OnTheMarket (OTM) has signed its first NEW significant agency group following its decision in August to float on the London Stock Exchange AIM market and demutualise.

Arun Estates, which encompasses four agent brands and over 100 branches across the South East of England, has signed a five-year listing with the portal.

Under the agreement, Arun Estates will advertise all its UK residential sales and letting properties on OnTheMarket.com, and has committed to “actively promote” the portal in its branches.

Arun Estates’ best-known grand, Ward & Partners, already lists with both Rightmove and the ZPG portals.

“It is a powerful boost to OnTheMarket that Arun Estates is committing to list its properties for five years at OnTheMarket.com,” says OTM Chief Executive Ian Springett (pictured, left)

“Arun Estates is undoubtedly one of the leading, most successful agent groups in the regions where it operates and its support will substantially strengthen our position in the market.”

Arun Estates, which includes Ward & Partners, Cubitt & West, Douglass Allen and Pittis (on the Isle of Wight), was born out of the sale by Prudential Insurance of its national estate agency business during the early 1980s.

Arun Estates has also been busy on other fronts recently, leading a campaign to question the business model and marketing techniques of online agents, and has been instrumental in several recent successful – and unsuccessful – complaints made to the Advertising Standards Authority about Purplebricks.

“I believe that both agents and the property-seeking public will benefit from greater competition in the portal space and that a strongly funded agent-backed model is the most effective way to achieve it,” says David Lench, Managing Director of Arun Estates Group (pictured, right).

“I am delighted to declare the support of Arun Estates for OnTheMarket and to announce our strategic partnership commitment.”