OnTheMarket has announced that, as of Wednesday, it has signed listing agreements with estate and letting agents with more than 10,500 offices.
This increase of over 5,000 branches since admission to the stock exchange on February 9 represents growth of 91%.
Growth has continued over the summer, with the milestone of 10,000 offices being hit exactly one month ago, on July 24.
The company believes that it now has listing agreements with approximately 57% of UK residential estate and lettings agency branches. However, share prices in the company are still struggling to gain traction as it seems unable to impress the City.
Ian Springett, chief executive officer of OnTheMarket, said: “As our property stock continues to rise and traffic increases in response to our recent marketing push, we are receiving positive feedback from more and more agents across the country about the level of good quality leads we provide.
“Many agents are relatively small, family-run, independent businesses, which want to see greater value for money from portals, as well as a real choice for consumers when it comes to searching for property.
“As an agent-backed business, OnTheMarket’s strategy allows agents to benefit through fair, sustainable pricing and the ability to invest in, and benefit from, the success of their portal, while keeping agents at the heart of each transaction to leverage their local knowledge and expertise.”
The growth in OnTheMarket’s agency branch base to date has been predominantly from offering free listings under short-term introductory trial offers, with a view to converting these to full tariff contracts when the value of its offering has been demonstrated.
The sales team is said to be continuing to see encouragingly high levels of agent support and conversion to signed contracts when it presents the opportunity of listing on an agent-backed portal.
All the new recruits appear to be high street agents.
A spokesperson told EYE yesterday: “Our initial focus in building rapidly our agent customer base has been on traditional office-based agents who continue to represent the vast majority of the residential sales and lettings agency market.”
Shares in OnTheMarket fell by 7p yesterday to close at 143.5p.
However, according to one agent’s tweet, the battle may have only just begun:
Comments (49)
Rightmove dont give a cr** they need to be brought down by the agents which made them.
Agents need to get together and a start from scratch.
It only needs a basic listing site which is then promoted by the agents.
It needs a little bit more than that. Agents left alone to build something together will design a race horse but build a camel copter with guns and lasers and cold lager on tap. My CFP request for change file was artificially limited to 10,000 brilliant ideas and must haves.
Promoted by agents is a logical idea but agents don’t do it. OTM has shown us what happens, 25% of agents got properly behind OTM and for each one who joined and promoted OTM there was a rival to that firm pointing out the OTM agent was now only on 1 main portal. Agents are competing with each other so fiercly on a local level if one agent does , their competitor won’t.
Read Smile’s comment, he will punish his competition if they’re not on Rightmove.
Rightmove won’t be brought down by agents alone and shouldn’t be brought down by agents. Rightmove needs a strong competitor who manages to compete Rightmove’s ARPA down to costs plus normal profit so about £260 plus vat per month.
If Rightmove was charging you £260 plus VAT, would you be talking about taking them down? I doubt it
It really is pathetic that so many seem to think they must be on RM in order to win an instruction. With the right pitch any competent valuer should be able to win the instruction even if the firm has only its own website. It is about the total package of services that meet the specific needs of the client. Tick all their boxes and you win. And if they want to be seen on a particular portal a competent agent will have an explanation of why it is not necessary. (If you have to ask what that explanation is then I will beat you to the next instruction 🙂
You will lose more than you win NOT being on RM.
If the agent next door to me was not on RM i would use that against him and say he cannot afford it do you want that agent selling your house?
Its not RM that wins or sells the property, its the other agents using it against you NOT being on it.
So can we all assume that you no longer advertise on onthemarket Smile please?
And if not then are you in breach of contract ?
The growth in agent numbers is impressive but at some point OTM need to hit the marketing button. If they can drive eyeballs and thus business then good luck to them . Rightmove have used a dominant position to get the fees from agents but they also are the portal that works. It will be fascinating to see what Zoopla do when they rejoin the battle, they are by far the most innovative organisation as their diversification strategy is bold.
OTM, get on with your marketing.
I agree that there is a danger of creating the illusion of having to be on 3 Property Portals so let’s just keep that in mind in our decision making otherwise we are in danger of creating a multiple monster.
My comments remain the same. I am historically noted in detail here and elsewhere heavily supporting OTM V1 and my Vocal & Other Dislike of the whole V2 motion/strategy.
The warning signs on OTM V2 are already bubbling to the surface and the obsession trumpeting another round of numbers with the continual referral back to the “tipping point”.
