I rate Neil, but not his business idea. Surely Right Move have the online estate agent business sorted?

Neil would surely be better suited to a business where face to face transactions would happen as that's his forte?

I would assume that was the competition he was speaking of. 10% of their 80 million is not a bad turnover. But I would of though LAS would be looking for something more unique.

Rightmove, Zoopla. Perhaps it is slightly different because he spoke about a single competitor. Maybe someone in the industry can tie up the £80 million figure before next week's episode.

Or episodes, depending whether it is mentioned on Monday's Final Five show.

Wonder if its some sort of "house swap" scheme, putting people in different parts of the country together? is there something like that?

Rightmove and Zoopla aren't estate agents. They are just property websites and they advertise on behalf of estate agents. They, in themselves, are not estate agents.

he may have been referring to 'Your Move' which i believe is an online based estate agent though it does have some offices too I think.

Didn't sound much like a ground breaking idea to me I have to say ....

Everyone here (almost) is rating Neil as the winner or at least the runner up and in the final. Lord Sugar is not impressed with his business idea, so why should he choose him. To give him some other business to run is hardly likely. What can he come up with at the interview? How well all the other estate agent/sites are doing. Has he any idea of what it costs even to set up such a site. Just by seeing him on the apprentice will every agent or house owner suddenly go to him. Selling houses is nothing like retail selling, and even the big boys the large agents when they go into an area they usually buy up some small agent rather than start themselves. Halifax went out of it, and if they cant do it, what makes him think that he can.

what if LS didnt like any of the business ideas......
he has to choose 1 right?

I've been wondering about that since early in this series, as the candidates just don't seem investable. But for all the sh!t they have to go through, I presume there is a contract for the money at the end of it - although there are always hidden strings in these shows. For example, I'm pretty sure he said he was going to drip feed Tom the money when he won two years ago, and there's been plenty of publicity about how James Caan fiddled his offers post show on Dragons Den.

With regards Neil's business plan, it kinda reminds me of the people who came into Dragons Den and asked for something like £1m to develop and market their new car; basically the dragons pointed out that the extant car companies regarded £1m as a rounding error so it was impossible to enter the market even with £10m. I think Neil will have an angle though, be it to do with locality, customer type, or whatever. And as a poster points out above, a small % of a large market can still be quite lucrative, particularly if you have the low overheads of a web based business.

'''''''' I think Neil will have an angle though, be it to do with locality, customer type, or whatever. And as a poster points out above, a small % of a large market can still be quite lucrative, particularly if you have the low overheads of a web based business.'''''''''

Even if he goes to high end of the property market where the most money is to be made, others are already there before him. As I wrote Halifax dropped out, most of the other estate agents are franchises, because there isnt really money to be made unless youre your own boss and work really hard. I cant see Neil doing this.

Online estate agents are ten-a-penny; there cannot be many agencies that do not have a web presence. Given that Neil has an established player making £80 million in his sights, presumably either it has a particular niche or is an aggregator like Zoopla or Rightmove. If Neil envisages yet another generic estate agency then his claim makes no real sense.

OT random observation: there used to be a company round here that took photographs for estate agents. Cameras in mobile phones killed it.

I think Neil's idea is brilliant.

This is 2001 isn't it?

Sugar is into property, in fact it is his most lucrative business. I wonder if Neil has thought of tying it up to his business plan and if so I wonder how.

Neil's business plan reminds me of Jim Eastwood's - something he thinks will curry favour with Sugar rather than something that he (Neil) is genuinely interested in.

There is nothing wrong with choosing something that Sugar is likely to go for. The things that were wrong with Jim's were firstly that he had made it so it completely revolved around Sugar, to the extent of calling it Amsmart, and secondly that it wasn't at all profit-driven.

If he has the right angle or niche it might work i.e students. Recently rented a flat and right move in particular was a nightmare because it wasn't updated anywhere near frequently enough and often didn't have an option to sort by hmo etc... The best website was way too underfunded to be useful.

Not sure how profitable it would be but it could work.

I would stay away from students personally, there is a company called Unipol who work throughout the UK in which Landlords can sign up to get tenants but they must meet certain criteria to be "approved" by the company. It works so well I can't see there being a need to compete also you'd struggle because Unipol has become so established and is trusted by most universities. I get where your coming from but I think student market would be fatal unless he's going for international students but then again that might be too niche.

Wish I'd known about it a few weeks ago

It's just the most obvious one that sprang to mind based on recent experience. Theres probably a lot more money to be made in higher end property but then if you were dealing with that kind of money would you want to go online?

There are some large developments of student flats in London so someone thinks there is money in it. One side effect of student loans is that students now have more money to spend than their parents who were on grants.

But I cannot see this sector fits Neil's description.

Sounds like he just decided what turnover figure he'd like, and calculated that 10% of the market would give him that, and stuck that in his business plan.

Just because a market is big, it doesn't mean there's 10% of it knocking around doing nothing to be hoovered up for easy money.

Frankly I just glaze over when they talk about plans involving property sales or property development - can they really add much knew to an already hyped/saturated market.

Couldn't we invent/create something useful for society that adds value - and is innovative/needed?

I knew it! I believe he'd definitely be in the final now, but for a crap business plan. LS likes him, that's obvious.

He would have made it with just one simple acknowledgment that his plan was flawed and he would adjust it. Lord Sucron would have forgiven him and made him the winner next week.

He's not that strong a contestant anyway. Relentless positive thinking and salesmanship are his strong points, but is that enough?

He'd give Sugar a lot less trouble than Luisa, but she's much more of an overall package.

I imagine Leah will nick it in the end. She's very competent and less of a headache than the 'alpha female' Luisa.

Without business plans, i'd still rate Neil behind the other two, in terms of overall strength -Leah overtook him in my book.

I agree. I think Luisa still carries a black mark for how she ousted Jason. Also LS is probably still smarting from the business with Stella English- the last thing he wants is another woman with the potential to be insubordinate.

I agree with you about Neil. I found his fanatical self-belief a bit disturbing. He's probably a more rounded person than this show portrays him, but even so, I like people to at least be able to entertain an amount of self-doubt.