OnTheMarket and new portal OneDome reveal extra services

Two 'challenger portals' have revealed major new services this morning as they fight to take on Rightmove and Zoopla.

OneDome, the new sales portal that says it aims to pay agents to list on it, has announced a partnership with the Mortgage Advice Bureau.

OneDome portal - set up the PropTech business of the same name - currently serves the South East only but will be rolled out to the entire UK by mid-2020.

Its business model states that if agents provide a live feed of their properties - as they do for Rightmove, for example - OneDome will in return offer a contract guaranteeing that it will not charge the agent for 100 years. Unlike other portals, it will share revenue from the cross-selling of additional services. 

One of those additional services appears to be in-house mortgage advice services from MAB. 

A statement from OneDome about the new partnership says: “Users will have the opportunity to do an end to end mortgage application from one of MAB’s 90-plus lenders on the same platform they use to search for properties and select their conveyancers.”

OneDome founder and chief executive Babek Ismayil says: “Mortgages are one of the key components within the property transaction and MAB is one of the strongest players in this industry with strong relationships with the estate agency market. 

“With this partnership, we can provide home buyers with a superior user experience on our platform, as well as providing greater visibility of mortgage application statuses to all key stakeholders involved in the transaction." 

MAB chief executive Peter Brodnicki adds: “The timing seems right to be at the start of something revolutionary in the property space. A first property search portal that is finally relevant for mortgage advisors is ground-breaking and we look forward to working with OneDome in a collaborative relationship going forward.” 

Meanwhile this morning OnTheMarket revealed that a new tool - its Market Appraisal Guide - is now available for agents to use when preparing appraisals for current and prospective new clients. 

As predicted by this article on Estate Agent Today some weeks ago, this represents a challenge to traditional Rightmove territory by OnTheMarket. 

OTM says that just as with the Best Price Guide currently available within Rightmove Plus, so its Market Appraisal Guide "enables its agents to access sold prices, comparable properties, local information and maps and create a report for vendors and landlords which carries their own branding."

The tool, which has been beta tested with some agents, is included with OTM agents' listing fees at no additional cost.

The OTM announcement this morning quite blatantly puts its tanks on Rightmove's lawn when it says: "The introduction of the Market Appraisal Guide is intended to help OnTheMarket agents reduce their reliance on Rightmove and other portals. By using it with vendors and landlords, they will be reinforcing OnTheMarket's brand and encouraging them to use the website, which in turn will help the agent-backed portal succeed."

OTM adds that it will, over the coming weeks, "progressively introduce a range of products which will aim to match the core agent products currently available from Rightmove."