OnTheMarket’s performance for agents has been thrown under the spotlight after the Federation of Independent Agents (FIA) revealed just 18% of agents it canvassed had seen an increase in leads from the portal since it was bought by US property giant CoStar last year.

Graham Lock (main image, inset) Chief Executive of the FIA says a combined 82% said they’d seen no increase or had stayed the same, figures that were based on an online survey.

“This is a snapshot survey of course but it’s quite telling that agents are largely not seeing an increase in leads from OTM,” says Lock.

“This isn’t to say that they won’t in the future as more marketing dollars are spent by CoStar to ignite the portal in the eyes of the general public.”

Concept

Jack Wilson, director of Wilson Estate Agents, says: “The original concept behind On The Market (OTM) was a strong one – designed to challenge the dominance of Rightmove and its high fees.

“But it’s not estate agents who decide which portal prevails, but consumers. Rightmove has become synonymous with the UK housing market.

“While Zoopla and OTM offer similar experiences, their basic search functionality – filtering by price, number of rooms, and location – feels outdated.

“It doesn’t reflect how modern buyers really find their ideal property.

“When the property market is buoyant, reliance on portals like Rightmove diminishes, and OTM can serve its purpose for vendors.

But in tougher markets, efficiency becomes crucial, and Rightmove’s reach and tools deliver better results.
“This often makes alternatives feel insufficient from a business perspective, especially when trying to cut costs.”

Lock adds: “The portal landscape is clearly dominated by the ‘big three’ and where OTM ultimately fits in under their new ownership remains to be seen, they claim to be more than just a portal and I think that strategy is working for them in some respects but ultimately I think it’s clear that what agents really want from their portals are regular, good quality leads.”

A spokesperson for OTM said:

“OnTheMarket’s verified figures shows that we have over 16,500 advertisers and are delivering 43% more leads to our customers (H123 vs H124), whilst Rightmove reported a 10% decline in leads in the same period in their published half year results.

“We are the fastest growing agent-friendly property portal in the UK, with website traffic up 83% whilst Rightmove’s only increased by 1% in the same period.

“This ‘snap poll’ of a tiny sample of agents, some of whom are not OnTheMarket customers, does not represent the true picture of the growth in scale that we have achieved in a short space of time. We are continuing to invest heavily in sales and marketing and aim to be the number one UK portal.”