New national portal just for lettings begins onboarding agents

A tech company based in Telford is preparing to officially launch a national portal just for lettings to rival the ‘tagged on’ offering from the major portals.

Lettings4U has been under development since last October but is now onboarding its first estate agencies, telling The Neg that for too long agents, tenants and landlords have been under-served by portals such as Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket.

They would contest that claim, but Lettings4U co-founder Steven Galbraith says they the new portal’s aims have been warmly welcomed by the industry so far.

The founders, who all hail from the West Midlands, say their new portal is geared up to provide search criterial and other features are geared up for rental properties.

“This includes things like ‘can I have pet’ or ‘can I decorate’ and ‘does the property have parking’,” says Galbraith.

October launch

Lettings4U is planning to go live to the public officially this October and says it has several unique selling points for home hunters including a ‘digital moving inbox’ of exclusive offers from Sky, Wilcos, Pickfords, HelloFresh and AnyTimeFitness.

But portal is similar to its rivals in that member of the public will use it for free and revenues will come from subscriptions paid by lettings agents, albeit ‘significantly cheaper’ than its sales and lettings portal rivals.

“We feel this is the right time as the private rental market becomes larger and larger as it becomes more difficult to get onto the property ladder,” says Galbraith.

The platform, which is self-funded, is also offering agents a tenant vetting service including financial, affordability and reference checks.

“This will save agents time because they can show properties to prospective tenants who won’t later fail referencing and be a waste of time,” adds Galbraith.

Founder agents include Maguire Jackson in Birmingham and Dourish and Day in Staffordshire.