The OTM Brand (still anonymous!) and Portal Visitor Hits paint a less positive picture, in my humble opinion – still as a Day 1 Gold Member, the OTM Brand is NOT being driven hard enough. Again we have Mr Springett and Co at the helm of V2 and again we have a relaunched Brand that remains relatively anonymous? If they (OTM) cannot capitalise on their Free Membership Drive now with a relaunched All New? Not Singing and certainly Not Dancing OTM Brand ….what then does the future hold?
We left the Monkeys in Charge last time and we got peanuts so forgive me if the Warning Signs seem to indicate that we better dust off the Peanut Bowl again!
It’s incredible that the OTM Head DJ thinks spinning the same “growing numbers” record will work again this time.
As I’m still a paying OTM Member, perhaps someone from the OTM Ivory Towers can explain what they are actually doing to drive this brand? At times I think they can’t see through their perception of how well they think it is all going versus what we see from the property selling streets/pavements across the UK.
I remain aggrieved at the debacle that was OTM V1 however that doesn’t stop me Viewing real/positive progress with OTM V2 …..and then acknowledging “Well, they got it right 2nd time around”. So far, I think I stand a better chance of standing in the Queue at Starbucks and turning around to see a Dinosaur tapping away on his/her iPhone!
Its all getting a bit tedious.
It is what it is.
RM is king, nothing will change, accept it. We had our chance, between the greed of directors and untrusting nature of estate agents version 1 OTM was a car crash.
Zoopla – It’s pointless but does help you win instructions if you say you are multiple portals.
OTM – Worst of the bunch desperately trying to be zoopla in the hope they could then one day become RM (given zoopla have not come close in a decade VERY doubtful). BUT while they are giving away free subscriptions, why not? allows you to look more impressive on valuations saying you are on three portals (for all the good it does!).
And that pretty much sums it up. nothing will change over the next few years from the above. Feel free to dislike, you are just kidding yourselves if you think any different.
OTM Brand Awareness in Scotland? …and across the UK? …..I’m not seeing it.
More chance of seeing a Dinosaur!
Here’s a Freebie Ian (Springett) ….either start sponsoring Dinosaurs so the public notice them as they walk by.
….or perhaps offer all your OTM Members Unique “OTM” Branded For Sale Boards – so, the Estate Agent still has their Unique Brand printed on their board however perhaps you have that eyecatching bullseye/logo projecting from the Top!
As you are still giving away Free Memberships whilst I’m still paying, I’ll give you a Free idea! High Street Branch Logo’ing is all very well however having your brand dotted about outside all the properties that your Members have For Sale must surely have an impact.
….or, is it still the usual old OTM? ….mind your own business folks, we know what we’re doing – when in fact that translates to we’re doing it our way! ….like OTM V1?
Come on Mr Springett and Co ….do something to drive the brand!!! Don’t just sit there and regurgitate numbers every time you add another 100 Members!
Unique “OTM” Branded For Sale Boards
Brilliant idea….they could even do stickers to add to existing boards or a spinner on a stick to shove down the board core (as long as board area regs are not breached).
However when does anyone ever listen to good ideas from agents?
If I was an agent, I may hate RightMove.
As a landlord, I will always choose an agent on RightMove to rent my properties, as just saving one day in finding a tenant is worthwhile, and agents who are not on Rightmove don’t give large enough discount in exchange for limited marketing.
If agents are not careful, they will have created the requirements to be on 3 sites instead of two, so as to get customers like me…..
I have just gone to the core package with Rightmove who I have been with for seven years as they wanted to increase my subscription by 11.5%. I have emailed Jason Bushby the commercial director at Rightmove but with no response as yet. Everybody I believe will have a different view depending on location, I have not used Zoopla for 2 years now as they never delivered quality leads, so core package Rightmove and meeting OTM next Thursday to see what they have to say. I believe there will be a sea change in the next 6-18 of attitude towards Rightmove from agents but it will need a collective effort. For the record just a small one branch independent doing sales and letting in south Leeds.
OTM need a unique proposition to get people talking about them more, building public awareness. There are plenty of ideas out there, but are OTM looking into any of them properly?
I will still never understand why the agent branch number building exercise, they are currently on, didn’t start from the first time they launched or before they IPO’d.
People who use onthemarket need to start using “new and exclusive…”
On the market need to be training there agents in this – in my view that is the USP. The only one.
I read a lot of the comments and opinions here regarding the news stories about the portals, and very few of you seem to realise the numbers that you should be talking about is eyeballs… or to put it another way website traffic.
Rightmove – 66.2m visits.
Zoopla – 29.3m visits.
OTM – 9.56m visits.
