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OnTheMarket Doubts Zoopla’s Property Inventory
This article is an external press release originally published on the Landlord News website, which has now been migrated to the Just Landlords blog.
The chief of OnTheMarket (OTM), Ian Springett, has voiced his doubts on Zoopla’s property inventory.
His opinion follows Zoopla’s trading update to the City. Read more here: /zooplas-trading-update-to-the-city/
OnTheMarket Doubts Zoopla’s Property Inventory
Springett says: “It is hard to reconcile the property stock claims of Rightmove and Zoopla Property Group.
“Rightmove recently reported a 10% increase in UK residential listings since the start of the year to 1.1m, claiming to display 50% more than any other portal.
“Yet Zoopla Property Group stated today on its UK sales and rental search pages that it has 662,636 properties for sale and 215,652 properties for rent. This gives a total figure of 878,288.
“Moreover, searches conducted in the last 24 hours on the Zoopla portal show UK (England, Scotland and Wales) sales and lettings properties, including sold subject to contract, let and shared accommodation, total just 675,540.”
Springett also states that OTM is continuing to expand: “Zoopla’s trading update only serves to underline the success and progress of OTM in continuing to disrupt the property portals market.
“Its tepid growth of 213 agent branches since its April 2015 update is a drop in the ocean in the context of its 23% loss of agents (which equates to 3,812 agents) between 30th September 2014 and 31st March 2015.
“The fact is that Zoopla has lost overall share of agents and traffic as OTM has become established and as the overwhelming majority of our members retain the dominant market leader as their other portal.
“Contrary to suggestions made by Jeffries (joint sponsor of Zoopla Property Group’s IPO last year), our one other portal rule remains in place.
“OTM was described six months ago by Alex Chesterman [founder of Zoopla] as a short-term event, but Zoopla Property Group’s own trading update paints a very different picture.
“Support for OTM continues to increase daily.”
He concludes: “With such a strong desire for it to succeed from agents all across the UK – and a substantial growth in its traffic figures to more than 5.2m visits in July – we are confident that OTM is here to stay and that we can ultimately achieve our objective to develop a property alternative to the market leader.”1
1 http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/onthemarket-casts-doubt-on-zooplas-property-inventory/
