ZPG has today claimed that 808 branches have returned to its portals over the past two years from rival OnTheMarket.com since Agents Mutual launched it in 2015.

And ZPG senior figure Mark Goddard (pictured, left), who heads up its Property Services division, has gone on the attack, saying that agents who spend their marketing budgets on OnTheMarket are doing so “inefficiently”.

Recent returnees include 16 agency branches which ZPG says have moved over during the past week, helping increase its returning total by 58 since it last reported on its attempt to persuade agents back from OnTheMarket. This was within its 24th May half-year results.

“We do not comment on individual agent relationships but the facts remain the same as they did last week when Zoopla gave a similar update,” says Ian Springett, Chief Executive of Agents’ Mutual (pictured, right).

“OnTheMarket.com continues to have a positive material impact on the property portals landscape.”

“Many thousands of agents switched from Zoopla/Primelocation to join us. Many thousands of agents continue to support the objectives of the business by creating a genuine alternative portal for consumers and agents alike. Many thousands of agents have not returned to ZPG portals with their advertising budgets and their data.”

ZPG says it now has 14,271 branches and 928,000 properties listed on its websites, up 9% year-on-year.

Somerset agent

One of the more recent agents to move over is three-branch Somerset agent Jeanes Holland Burnell. One of its directors, Ian Odam, says the company joined OnTheMarket in January.

“After two years of supporting the OTM project, we felt unable to sustain our membership with them any longer as we believed we were missing out by not listing our stock with ZPG,” he says.

“In December 2016, we re-listed with ZPG and such has been the response that our offices received as many leads in the first few weeks as we received in the previous 6 months with Onthemarket and is on par with the number we receive from Rightmove.”

Ian Springett told The Negotiator that OnTheMarket is making “impressive headway in a very challenging market, achieving millions of monthly visits with a record-breaking month of 11.2m earlier this year – an 85% year-on-year increase”, he said.