Figs for the last 6 months, estimated … from Similarweb.com
Sure it’s about conversions and a whole load of other metrics as well, but this is the main reason Rightmove is the leader…. they have more eyeballs! More potential buyers are looking there than anywhere else.
(and no, I have no connection to Rightmove)
I think you will find RM visits include the thousands of EA staff who are registered for alerts and click into the site several times every day – I know of at least 3 Negs that access RM via Google every time!
The revised RMplus is awkward to navigate which means even more visits to the standard site for anything other than comparables.
The thing to measure is the number of genuine leads received from each portal. A proportion of leads from RM are from sols/surveyors etc who use it to phone agents to progress sales/book surveys or try and sell something.
On that basis the onthemarket shares should be worth a lot more than they currently are….10 million that’s amazing!
Zoopla and rightmove do not want OTM to be successful – that’s why there vitriolic reps are touring the country putting down poison about OTM.
Maybe I’m single minded, but I really don’t understand why any agent in the country wouldn’t want onthemarket to be successful…
so if I set up a web site and offer free advertising would everyone sign up?
Nope
not without a big advertising budget and technical back up
Then
I would need to charge
But
how much and how long would clients remain on my site if it wasn’t consistently generating leads.
Now
I think I’ll need to charge
And
I think RM & Z have a huge head start
So
If I don’t get over 50% of all the agents in the first 12 months and if I spend more than RM & Z on marketing and advertising for the following 24 months
Then
I’m Fudged !
A good test for Agents before signing with OnTheMarket might be to see what the effect is of dropping Zoopla is on their business over the course of say 6 months. If this doesn’t put potential customers off then it might be worth supporting OnTheMarket and dropping Zoopla. The risk would be that the more affluent Agents sign up with OnTheMarket and start advertising that they are with all 3 major portals and then it may start to affect your business.
I now think the most likely outcome of supporting OnTheMarket is that the brand will become recognised and that Agents will end up paying for Rightmove, Zoopla & OnTheMarket.
Drop Zoopla? Do you not like the colour of their branding or something?
I completely agree, I’ve said it from day one back in January a few years ago, that I think all that will happen is you will end up on all 3 and an extra expense.
We are already seeing some of the bigger players joining all three to give themselves an edge in our area, although as OTM hasn’t yet got the customer awareness the other two have, it’s not yet become an issue or essential for others to join too, how long that lasts though I don’t know.
Absolutely.
Some agents clearly rate Zoopla. I don’t.
Some agents struggle to admit they aren’t on all three. Does being on all three really improve you chances on a pitch?
Have yet to see any advertising from OTM that would make me believe that they can succeed. it’s bad enough paying for 2 portals let alone 3.
You’ve seen advertising, wow. Have you a photo of this? Must be one of the rare ones to see any.
We get most of our leads from Zoopla, next to nothing from Rightmove and OTM are even worse. We don’t need two Portals, let alone three, especially when Agents are struggling for instructions. The fees that Rightmove demand are far more than their leads merit, i feel they are a “necessary evil” for us and they are really taking us all for fools.
what area do you cover?
Surely it’s time Rightmove has to listen to the people who keep their company in the luxury they now expect. They are a ridiculous cash cow business who is just out to screw everyone and doesn’t care about it’s clients in the least.They must have the worst reputation in the business
Rightmove dont give a cr** they need to be brought down by the agents which made them.
Agents need to get together and a start from scratch.
It only need a basic listing site which is then promoted by the agents.
I think most agents feel the same –
Rightmove, with its 76% profit margin, now talking about price increases, are just taking the Mickey.
Zoopla is simply money down the drain – next to no enquiries come through this portal and generally the standard of these enquiries are terrible. I did some research and one of my local towns has nothing on Zoopla above £300,000
OnTheMarket has really gained traction this year, particularly at the upper end of the market. Month on month we generally get as many leads, if not more leads than Rightmove and certainly considerably more than Zoopla – the quality of these leads generally turns into viewings too.
If you look at the share prices of all three from an estate agency perspective, onthemarket makes very good buy!
Apart from this being a thinly veiled post from an OTM employee, it’s also full of the kinds of mistruths that people selling a divisive and free product against superior ones love to pedal.
Which town does Zoopla not deliver any leads, nor have any properties over £300k?
OTM has gained traction by giving it away. I could give away my miracle hair loss solution to hippies and claim it works.
Looking forward to your response.
Followed by a thinly veiled post from a ZPG employee.
