Our Offer

With all the modern methods of communication, professional property advisors can easily recommend a multitude of services to property owners and home hunters (be they purchasers or tenants). 

One service, the first port of call for most property enquiries these days, is the property portal. Myhome.ie and daft.ie have a duopoly on this advertising revenue with the quiet acquiescence of estate agents.

Most agents, myself included, pay a combined €1k per month for packages with both portals, and we have to sit back and watch the monthly charges rise on a regular basis.

It need not be so. Are you willing to explore the opportunity to change this?

Fact 1: A number of attempts have been made to take on the big two providers. All made one or two basic mistakes and therefore have not succeeded. 

Fact 2: The market is big, profitable and worth chasing. Daft.ie and Myhome.ie both make profits of more than €5m p.a. each from estate agent’s fees, listings, and associated advertising. As recently reported in the Irish Times (Oct. 2021), Daft.ie paid a €15.37m dividend in 2021.

In short that is a lot of money taken out of Estate Agents pockets. If profit is to be made, let’s make it ourselves, or alternatively, we can reduce listing fees for agents, and thereby make substantial savings on the €12,000 p.a. which each of us spending on daft and myhome.

How do we go about it?

Step No.1.

A successful challenger Property Portal needs Estate Agent buy in. Without skin in the game, we as an industry have no interest in seeing another property portal, for which we have to pay advertising fees to.

With agent buy in the IEAS(Irish Estate Agent Services) Property Portal can become the market leader. 

How many agents do we need? As many as will join, is the simple answer, but we would hope that a minimum of 300/500 “shareholder Estate Agents” would be evangelists for the property portal. 

They will advertise on the portal (at a rate significantly below that charged by the incumbent portals and would encourage their property viewers to check it out as the first port of call when buying or renting. (One mechanism for encouraging this might well be that properties list first on our portal for 24/48 hours before appearing elsewhere.)

How do we proceed?

We will sell initial shares to interested Estate Agents at €1,000 per share. This will be for a 50% shareholding. One share only per Estate Agent, maintaining a co-op type feel. The minimum target is 300/500 estate agents who must be either a shareholder, a director or an employees in an Estate Agency practice. Everybody connected to the practice can buy a share.

Therefore, the initial shareholders of IEAS are practicing Estate Agents.

If we do not reach the above threshold, all funds will be returned. 

Obviously, there is no way to accurately judge the net worth of the venture. In 5 years, it could just as well make a profit of €5,000,000 and have a net worth of 10 to 20 times this, or be loss making, and liquidated.

The risk is miniscule. The commitment is not excessive, and the potential is HUGE. You decide if you want to be involved…

IEAS will be a company part owned by Estate Agents, providing a quality service to Estate Agents, and for the benefit of Estate Agents, and their clients / customers.  It will not ever sell leads to competing estate agents.

The opportunity exists to leverage our influence. Note: There are in excess of 5,000 estate agents registered in Ireland (source PSRA.ie 2021)

Prior to launching the portal, it is envisaged that a second tranche of shares will be placed on the market. The proceeds of this investment will be used to market the portal to the public. It will also set a new value on the project.

We would envisage that this shareholding will be at a 5 or 10 times premium on the initial estate agency shareholding.

We believe that these shares will be very attractive to investors, as with a significant estate agency buy in, the portal’s chance of making a substantial return on the investment is enhanced.

While we believe that we have a third party “Investor” interested in providing this funding, this shareholding can also be taken up by Estate Agents, who wish to increase their holding above their initial estate agent share.

All Portal Marketing will be competitively priced, and available for non-shareholding Estate Agents also.

The target is 20% income from estate agency listings, and 80% from advertisers. The second goal is that estate agents will earn far more from additional business referrals that they pay to advertise their client’s properties.

The Financial Pitch

To summarise, Cork and Dublin Builders Providers, started with nothing other than minor funding and a commitment from each of the founding members to source as much of their supplies as possible from the company. Years later, when sold, multiple millions of Euro was distributed to the small number of owners. 

Co-operatives were the coming together of businesses to provide services/marketing for members in various industries, especially farming. Examples of successful Irish “Co-ops” that transformed into PLC’s include: FBD Insurances, numerous farmers co-ops including Kerry Group, Glanbia/Avonmore, IAWS (Cuisine de France), etc. Closer to home Myhome.ie was a coming together of estate agency firms, and was sold for €50m, so in essence it was a “co-op” of estate agents.

All of the above made multi-million Euro pay-outs to their members, while providing much needed services for the same members and the general public. All this from services which the members were paying for and receiving from third parties anyway.

We as Estate Agents can do the same. 

As mentioned, it was done previously with MyHome.ie, and with the support of estate agents it can be repeated.