His gross mismanagement of the Northern Rock situation and now his department puts at risk 25 million members of the general public?
Brown needs to act quickly and decisively. If not he will prove himself to be an even worse prime-minister than Tony Blair. At a time like this, when the global economy is so unstable, we need competent political leaders at the helm to guide us through the storm.
Not only does he have the biggest pagerank (;
but Art (the artist) Krymski, the genius behind Extate.com was recently nominated at Esquire magazine's prestigious Man At The Top Awards for Best New Idea.
Art found himself up against some pretty hefty competition including billionaire entrepreneur Philip Green and Mark Price who currently heads up the retail giant Waitrose. Art eventually lost to Simon Woodroffe, founder of YO! Sushi and the newly launched Yotel.
Hearty congratulations to Artemi, Doug and the rest of the Extate team. We're expecting very big news from Extate over the weekend. Stay pinged to Renthusiast, for the exclusive as and when it happens.
Magic Radio the number one station in London announced this morning, their partnership with the newly revamped Oodle Network, to power classified search on the Magic FM website. “Radio Stations, with their strong local consumer base, have a great opportunity with online classifieds, by working with Oodle and offering free online classified listings to their users Magic have a tremendous opportunity to grab a significant share of this fast developing market.”
claims Duncan Dunlop, General Manager Oodle UK. although he did not elaborate on how exactly Magic would make money from the deal. Oodle plans to share display and PPC revenues generated from the classifieds with Magic. "Classifieds market is worth over 3bn in UK and is the fastest growing segment on line so if they can secure even a small market share, revenues will look after themselves,"
according to Duncan “We have found that our listeners are avid classifieds users, we’re excited about letting our 2m weekly listeners have the chance to post their listings for free, as well provide them with access to the largest number of classifieds listings in London.”
said James Walden, Business Development Director at Magic Radio.
This is the second major media partnership Oodle has scored in recent months. Earlier this year, they announced a partnership with Sun.co.uk, the online home of the UK's biggest tabloid and a top 50 website according to Alexa rankings
[warning some links NSFW]
Rat and Mouse has the story of the unhappy hookers in Bayswater, but the story in the Sun this weekend highlights the antics of British supermodel Sophie Anderton ; who has gone from this to this ... all in an effort - supposedly - to buy a Notting Hill flat.
Well, even though Sophie is turning out to be not exactly the brightest of celebrities, at £10k per shag er 'event' she sure is one expensive b***ch lady of the evening. But apparently, she's trying to get out of the business, so in a effort to help her clean up her act, I've done some rough calculations via Nestoria and it seems like the average 3 bed Notting Hill flat is now going for about £1,400,000. So at £10,000 / night means she only has to shag, escort 140 clients in order to buy the flat outright with cash (add legal fees, she might need a little more), or a mere 14 clients to come up with the standard 10% deposit.
At £10K per night however, the sex company better be real good, but with all the exposure (pardon the pun), she might have to reduce her price a little, in fact, she'll probably have to reduce her price a whole lot if she still expects to get any more first class business.
I'm not even sure ... does pagerank mean much anymore?
But it's always been important in getting high Google placement and it's what differentiates the Goog from all the other search engines. With that in mind (and Friday afternoon boredom) I decided to check out which of the new vertical property sites had the biggest pagerank and low and behold Extate.co.uk came in first with 6/10; meanwhile Zoomf, Nestoria and Properrazi all scored 5/10.
[excuse the dodgy screenshots]
Both Extate and Rightmove scored 6/10
Nestoria, Zoomf and Properrazi all scored 5/10 
But does this actually mean anything?
Got the scoop on the brand new Bizzlo.com, digg-like service for the investment and business community. Bizzlo focuses exclusively on business and investment articles.
Sign up for an account and you can post links to any story you want to profile, any time.
“House prices recorded another strong year in 2007, underpinned by significant economic momentum, ongoing housing shortages and strong buy-to-let demand. We forecast house price growth of 5-8% in December last year, and with two months left to go it looks like the middle to upper end of this range will be achieved. That being said, momentum is now fading, and a number of factors suggest that house price inflation will drop from its current rate of 9.7% to 0% by this time next year. The main reasons for this more subdued outlook lie on the demand side of the market, where a slowing economy, tighter credit conditions, stretched affordability for first-time buyers and lower house price expectations appear likely to reduce the level of activity. The supply-side of the market will still be characterised by widespread housing shortages, in spite of government targets to increase house building. These shortages will provide some offsetting support to prices amid the weaker demand environment, particularly in the south of the UK.
Fionnuala Earley, Nationwide's chief economist
Big FTSE news this morning as Land Developments PLC, Britain's biggest property company announces a 3 way split of its commercial property business. Currently this morning, the stock is trading down, but less than 1%
If you're like me and can't live without your daily hourly fix of London's Property Blog, sad news as R&M is experiencing technical difficulties this morning and expect to be back up shortly. Thanks for your patience on behalf of Rat and Mouse. We'll keep you posted
Update: Back up and running
Yale University economist Robert Shiller, co-developer of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, told Reuters Monday he believes the housing market's slide is by no means nearing its conclusion.
Shiller said not only are forecasts of a bottom in 2008 probably wrong, but 2008 could see a decline even worse than that of 2007: "There is a probability of a continuing decline for a period of years, bringing prices in many cities down in the 10s of percent, the bottom is hard to predict. I do not see it imminent and it could be five or 10 years too."
