OnTheMarket is making its mark, Guardian Money has reported.
The paper said at the weekend that the new portal “is challenging the dominance of Rightmove and Zoopla – and it is Zoopla that is losing out most”.
Patrick Collinson’s report says: “Guardian Money this week tested the three sites, checking the number of properties they each list in various locations around the country, and found that the launch of OnTheMarket is already having a striking impact.
“For example, in Harrogate, Zoopla was this week listing only 138 properties compared with 343 on OnTheMarket and 529 on Rightmove.
“But in Exeter, OnTheMarket could only muster 171 properties compared with 719 for Zoopla and 726 for Rightmove.
“In some parts of the country OnTheMarket is virtually invisible, such as Bury in Greater Manchester, and Dundee, where we found it listing a tiny fraction of the properties available on the other sites.
“But in one location, Aberystwyth, OnTheMarket had more properties than either of the other two.
“Zoopla points out that sites may use different definitions of a town area, which will affect the listing numbers.”
The report continues: “Guardian Money also tested the total number of properties available on Zoopla before and after the launch of OnTheMarket.
“On 19 January, a week before the launch of its rival, Zoopla was listing 325,956 properties for sale in England. On 4 March it was listing 265,231, a fall of 19%.”
The report quotes both Alex Chesterman of Zoopla, and Ian Springett of OnTheMarket.
According to Chesterman: “Consumers should be outraged at OnTheMarket with its restrictive and regressive practices. Why would a seller be happy to exclude potential buyers? They will lose out as they will not get the best possible price for their property.
“It is why three out of four agents have decided not to go with OnTheMarket, and why there is three times as much inventory on Zoopla than OnTheMarket.”
But according to Springett: “The figures being quoted by Zoopla with regard to traffic levels at OnTheMarket.com are simply inaccurate.
“This is an attempt by Zoopla to intimidate agents who have chosen to remove all of their properties, and corresponding advertising expenditure, from them to list with OnTheMarket.
“We have also been told by many member agents that having removed their properties, it has become obvious just how many leads were previously duplicated, and that leaving Zoopla has had no impact on their business.
“Suggesting sellers may not get the highest price for their home because of less market exposure is a complete myth without any foundation.
“There is no getting away from the fact that Zoopla has suffered major losses in the numbers of agent customers they have, and the numbers of available properties they list.”
The Guardian report is here
Comments (55)
Sorry we still all talking about this????
I would think that all ( or at least the vast majority of) those really passionate about the cause have already taken a leap of faith and joined OTM and I wish them well. If AM is to kill the duopoly they need to get a lot more agents on board (statement of the bleeding obvious) but right now I cannot see what the incentive is or have I missed something? It’s not price, it’s not fair and transparent pricing which are the two things many of us complained about under the old regime. It’s not the usability or functionality of the website which is subjectively neither any better nor any worse so what is it that is going to make all the other agents get up one morning and say ‘I really must join OTM’?
Above, ‘Harree’ states “This year 36% of my buyer enquiries have come from Z and 27% of my sales and STC’s.”
Matey – that’s NOT something to sound proud of.
Guys and girls, the strategy is very clear. Get to number 2 portal as quickly as possible and then move on to Rightmove. Heres the news that may be a surprise to a handful of you….Rightmove was ALWAYS going to be the short term winner, i’m amazed that some could not foresee this. But let RM have their moment of enjoyment, for they know that as each day goes by OTM gets stronger and stronger, more agents with more listings come on board and the agent owned portal becomes ever more powerful.
For the life of me I do not understand how anyone know sees this as the wrong long term strategy. Keep up the good work Mr Springett!
If so say there were so many duplicate leads, and an agent didn’t notice the difference, then would it not make sense just to leave the one that charges the most from Rightmove / Zoopla? Clearly agents moan moan moan about Rightmove, but love them really. It’s nothing to do with business, just the usual agent ego.
When will the message get through? OTM was conceived to dislodge Rightmove. All it’s done is make RM stronger and the end result is a fruitless battle between OTM and Z. There will be only one winner here – Well done Rightmove – you’ve played your hand perfectly!
