OnTheMarket has this morning posted its latest results to the stock market.
The portal reports that 2,346 branches had converted to full-paying contracts as of September 30, paying an average of £288 per month. Some 42% of agents are under long-term contracts of three or five years.
However, as announced in September, after take up of long-term contracts at a rate lower than expected, the portal has introduced shorter, lower-cost contracts, a move which has 'accelerated' sign-ups. These members are typically paying £203 per month.
The group's revenue of £8 million was up 14% on the same period last year, however it reports an operating loss of £7.2 million, up from £5.7 million.
Costs for the portal were also on the rise by 23%, climbing to £14.8 million.
OnTheMarket's total number of offices was 12,622 as of September 30 2019, a figure which reflects recruitment of new agents and offsets the removal of agents on free trials which expired.
The portal reports recrord traffic figures for September, with 27.2 million visits. It says prompted awareness of its brand is up to 50% from 27% in June 2018.
When it comes to listings, the portal reports 641,672 at the end of September. This figure represents approximately 85% of Zoopla's and 64% of Rightmove's inventory.
Its monthly average leads per UK residential property advertiser rose to 112 in September. Meanwhile, Rightmove's fell to 168 in H1 2019, while it says Zoopla's last reported equivalent figure was 90 in H1 2018.
The trading statement also included an update on the litigation between Agents' Mutual, OnTheMarket's parent company, and Gascoigne Halman, part of Connells Group.
Agents' Mutual received a further payment of £1.1 million following the judgement made in its favour over the 'one other portal only' dispute.
"Our recent guidance indicated that agents had not committed to full-tariff, long-term paying contracts at the pace expected, however they have responded positively to the changes to our offering," says Ian Springett, OnTheMarket chief executive officer.
"We have recently supplemented our offering to agents with the introduction of lower-priced, short-term offers, with the aim of maximising the number of paying agents and migrating all to full-tariff contracts progressively. Take-up of these short-term offers has led to an encouraging acceleration in the rate at which agents are converting onto paying contracts."
"The continued strong growth in the operational performance of the OnTheMarket.com portal provides encouragement for the future. We have delivered another set of record-breaking traffic and leads results for our estate and letting agent shareholders and customers," he says.
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I have been on the market since they started, they do now deliver good leads and it’s clear that myself and other agents are fed up seeing the high debits coming out of our accounts to Rightmove , most likely double or triple that of Zoopla, could we see a collective movement on Rightmove interesting times ahead.
Good work
Yes I agree.....remember 20 yrs ago when I started R/M was nothing really......perhaps in another 5 yrs agents will, for the first time, seriously consider dumping R/M as the public will have caught up with OTM, after all the website is perfectly usable.
Kyle Cockburn, we have also been with OTM since launch and have recently quit Rightmove and re-joined Zoopla, I can say I have gained a substantial amount of new business and saved a load on fees, we have reduced our customer fees to be more competitive, lots of Letting agents have and are continuing to leave RM its proven that for lettings they don't need them, I have spoken to a number of sales agents who have also left RM and they have proven that they don't need them, that was the deciding factor for me, in the last week leading up to me leaving RM contacted me numerous times offering a ridiculous reduced fee and have continued to contact me since I left, its great to feel the power balance has changed they do sound a bit desperate.
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