OnTheMarket.com: Is it Worth the Gamble?

This week saw the launch of brand new, and some might say quite controversial property portal in the UK, called OnTheMarket.com.

This new property portal has been founded by a conglomerate of UK real estate agents in an attempt to break the duopoly of Rightmove and Zoopla. The agents involved include Savills, Knight Frank, Strutt & Parker, Chestertons, Douglas & Gordon and Glentree Estates. But using the site could be risky, for real estate agents who choose to sign up with OnTheMarket.com will have to drop all but one of the other portals they use. So is it worth the risk?

Gavin Brazg of house selling advisory site TheAdvisory.com isn’t yet sure and has put together an infographic showing the expected distribution of properties for sale through the two main real estate portals as well as the newly launched portal.

RightMove is by far the most established and best known property portal in the UK and has ten million visitors per month. The number of agents using this site is more than 16,000 and it has just under a quarter of a million properties on its site.  Zoopla is far newer as it was established in 2008 and receives five million visitors per month. This portal is used by over 13,000 agents and advertises more than half a million properties. The newest entrant, OnTheMarket.com has around 5,000 agents using its site and has less than a quarter of a million properties listed.

The infographic on TheAdvisory.com shows quite clearly the hold the two major portals have over the market at the moment, and question remains as to whether this new portal can gain anything like the number of visitors of its more established competitors. Real estate agents in the UK will have to think very carefully about whether to use this new portal, and which other major portal to drop.