All change

As predicted here first, times are changing in our space. If you liken the online property industry to a game of chess then the first responsive move came recently from PropertyFinder with their purchase of Hotproperty, and a bold move it was, probably knight to C3.

Tescos have just reentered the game with Spiceerhart, but their move is more of a put your finger on a piece and not actually move it. The press release as reported in the Times doesn’t really say what is going to happen, but no doubt we will hear more in due course. They mention a virtual estate agent, will this be like SecondLife etc with avatars or do they mean a screen situated in a Tesco store? Avatars would be great and really push the market forward, but I fear it will be closer to the latter.

Stable partnersPrimelocation and FindaProperty are set to merge and adopt a sensible two space pawn move forward in the centre of board.

Rightmove have moved a pawn, but only one space forward and at edge of the board. Their £30 million offer reported in the April edition of the EAT begs a few questions. More to follow!

All good for the agent and I will continue to bang on about how agents need a good site, with good basic SEO structure to be able to harness the massive online opportunities that will develop over the coming year.

I was going to use poker analogies, but I can’t play for toffee at the moment!

See you all in the casino.