Today marks the one-year anniversary of OnTheMarket.com, a property portal that promised to disrupt the UK property industry when it launched. The agent-owned site intended to break apart the perceived duopoly of Rightmove and Zoopla, citing agent frustrations at high costs and sparking a behind- the-scenes battle that will ultimately affect how easily people can buy or sell property.
Controversial restrictions
OnTheMarket's secret weapon was a contractual obligation for any clients to only list their properties on one other portal, thereby requiring them to remove listings from either Rightmove or Zoopla. This, in theory, would leave OnTheMarket's rivals with reduced portfolios and its own library offering the most comprehensive around.
The controversial move, combined with the decision to ban all online agencies from listing on the portal, has sparked a war of words between OnTheMarket and online agencies, as well as Zoopla, which OnTheMarket explicitly planned to replace as the UK's number two portal.
"Challenger brand"
Today, the site says it has "already cemented its position as one of the UK’s leading portals" and is a "major challenger brand".
The site has already got the support of 6,500 estate and letting agent offices - a 50 per cent increase on this time last year - and is now on its way to the next milestone of achieving support from 7,500 offices.
Following its launch, Zoopla saw agents signing up to OnTheMarket choose rival Rightmove instead, causing its number of clients to drop. A string of public disputes over the relative size of traffic received by each site followed.
Now, Ian Springett, Chief Executive of OnTheMarket.com, says that "there are many areas of the UK where we are already the number 2 portal in terms of available residential listings - and have been for a long time."
"In some areas, we just need one extra office: a testament to how far OnTheMarket.com has come," he adds.
Springett adds that the site is "on track to achieve a record number of leads supplied to agents" and also to achieve "record breaking levels of traffic".
Only last week, Paul Jarman, the Head of Western Residential at Savills, stated that the agency's lead levels were the same as a year ago when they stopped listing with Zoopla/PrimeLocation and that leads from OnTheMarket.com were of a better quality than those provided by Zoopla.
Today, meanwhile, Nottingham Estate Agency and Harrison Murray Estate Agency announced that they had joined the portal, calling it a "must-view website for the key audience of serious property-seekers".
"We have developed what we believe is a superior digital platform which has gained traction among consumers," continues Springett. "The traffic has been a healthy mix of new and returning visitors and we have received excellent feedback about the portal from both consumers and agents. It is also clean and simple to use and, importantly, is free from the advertising clutter on other portals.
"Furthermore, many of our agents are launching new listings exclusively at OnTheMarket.com first: typically 24 to 48 hours ahead of any other portal. This provides an extra and compelling reason for serious property-seekers to visit the portal and to return."
Zoopla's rebound
Zoopla, though, has seen its fortunes improve in recent months, with the company acquiring uSwitch last year to build a wider-reaching digital hub that serves both property hunters and owners.
The site says it "delivered record levels of appraisal leads to its agent members in 2015", up 42 per cent year-on-year, with instruction leads also up 25 per cent year-on-year in the first two weeks of 2016.
In recent weeks, it has welcomed what it says is a "record number" of agents leaving OnTheMarket to rejoin the portal.
Businesses such as Whitehornes in South Yorkshire, Coast in Scotland, Hamilton Bowyer in Yorkshire, Pritchards in Bath and Keller Williams, Salter Rex and Haus properties in London were named by Zoopla Property Group as returnees.
Andy Robinson at Whitehornes comments: "ZPG have been great in welcoming us back with a seamless transition. We have found the Zoopla team to be extremely passionate, enthusiastic and knowledgeable and the level of service and, most importantly, the quantity and quality of leads generated we have received since returning has been significantly greater than the competitor we have just left. We look forward to a long lasting professional relationship."
Analyst Peter Stephens, writing on Motley Fool this week, has also endorsed the company as one of five with "wide margins of safety" for investors.
"[Zoopla] was able to grow its bottom line by an impressive 29 per cent in the last financial year, with demand for housing remaining strong as a result of an improving UK economy," he wrote. "This trend looks set to continue."
Regardless of the number of agents on board, though, a portal depends on public awareness to survive, as house-hunters increasingly begin their property searches online. A small Twitter survey by TheMoveChannel.com this afternoon revealed that 62 per cent of respondents first used Rightmove to search for property, followed by Zoopla (23 per cent) and OnTheMarket (15 per cent).
Here to stay?
With the original talk of one portal beating another having died down, though, there are more measured assessments of OnTheMarket's impact upon the UK property industry emerging.
Savills says it is "extremely happy with what [OnTheMarket] has achieved since it launched"... but admits that there is "some way to go before [it] achieves its full potential".
Ben Gershon, Director of independent agency Frost Property, wrote in a testament that he has "no regrets leaving Zoopla" and that the move to OnTheMarket "has not cost me instructions".
"At the moment, Rightmove still provides the majority of our leads. However, the leads we receive from OnTheMarket.com are of very good quality. Of course I hope the level of leads from OnTheMarket.com continues to grow but the portal is still in its infancy and I think agents need to understand that there is a longer term objective when they sign-up to OnTheMarket.com. I understand there is still work to do but OnTheMarket.com has made good progress so far."
Ian Wilson, CEO of Property Franchise Group (the new trading name of Martin & Co), said earlier this month that his company has 274 offices on Rightmove, 118 on Zoopla and 96 on OnTheMarket, allowing him to compare them all. His conclusion? There is "no overall winner which is best in every location".
“In many places Rightmove generates leads at an attractive cost per lead, but so does Zoopla," he added. "When we have tested whether there is much cross- over with leads from Zoopla duplicated on Rightmove, we were astonished to find that cross-over was only around 5 per cent of leads.
"The implication of this is that if you are not advertising on Rightmove and Zoopla then in many locations you are depressing your lead flow."
"The poorest value portal currently is OTM with much higher cost per lead pretty much across the board," he added, "but this might be expected when the portal is in growth mode."
While Zoopla's outlook appears positive for 2016, Springett is still adamant that OnTheMarket is making significant headway.
"No one should be in any doubt that OnTheMarket.com is here to stay," he says.
"It is only a matter of time before we overtake Zoopla in terms of UK available residential listings. From this point we believe agent momentum will snowball."
The property portal battle, it seems, will continue for at least another year.
Where will you be searching for property this year?
Rightmove
Zoopla
OnTheMarket
pollcode.com free polls
UK, Industry Issues, properties in London