Affordable housing-focused portal trials accessible sales ads

A portal that has historically focused on affordable housing and accessible rental listings is trailing a move into sales.

MovingSoon, which provides affordable housing and shared ownership listings, has moved into retirement rentals in recent years, with filters for accessible features.

It has also been building its offering for sales in this area of the market, trialling its features with one agent and it is looking for more to take part.

Paul Malone, director at MovingSoon, said: “We've worked mainly with housing associations over the past eight years.

“In recent years, we have worked successfully with specialist letting agents too, mainly for retirement rentals helping them find new tenants quickly. 

“The agents who list with us also use us alongside other portals so we complement rather than compete with the other portals as we are targeting a different audience. 

“We filter out and only list their affordable properties so they target the right people on our website. We are looking to work with other agents on the back of the successes we've had so far.”

The portal is currently piloting sales at the moment for retirement developments at or under £300,000. 

Malone added: “These are generating leads which is great, so it is something we are looking to roll out for all homes for sale at or under the £300,000 price point. 

“We are actively looking for a few more agents to pilot with. It's a measured approach to see whether or not we can help them to find new buyers given that our focus prior to this has been affordable rentals and shared ownership.”

The listings can either be direct on MovingSoon or can go through to an agent’s website.

It comes as OnTheMarket became the first major portal to include ‘accessible’ search filters on its listings.