“When will the message get through? OTM was conceived to dislodge Rightmove.”…….Did you expect it to dislodge Rightmove in 6 weeks???….Come on!
Time will tell Wilko but let’s face it, Rightmove continue to sit very pretty!
Property Ear… RM played well by staying out of the No2 Portal debate… why bother?… they never did with Zoopla.
If RM have any real sense they will take note of Zoopla’s demise and accept that as agents made them and Zoopla stronger so agents can diminish/remove their magic portal wand!
Anyone out there in our industry who thinks that Rightmove is untouchable must have blinkers on… hey presto Zoopla… hanging by their fingertips… simply because estate agents moved their property stock to OnTheMarket.
OnTheMarket proved very quickly what is possible… note Zoopla squealing. RM will continue to protect Fortress Rightmove however the Trojan Horse is already parked in their portal and they will reap what they sow if they keep thinking they are bullet proof.
Rightmove are not bullet proof… Zoopla thought they were bullet proof… I and thousands of other agent agents are or will be with OnTheMarket for the long game.
6 weeks on and Zoopla’s Press Dept are in overdrive, Mr Chesterman has never been so animated!… and what’s this?… Zoopla are not talking about Rightmove, once again, as they still seek to maintain No2 to Rightmove?!… crazy!… no ambition as usual.
6 weeks on and OnTheMarket is working, Zoopla invisible in my business and No1 Portal position is all that interests me as I want just 1 Portal for my business… it’s all I, other agents, clients and consumers need. How many online shop windows does our industry need?… OnTheMarket provides exactly what is required, a property portal that is focused just on property!… not 3rd party services and revenue streams.
Talking to quite a few OTM members around the country suggests they’re very dissatisfied with the lack of leads and wish they’d stayed put. Very pleased we did. I’ll go down as seeing OTM bite the dust within 2 years. However much we argue, only time will tell. Whatever happens, it’s a very interesting debate!
Property Ear……are you happy that Zoopla sells 3rd party pop ups for financial services/mortgages next to your listings?
Do you seriously think they won’t look at that stuff when moving house anyway ? You think the just go with the quote from your mortgage guy?
Did you seriously think that OTM would be able to dislodge RM within 6 weeks?! Madness. I don’t think you get the strategy at all or have taken it in, which is surprising given your nickname. Zoopla first, then RM. The hardest job to achieve is the number 2 position, once that is done, No 1 is a forgone conclusion. However none of it is possible without the buy in of agents. Forget leads, hit rates, click throughs, SEO’s CEO’s or UFO’s, the agents will make or break OTM.
I disagree. It’s not OTM which have made RM stronger, it’s the AGENTS WHO KEPT USING RM that made them stronger. I’ve said it before, but the No 1 website will be the one we (ie agents) MAKE No 1. If agents are reluctant to make the switch, the status quo will continue, but in our part of the world RM are already the 3rd choice portal, simply because the majority of agents pulled their properties off RM on 1st Feb.
This is simple, most buyers look at all three portals, and if they don’t use OTM they definitely use Rightmove and Zoopla, buyers have no loyalty to either. Any agent worth his salt knows that you can operate with only one portal, the other is just flexing marketing muscle to show off to your clients. OTM is just helping agents take back control from the BIG 2. I couldn’t get hold of my Zoopla rep for a year before we decided to join OTM and then suddenly I couldn’t get him off the phone, he even visited the office. He even arranged my fee refund that i had been chasing for a year. Surprise Surprise. I hope OTM works because the American model is shocking, the portals used their revenue to buy up the Estate Agency software providers like Expert Agent and Encore and then those subscription prices crept up. It all eventually trickles down to the clients.
Ah, another trustworthy agent! Obviously telling the truth… “I couldn’t get hold of my Zoopla rep for a year”, that’s 365 days. You are talking rubbish.
“You are talking rubbish.”…Prove it, i’ve not seen a Zoopla rep for about 3 years nor a Rightmove rep since 2010.
TheLondonAgent “This is simple, most buyers look at all three portals” How do you know that? Are you quoting from a survey or is that just your opinion? Most could be 50.1% in theory.
