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New property website may restrict consumer choice

Whether you’re buying, selling or just keeping an eye on the market, you may like to know that there’s now a new major player in the property portal market. But does it offer a better deal for sellers?

The rapid growth in recent years of property portals, or websites, that provide listings of homes for sale and to let on behalf of agents, developers, auctioneers and occasionally private sellers, reflects the fact that we really are a nation obsessed with property.

For let’s be honest, many of us are preoccupied with our homes and particular how much they are worth. Just turn on the TV or pick up a newspaper on almost any given day and you will find a story about property prices or mortgages and how they are becoming easier or harder to obtain.
For let’s be honest, many of us are preoccupied with our homes and particular how much they are worth. Just turn on the TV or pick up a newspaper on almost any given day and you will find a story about property prices or mortgages and how they are becoming easier or harder to obtain.
Recent Google data found that ‘Rightmove’, the UK’s largest property portal, is a more popular search term than ‘One Direction’, with over 10 million visitors carrying out 200 million searches every month across in excess of 1 million properties. In fact, with around 95% of property searches now starting online, Rightmove is now among the UK’s busiest websites, based on page hits.

Duopoly

When it comes to the main portals, there have been two main players in the industry in the past few years – Rightmove.co.uk and Zoopla.co.uk – which between them listed the vast majority of on the market properties for sale and to let in this country. But things are changing.

With the New Year came the launch on 26th January 2015 of OnTheMarket.com, a major new UK property portal, which is now competing head-on with Rightmove and Zoopla, and with a good degree of success.

More and more agents are moving all their properties from other property websites, including Rightmove and Zoopla, to OnTheMarket.com, as part of the condition of listing properties on the new property website.

Restricted consumer choice

By preventing their member agents’ from listing homes on both the two leading portals, Rightmove and Zoopla, OnTheMarket.com is arguably restricting consumer choice and the potential market reach of the individuals trying to find buyers or tenants for their properties.
The main concern is that homeowners who want to sell their properties could miss out on potential buyers, as thousands of estate agents continue to stop listing homes on either Rightmove or Zoopla, which between them get 100 million hits a month.

OnTheMarket.com has been set up by a consortium of big-name estate agencies in an attempt to break the “duopoly” of the two big property portals.
PropTech founder Bethan Jenkins of Crowdlords.com said: “People trust Rightmove and Zoopla to just have all the property. People assume estate agents list on both.

“Would someone visiting Zoopla notice that 25-50% of the stock in their area has disappeared? Probably not. Not unless they read an article about it.”

New and exclusive properties

Instead of simply browsing the Rightmove and Zoopla websites to view the bulk of homes available, house-hunters will also now need to consider taking a look at the properties listed on OnTheMarket.com in order to get a comprehensive list of homes available for sale or to let, due in part to the introduction of OnTheMarket’s ‘early bird’ strategy.

Aside from artificially limiting choice, OnTheMarket is also promoting strategies that many consumers will, most likely, not be told about, yet could potentially damage their chances of a sale or let.

Many agents are being asked to list their properties exclusively OnTheMarket.com for the first 48 hours of properties being marketed.
However, some experts argue that those agents that use OnTheMarket’s ‘early bird’ facility are failing in their responsibility to vendors by not listing properties as quickly as possible to the widest possible audience.

“People searching for a home will simply miss out on the homes that are on the other portals, which obviously isn’t good for those people selling,” said Rayhan Rafiq-Omar of GetAgent.

No online agents allowed

Another challenge for house sellers and landlords looking to get their property to market is that OnTheMarket.com, aside from banning developers from listing on the website, does not permit online agency listings.

Building their brand

As part of a major push to increase visitors to their website, OnTheMarket.com has launched a multi-million pound marketing budget which will include sustained and heavy-weight TV advertising on the main terrestrial and digital channels. In addition, it is running in a high-profile press campaign in titles such as the Daily Telegraph, Times, Sunday Times, Daily Mail, Scotsman, Glasgow Herald and Western Mail as well as in key magazines such as Country Life, The London Magazine and Fabric. There will also be a very heavy digital display and pay-per-click campaign.

Watch this space!