OnTheMarket has confirmed to Estate Agent Today that it will be listing overseas properties "in the coming weeks".
Amongst the founding members of Agents' Mutual - OTM's parent company - the agencies Knight Frank, Savills and Chestertons have substantial international divisions with portfolios aimed primarily at high net worth individuals.
Knight Frank, for example, publishes PIRI - the Prime International Residential Index which it describes as "performance data for 100 of the world’s key luxury city and second-home markets ... recognised as the sector’s most comprehensive performance benchmark."
Savills' agency website lists well over 300 homes for sale in the Caribbean alone at prices up to £19m while it is marketing over 700 homes in Spain, where the firm recently celebrated 25 years of activity with a Madrid cocktail party for 200 guests.
There had been speculation within the industry that OnTheMarket was going to launch its international channel this week.
But a spokeswoman has told EAT: "We will be listing overseas properties in the coming weeks but there won't be any details yet on a specific time-frame". No other details of the international element of the portal have been released so far.
Meanwhile OnTheMarket announced over the weekend that in September it achieved 5.6m visits according to Google Analytics; this was up from 5.4m in August.
This traffic consisted of more than 2.7m unique visitors, compared to 2.5m in August.
Last month was also a record month for the number of leads delivered to agents, although the portal has not specified any figure for this.
Ian Springett, who has previouslty suggested that OTM would supplant Zoopla as the number two portal within a year of its launch, says: We believe it is only a matter of time before we overtake Zoopla as the number two portal in terms of available UK property listings."
Last week OTM described as a 'detractor' the online estate agency that claimed a number of multi-office agencies selling UK properties had left the portal.
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This is an astonishing development and I expect it will draw deep breaths of incredulity from the mass of Agents Mutual members who do not and never will have an international arm.
It is a disgrace that development time is being put into this. Knight Frank and Savills must be delighted!
And exactly as I predicted, the founders of Agents Mutual have got the ordinary members to pay for their second bite at the Primelocation cherry.
We can all now truly call it LocationPrime.com!
Shouldn't they focus on getting things right in this country first? Running before you can walk springs to mind!
I commend their ambition, but I think they've jumped the gun way too early on this.
Maybe, just maybe, they're doing better than you and the other experts on here seem to think, Rob. Have you thought of that?
@Steve Harwood - sorry, I didn't realise ambition was such a bad thing. Zoopla and Rightmove both have international arms. OTM - with aims to become the second biggest portal - should be doing the same.
Absolute nonsense. They have 5,300 members (and shrinking) and an international section benefits about 10 of them.
Complete joke and downright offensive for the other 5,280 (and shrinking)...
It feels like these are announcements designed to keep the name in the industry press. It' hardly a priority at ATM for OTM. I do commend their ambition but there's a massive amount to do with their UK property portal before moving into this.
Exactly right, Steven. Why is an international arm a priority at this stage? Build your reputation up a bit before you start getting ahead of yourselves.
It's a bit like easyProperty heralding the death of high-street agents despite having hardly any properties on its books. Unless you can back up your claims, don't make them. Simple.
I try not to attack OTM as i believe in it, i just dont like the way they have executed it.
However i do feel this is not the brightest of moves from them. Not many agents sell properties overseas. Why spend the money developing that part of the site for so little amount of agents?
Would the money not be better spent either on additional advertising or a back office system such as RM Plus?
I wonder if everyone is missing the point. Where does it say OTM will only accept International listings from UK agents? I imagine they are opening their doors to overseas agents as do RM and Z. They will attempt to pull in extra advertising revenue from overseas agents which, I would hope, they would then spend in driving up membership and viewing numbers.
“Diversification is protection against ignorance, it makes little sense for those who know what they’re doing.” Warren Buffett.
Looking at your directorship Jonathan seems like you have diversified into a number of areas, high street agent & online agent and sales & letting - What does that say?
“Diversification is protection against ignorance, it makes little sense for those who know what they’re doing.” Warren Buffett.
Interesting comments so far. Rightmove and Zoopla have diversified into International properties, but it is not fair to say they are ignorant. Sounds like generating additional revenue for onthemarket marketing, closing a gap on Rightmove and Zoopla features, and offering consumers more property are reasonable goals for onTheMarket. I have read and re-read this article, and have seen nothing on restrictions on property prices. To comment at this point that it is aimed at high end agents is inaccurate.
Shafted. This was never in the manifesto but now it's clear they had this planned all along. This is a complete deception.
Agent money is being used developing and promoting properties that we'll never benefit from. Knight Frank and Savills are laughing to bonus season now.
Even Ms Evans must realise that we have all been completely Tango'd by this.
Sorry Harry, but I would have thought it was bleeding obvious when you look at the Board, the CEO, their joint history together and the fact their recruitment events publicised the fact that even though it is a sham 'mutual' , 'by the way guys, we can sell it if enough of you vote to do so'...
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