Someone was asking earlier in response to my post if there were any zoopla fanatics still on here. As if by magic, having been silent on a host of other subjects, up they pop. It’s like someone has sent them an alert.
I have recently received a Zoopla Monthly report of leads, which actually makes pretty depressing reading.
In a nutshell, my properties received 172,000 page views during January….sounds impressive, until you drill down into the end results; a total of 21 sales leads, 3 market appraisal leads and 35 phone calls. This averages out, according to ZPG a 2.1 leads per property.
Of all those emails and phone calls came nothing constructive……the Market Appraisal leads were all nothing more than a waste of time, none of which actually resulted in confirmed appointments.
Of the 21 sales leads, these were made up of 15 different buyers who made a total of 3 viewings, none of which resulted in sales or offers.
The web portals spend huge amounts of time and millions of pounds telling buyers and sellers how many millions of visits/hits/page impressions they are generating, but these are nothing more than propaganda numbers designed to make their sites, in the view of buyers and sellers, indispensable. If we did not advertise on either of these sites our viewing rates would barely fall at all. The problem is that the average client believes the hype and expects certainly exposure on Rightmove because of this.
Zoopla quote as having 150 times more enquiries than Onthemarket. That is 8,700,000. Extrapolate this over a year equals 104,000,000 enquiries. I see no REAL improvement of the property market over that time, certainly not in terms of a proportionate increase in viewings/market appraisals/instructions, indicating that the true value of these “leads” is negligible.
At our current subscription rate of £430pm (although we have dumped ZPG), 2.1 enquiries per property, 35 properties=£5.89 per lead, each of which amounted to nothing. We are saving £130 per month by switching to OTM, and despite the comments that agents are doing this to “line their pockets” this money is being diverted to initiatives such as direct mailings. Putting this into perspective, we sent 244 direct mailers in January (interestingly enough at a cost of £134), resulting in 12 market appraisals, one of which resulted in a £1.29m instruction, paying us, on selling, a £16,000 fee! These are the sort of statistics that seem to get swept aside in the feeding frenzy of ZPG/OTM slanging matches. Essentially portals are seriously overstating the value of their leads, but in the real world they are an expensive business cost that returns virtually nothing to the paying client (us). In any other business if one paid for a service producing a return it would be expected to return more in £ than the cost of investment.
Additionally, ZPG keeps stating that OTM have only had 58,000 visits (or whatever measure they are using to support this figure). This is a new start business and is expected to grow exponentially over a period of time. Has anyone actually though of asking ZPG how many hits they achieved in their first month, and how many properties they had listed. I suspect they will say that info is not available!
I agree with you Andrew, these portals are only a route to market to find buyers. Buyers will come to you if you have the right properties at the right price, no matter how you advertise them. Portals do very little to provide potential sellers, it is up to us on the ground floor to go get them!
Andrew….”I have recently received a Zoopla Monthly report of leads, which actually makes pretty depressing reading.”……I’m not surprised with the amount of advertising that Zoopla AREN’T doing……OTM have just sent me the extensive list of 100’s of TV adverts for the coming weeks, Z don’t seem to be doing anything?
Brilliant post Andrew. Now let’s see the zoopla fanatics on here – you know who you are – pick their way through these FACTS.
“zoopla fanatics on here”…..are there any left?
Seem to talk about Zoopla a lot yourself wilko. 🙂
So, Andrew Richardson posts on his experience of Z and OTM agents take that as gospel for the experience of all Z agents? Wrong, because it’s not mine. This year 36% of my buyer enquiries have come from Z and 27% of my sales and STC’s. Being on Z is also a big instruction winner for us because we know exactly how to sell being on Z over OTM. Our biggest local competitor, an AM agent, is spitting feathers over the amount of new and existing instructions they are losing to us. They won’t be the biggest local agent for much longer.
Give it a rest Harree, you are a trier but seriously you’re now living in LaLa land.
1stTime……You are right….I especially like the latest way Zoopla “rent” space right next to your click through property details. Especially when the space is sold to HSBC who “flash” mortgage deals in a bid to draw buyers away from your sellers’ property and also take your FS business while they’re at it!….It’s Brilliant….I feel gutted I left Zoopla when I see things like that!
