Portal Wars: Zoopla names returning agents as OTM tes...

Both Zoopla and OnTheMarket have ramped up their long-standing rivalry.

As we reported yesterday afternoon, Zoopla has revealed what it calls a “record number” of agents to have rejoined from OTM.

They include Whitehornes in south Yorkshire, Coast in Scotland, Hamilton Bowyer in Yorkshire and Pritchards in Bath. London agents returning to Zoopla include Keller Williams, Salter Rex and Haus Properties.

Late last year Keller Williams, in an interview with Estate Agent Today, defended OTM claiming it was doing "an excellent job."

Zoopla describes this latest batch as a “record number” of returning agents, coming just a few days before the first anniversary of the launch of OnTheMarket on January 26.

This is in addition to other agents who, says Zoopla, returned some time ago.

Zoopla Property Group also says it delivered record levels of appraisal leads to its agent members in 2015, up 42 per cent year-on-year. The first two weeks of 2016 has seen the leads generated across ZPG increase a further 25 per cent on the same period last year.

“Vendors and landlords are increasingly using our websites to identify and select local agents. Though our unique products we help our members win more business and in the last two weeks alone have delivered instruction leads worth over £10m in potential fees to our member agents” says ZPG spokesman Lawrence Hall.

“Any agent who is not a member of ZPG is clearly missing out on valuable instruction leads which is no doubt why we are seeing many members return and we look forward to welcoming many more back in the coming weeks and months" he says.

Meanwhile OnTheMarket has continued with its series of testimonials from directors.

The latest - from Paul Jarman of Savills, released yesterday morning - says “there is some way to go before OnTheMarket achieves its full potential” but also claims that in the past year Savills has received as many leads from OTM as from Zoopla, but of a better quality.

“After just a year, it’s very encouraging to see that OnTheMarket has already become firmly established in the top three portals.There is little doubt the business benefits from being 100 per cent owned and controlled by full-service estate and letting agents, and no one should under-estimate the determination of these agents to make the venture a success” Jarman adds.

Rob Davies
21 January 2016 11:17 AM

Yes, I think this is an important point. It's not going to be the big agents who came up with the idea in the first place who will suffer from this but all the smaller, in some cases one or two branch offices who can't afford to lose out on the leads generated by Rightmove and Zoopla while they wait for OTM to get things together.