Revealed: Risk to Sellers from Estate Agents Leaving Top Property Portals

LONDON, March 16, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

A new survey of 1000 potential property buyers has backed up a pressure group's campaign to stop estate agents abandoning leading portals Rightmove and Zoopla.

The poll by online property guide http://www.SellingUp.com asked prospective buyers which of the main three portal websites they would use if house hunting today.

More than 20% said they would exclusively search on Rightmove - effectively meaning a property not listed there would miss out on at least one in five buyers. Around 7% opted for 'just Zoopla', compared with 2% for newcomer OnTheMarket.com.

The survey was launched following a campaign by the HomeOwners Alliance (HOA) which is concerned about thousands of estate agents quitting leading portals to join OnTheMarket.com.

Commenting on the survey, Paula Higgins, HOA Chief Executive said: "We monitor the market to help homeowners make the right decision and protect their hard earned cash. This research supports our unbiased advice we are giving to home sellers which at the moment is, if you want to optimise the number of potential buyers viewing your house, find an agent who uses both Rightmove and Zoopla. This may change as OnTheMarket gains traction."

OnTheMarket.com was launched in January by a group of estate agents and has recruited thousands of agency branches - mainly from Zoopla - with the promise of low property listing fees. In order to compete with its more established rivals, OnTheMarket.com requires agents to only be on one other portal.

OnTheMarket.com claims 90% of its 4,800 estate agent branches have switched from Zoopla, the UK's number two portal. Zoopla has not revealed any up-to-date figures but admitted in a recent financial statement that it had at least 2,600 fewer UK estate agent branches at the end of January than at the same time last year, and 500 more had handed their notice in. An estimated 260 have left market leader Rightmove.

SellingUp.com editor Oliver Lewis said: "We realise that many estate agents feel they need to leave either Rightmove or Zoopla, but sellers should be aware that if their properties are not on both of the big two portals they seem likely to get less exposure."

For details of the survey and full results visit: http://www.sellingup.com/property-portals-survey

SellingUp.com is a guide for property sellers, featuring practical advice, property market research, an online estate agent comparison tool and a blog.