Having dumped Zoopla I list for 48 Hours initially exclusive with OnTheMarket and then feed to Rightmove. Frankly I can already see the enquiries/leads coming straight in from OTM as the public go there for the New Instructions first! The stats are healthy and I’m taking OTM phone enquiries, viewing enquiries and it is clear that dumping Zoopla made zero difference. More importantly I see the swing in initial enquiries when I list with OnTheMarket first so that confirms my audience are looking there as they see the New Instructions going live there first. I have promoted OTM in my local market and heavily in my local newspaper, full page ads, and I am now picking up New Instructions where clients like the fact that we have OTM as they are viewing the website, remembering the TV ads etc. So, 6 weeks in?… the positive response is crystal clear in respect of the OTM Portal. As has been said, RM have benefitted however I can see no reason why OTM cannot pass RM in terms of being the first Property Portal of choice… granted it won’t be easy, however the 48 Hour Exclusive OTM Listing demonstrates that the public will follow the New Instructions if directed.
Wasn’t it only a couple of weeks ago that Z were challenging the validity of search numbers…did you all miss this peachy comment “Zoopla points out that sites may use different definitions of a town area, which will affect the listing numbers.” If you have no stock to ad vertise from members, you have no presence! These are all based on Postcodes, nice try Zoopla…but I’m out!
Whichever camp you sit in one has to accept that OTM is having an affect. From my personal perspective I would say that it is more beneficial offering a sightly different look and proposition to Rightmove than Zoopla did, which means we can give clients something unique from two portals as opposed to two of the same.
What I would say trying to offer a balanced view here is that OTM needs to deal with the gaps and there are some in key areas. There are some major towns in the South especially where they need agents. I wouldnt adocate changing the one other portal rule, but I think the tact they should take is hitting the middle to higher market agents, who will definitely find themselves losing out not marketing alongside Knight Frank and Savills.
OTM needs to play to its strengths: in my mind; it is Primelocation with a make over, as such whilst its long term strategy of taking Rightmove is looking to be a tall order, it can easily become the ONLY other option an agent needs in terms of portal marketing.
I couldn’t agree with your comments anymore there. Prime Location were my thoughts exactly. OTM seems prominent in the more affluent towns and villages but in some of the larger towns/cities almost non existent. As a fence sitter, Im looking for the new Rightmove, not a new Prime Location.
@ Disillusioned “As a fence sitter, Im looking for the new Rightmove”…..I find this sort of comment really annoying…..Can’t you see – the only way you are gonna get the new Rightmove is by joining OTM and help to eventually get it to that level…….not by getting splinters in your backside whilst making comments like this! I bet you are the type of person that sits in the office saying a lot whilst other members of the team put in a shift, a sayer rather than a doer.
Jesus wept, one word against OTM on here and you get slated.
I just made as different decision to you Wilko. I only think OTM will be at best the second portal. Ill be glad if Im wrong and OTM succeeds but I just don’t see Agents pulling Rightmove.
No doubt you being a doer rather than just a mouthpiece, you will already have pulled it, or are you still waiting for everybody else?
OTM is currently strong enough to see of Zoopla in the not too distant….It is NOT currently strong enough to see off RM, and it won’t ever be if the likes of you are sitting there waiting for others to do it whilst not assisting yourself. If, as you say, and have said before, that you “hope OTM succeeds” then help it to succeed…..do your bit and it will make a difference and help it to achieve what YOU want. You strike me as a good professional agent that would really benefit long term from a strong, user owned medium.
Im not having a dig at you Wilko and I have no doubt OTM will see off Z as it seems clear that is already happening.
On the plus side for OTM , I think that when push comes to shove with Rightmove, there are plenty of fence sitters like myself who will quite happily ditch R for OTM, I just have some doubt that all OTM agents will ditch them.
Why would OTM members not drop RM when the time comes? That’s the whole point of the strategy, Zoopla first, then RM. With OTM holding 2nd position, the day will be agreed and all will turn off the lights on RM, leaving the corporates, on liners and stragglers begind and RM to change their model (if not already done by then). I don’t see everyone going that far and then deciding not to pull the plug on RM at the last minute. The majority, if not all fence sitters should have been converted at that point because that final switch over turns OTM in the No 1 portal at that point. So if anyone is fence sitting and says they will join when it is number 2, join now and make it number 2 and make it number 2 quicker.
