Portal Leaders' Debate - the invitations have gone out

The heads of Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket have been invited to take part in a ‘Portal Leaders Debate’ to discuss the future of the portal sector.

The invitation, from Estate Agent Today publisher Nat Daniels, has been extended to Miles Shipside, commercial director of Rightmove, Alex Chesterman, chief executive of Zoopla, and Ian Springett, chief executive of OnTheMarket/Agents’ Mutual.

The invitation says: “after the ‘heat’ of the debate leading to OnTheMarket, we hope this will be an opportunity to spread ‘light’ on what remains the major issue in the agency industry. We would like to bill this as an opportunity for each portal’s leader to explain how they see the sector developing and what their own portal brings to the industry.

“There would be an opportunity for each portal representative to question and debate with the others. At this stage we do not envisage that there would be audience questions, therefore allowing maximum concentrating on the portal leaders themselves to debate key issues”.

If the leaders agree, the debate will be staged in central London and would be recorded and posted on Estate Agent Today. 

EAT will report back on responses.

Meanwhile Zoopla has repeated its claim that, almost three months after launching, traffic to OnTheMarket “has actually been in decline for the last few weeks after peaking in mid-March.”

Zoopla spokesman Lawrence Hall says: “Far from closing in on market leaders Rightmove and Zoopla, despite the bold predictions from some associated with it, OTM traffic remains well behind the audience levels of PrimeLocation and other UK property websites including Spareroom or Holidaylettings.”