It isn’t thinly veiled. Digital Expert is thinly veiled ZPG in the same way Danny la Rue is a thinly veiled bloke
Troll. Very clever. Keep trying to convince people I am an employee of onthemarket – completely delusional. I have a very successful agency in Yorkshire. What exactly is it that you do, digital expert?
The town I looked at is Pickering in North Yorkshire. Cundalls – a particular good local agent have just rejoined Zoopla in the last week. If you take away their listings, you will see there is basically nothing over £320,000. Malton, a large conurbation is a similar story. As York, a large city isn’t much better.
If you look at the number of agents on Zoopla compared to onthemarket it is basically just Hunters.
Looking forward to your reply.
Zoopla > House prices > North Yorkshire > Pickering property prices – Average price paid £214,763. Could this be something to do with your search Jonny? Just trying to be helpful.
Ultimately, you need to do what is right for your business, whatever combination of portals that is, and works for you. I expect this varies quite a lot from area to area.
Figures from Alexa.com for traffic to the website:
Rightmove ranked 44
Zoopla ranked 98
OTM ranked 464
I simply cannot believe OTM is getting you more nor better quality leads when their user traffic pales in comparison. I’m not saying it doesn’t represent good value for money but I don’t believe your anecdotal post when the figures suggest very much otherwise.
RM used to be ranked in the top 10 – now at the same level as dailymail.co.uk and bt.com.
Their lead quality has definitely deteriorated in recent years.
Z were always poor. Their ranking seems generous.
OTM has room for improvement. They need to raise awareness of the brand.
I have paid the basic Rightmove subscription for over 13 years, I steadfastly resisted all the bells & whistles options. Sadly my fellow agents didn’t, fuelling Rightmove, so they financially befriended the enemy and now moan about the outcome
Zoopla are on overdrive just now trying to re-recruit my company, meanwhile OTM are already showing the previous signs of faltering, resorting to bluster on numbers. Circa 5000 V2 new branches is simply NOT good in 7 months with a Free Giveway strategy!
Again, Mr Springett, OTM, The Millionaires-in-Waiting Club, GET ON WITH IT! DELIVER OR STEP ASIDE!
I’m still not sure about OTM, and whether it will ever be number two let alone number one or whether it will just become a 3rd portal and another expense.
That being said, Rightmove are a joke, completely lost touch with the people that give them a business.
After they tried to up my spend another £190, at the time already spending £1750 a month on the optimiser package, I’ve told them where to go and reduced my spend to the bare minimum. They’ve been hounding me since trying to get me to spend more and ‘repair the relationship’.
I think every agent should do the same, show them who is actually in control. That way you’re not doing your sellers injustice but reminding RM that without our data and without our hard work, they don’t have a business. Maybe they’ll then get the message and get their heads out their a*se. Just a thought and only my opinion.
Rightmove need to be taken down. The beast is out of control.
All stock needs to go onto OTM whilst a non profit making agent owned portal is formed by agents who elect the board.
There is now such resentment towards Rightmove from the very hand that feeds them that OTM might now have a genuine chance to succeed and become a cheaper more viable option.
Agents should start promoting OTM more and cease selling Rightmove to our customers?
Totally agree.
Okay Mr Springett
I sense the Hot-Air Department is swinging into action
You’re stuttering at circa 10,000 so time to get on with the serious work
You and your fellow Millionaires-in-Waiting pushed us down this V2 path so get on with it!
Stop the bluster Mr Springett!
We heard the numbers game on V1 and you spectacularly failed to deliver in your bluster. V2 is now stalling with its Free Giveaway!
Get on with it and deliver!!
As i have said before, it will be interesting to see how many agents remain once the free period ends. Public awareness of the brand still remains the key issue. I have not had one vendor acknowledge that they have heard of them.
Not sure why the dislikes, i am not slagging off OTM just merely stating they lack public awareness. This is the key reason why we all remain with RM as everyone has heard of them and uses the site.
Who is sad enough to ‘dislike’ this? The only time I ever hear anything about OTM is on this page. Not on TV, no billboards, no radio, no-one I know who isn’t an agent knows what it is. OTM really need to address it.
The reps and blinded members disliking it, Its a very valid point.
Agreed
A policy of no more income and no more advertising has at least led to an environment where there will be more disappointment from members.
Nobody has heard of this site outside of the agency world.
Its in the hands of the agents to promote it, if they want to keep their overheads low.
Its all about property stock. If more stock is on OTM only then can it become strong.
If agents dont want to be shafted every month and pay few thousand to Rightmove and Zoopla then they need to back OTM.
The dislikes are a little odd. No reason for it.