I think we will have to agree to disagree on this one Paul.
Lets hope the fence sitters far outweigh the anti OTM brigade and it happens as you say.
When that final switch happens and Rightmove’s lights are about to be turned off, give me a nod, ill be on board and delighted to say I was wrong and you were right.
I’m not saying you are wrong and I am right, I’m just saying to make it work, it’s got to have the agents behind it. I’m not interested in short term wins or losses, it’s the end game that counts. I don’t agree that you need to be on both RM and Zoopla portals and I’m amazed that anyone really thinks they have to be. Why do you need to be on the number 1 and number 2 site? Pick the best and go with OTM and what have you lost?
I’m not interested in seeing off Zoopla Wilko, their charges are reasonable ,if everyone had pulled Rightmove it’s a different story . There’s no business advantage for me swapping the charges of a portal that has millions of people looking for one that doesn’t to save £100 ish over 5 branches . It’s nonsense
Thank God you are here Danny! I’ve taken a right battering on here today!
Early days isn’t it. I do really like the look of OTM but I only know about it because I’m an Agent – think I’ve seen the TV ad once so if my experience is typical who knows about it? If they want OTM in the No.2 spot I hope all members are going to fund their underwhelming marketing campaign!
As it is also estate agent owned it is imperative that member agents push the site as much as possible themselves. You’ll be aware BD_IndependentAgent of a good sized member agent in your city that seems to have forgotten it is a member so low profile is its marketing of its membership.
With respect, it’ll take a bit more than a few window cards in Agents windows to get any traction!! This is about SEO, digital marketing and brand awareness on a major scale.
It’s simpler than that, more agents need to join. No more, no less.
6 weeks in folks let’s all remember that…
Another article about property numbers , not about leads .. Sigh . I interviewed a guy last week who worked for an OTM .. And before I get jumped all over he wasn’t leaving because of OtM , I asked his opinion . He told me that they had had one lead for two branches . That’s an £800 lead , slightly more than my Zoopla leads currently . Bit of a way to go before I convert …
Hold on Danny, weren’t you the chap who in October claimed that an OTM rep told you that the marketing budget was only £3m per year for the first 5 years? Do you think he was telling porkies to win your business?
He told me me it was £15m over 5 years … Quite frankly I don’t believe a word that comes out do either camp, all I know is that I get leads from rm and Z and I’ve seen nothing so far that would make me think that OTM will get to second place …
Danny you say you have “seen nothing so far that would make me think that OTM will get to second place”…..surely you won’t unless you use it for yourself?
Quite frankly Wilko I would … If I could use it alongside my current internet providers …I’ll be honest my guys have taken instructions off others by using the fact that they aren’t on both Z and RM , quite happy to use another quality portal and I’ve nothing against OTM in general but I’ve grown this business over 25 years and I’ll be damned if anyone’s going to determine where I spend my hard earned …
I simply do not understand the addiction to a marketing strategy that is demonstrably, considerably less efficient than junk mail. Do the maths; 1.1 Billion unique enquiries (allegedly) per annum to sell 840,000 properties is as good as the numbers get- 0.08%. At best the portals are 1/5000th as efficient as junk mail. That is a very long way off the 1 sale per 50 applicants per week that a decent neg should manage. It is about time agency switched to sniper mode rather than machine gunning wildly at the entire world population in the forlorn hope of targeting a punter.
Robert , that’s like saying one of boards on a main trunk road gets viewed by 1.7 million motorists a month, if I only get one person ringing up about that house from the board should I just stop using them ?
The tide has now turnt in favour of OTM. All agents that have either Z or RM, have now realised that their business has not been affected by doing so. Even a city analyst has this weekend predicted that OTM will overtake Zoopla! Its all downhill for Z from here on in.
But surely everyone knows that you can buy in property feeds! This report says nothing about the success of Onthemarket. It is pretty pointless in fact.