Shiller gained prominence with the bestseller Irrational Exuberance
"We have seen housing bubbles many times in history, but they have been much more local than this one," he said during the interview.
Shiller forecasts that the areas likely to be hardest hit by plummeting home values are those that saw the most precipitous ascents during the boom and those at the center of the subprime mortgage meltdown, with California and Florida well up on the list. The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices have seen eight consecutive months of negative annual returns for existing single-family homes through August. "Based on the futures market for the S&P Case-Shiller Composite Index, we are looking at home prices down another 5% in 2008," Shiller said.
[Judith Levy]
One of the hardest working women in the property business is now adding her voice to the blogsphere with the recent launch of The Blonde Property blog. A hearty congratulations to Louisa ... BTW let's do lunch ... soon ...
One happy customer!
Walid from Trusted Places was at the iPhone launch last weekend and posed for the Techcrunch cameras (:
Apparently TP have built an optimized version of its site for the iPhone at trustedplaces.com/iphone. For those of you who haven't yet discovered Trusted Places, (with or without the iPhone) it's one of the best places on the internet for honest to goodness reviews of restaurants, nightclubs, and places to visit in and around the UK. Not sure how TP rolled out their iPhone app so quickly, they must have gotten their hands on an unlocked iPhone somewhere, I mean I don't know, I'm just sayin' (;
Today is officially iPhone day in London and the queue has been building since last night at the Apple store on Regent Street. But before you rush out to join that queue, check this video parody by two BBC reporters and decide for yourself, is it really worth it?
UPDATE: iPhone not doing so well in Germany
Just got the update from the lovely Poppy Dinsey on the latest Zoomf redesign - the second for the year.
It looks - well colourful - and they've also added a visual search tool, which we haven't quite gotten the relevance of yet, but is apparently supposed to let users hunt for property by drawing a search area on the map. Zoomf is the only property site using this technology - according to Poppy - but if it's running on Google Maps, no doubt it's pretty simple to do and I'm sure the other sites will copy pretty quickly if it proves to be a hit.
The redesign looks wonderful, and the Zoomf engine comes packed with loads of information including video tutorials on relevant topics for property searchers. It also seems as though they've built their very own ad-platform (similar to Extate) with indigenous ads for Inside Track and Amazon running on nearly every page; as well as ads for local estate agents popping up now and again.
Still Zoomf is only searching London, while the other players (Extate/Nestoria) who started around the same time as them; have rapidly expanded to include search listings from other countries including Spain, France, Italy and South Africa.
In a press release containing "forward looking statements", OneMove claimed to be the UK's "fastest growing free property listing portal", with a network of 535 estate agents and "approximately 900 new customer leads."
The Canadian based company launched UK operations about a year ago and is publicly traded on the TSX in Toronto. Last week, they announced net losses of CDN$6.2 million for its Canadian operations and CDN$3.7 million in losses for its UK division. However OneMove claims to be capitalizing on opportunities within the UK property industry by building strategic partnerships and have apparently agreed "HIP distribution agreement" with MacDonald Dettwiler and Associated, another Canadian software company with major operations in the UK.
Competition for new smart-phones are heating up as Wall Street heavyweights battle it out. Google, Apple and eBay (via Skype) have all launched or are set to launch new phones which will definitely transform the way we - not only do business - but the way we live.
All three companies in varying degrees have been incredibly instrumental in the transformation of our lives. Google transformed the way we do business and the way we lived by (essentially) introducing search to the internet; Apple's biggest contribution is arguably the ipod, which has transformed the way we entertain ourselves and is transforming the music and entertainment business at incredible pace (big-up Radiohead!)
eBay and Skype have been instrumental in transforming the way we communicate with each other, by the introduction of a user-friendly VOIP system, and eBay has transformed the way we shop, making it easier to do business and make money on-line.
Now all three companies are yet about to transform our lives once again.
This coming friday, the iPhone, makes its European/UK debut although there are some restrictive issues regarding price and technology. Apparently current iPhone is only 2G; which didn't seem to matter much in the US, but we've been accustomed to 3G phones for quite some time in the UK. It's hard to imagine much broad based appeal or consumer up-take for the current iphone after the initial hype media blitz. Negative reviews are guaranteed to start trickling in about pages loading slowly; which is a big disappointment, given the iphone is such a beautiful piece of kit. Nevertheless, with all the storage space and long battery life, the phone is sure to make an impression with many people.
Next is the 3Skypephone, which offers UK consumers over 4,000 minutes of talk time and 10,000 free text messages per month. The downside of course is that these minutes and SMS are applicable to other Skype users only and "Skype-out" calls are not yet permitted of the Skypephone offered by 3. Also, it appears as though the Skypephone is not global and cannot be used in certain countries including the US. And 3 network is known to have dodgy reception in many areas in the UK outside London and other major metro areas.
Finally there's the g (google) phone, which is supposedly set to be launched next year. Personally, I think this to be the best of the three, certainly from a consumer standpoint. Not sure about the technology behind it, and Google is supposedly going to releasing information about the phone today. But with the Google OpenSource platform , I think it's ultimately worth the wait for this one. But either way, whatever choice you make, be prepared for a radical transformation in the way we do business , and the way we live our lives.
via Property Grunt:
Curbed.com, a popular real estate blog network with sites in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, has obtained $1.5 million in financing to expand into new cities and add staff members. According to Lockhart Steele, the network’s publisher, traffic is growing 10 percent a month and the site is drawing national advertisers.
