Just like Amazon and Ebay, property portals have become an everyday necessity when it comes to buying and selling your home.
The main UK property portals are Rightmove, Zoopla and OntheMarket.com; all three provide an easy to use platform for prospective buyers to use and apps to navigate. When it comes to deciding which one to use, each one has its own benefits.
As agents, we research and make it our business to understand the key performance metrics for each and how successful they are in attracting buyers in our local area. We do this to ensure that by investing in these three top property portals, we are continuing to offer our applicants and customers the best, most effective online tools to find and sell their homes in our local marketplace.
Here’s a little summary about the top three online property portals:
Rightmove
Rightmove has been going for 21 years and it is reported to be ‘the largest UK online property marketplace’; claiming to have 141 million website visitors per month and over one million properties available for rent and to buy at any one time.
Key features: Would-be buyers can search in a variety of ways, using price, distance, keywords and to check broadband speeds and local schools.
Zoopla
Zoopla has the reputation of the UK’s ‘best known portal’ with over a million properties advertised online. It attracts around 55 million visitors to its website every month – half as many as its rival Rightmove.
Key features: What differentiates it from Rightmove is how it uses data. It enables buyers to search for properties in different ways – using commute times, or creating a map to search a specified area. It is also popular for producing current market values based on nearby recent property sales – useful information for both buyers and sellers.
OnTheMarket.com
This is the fledging portal of the three, describing itself as the ‘most user friendly portal’.
Key feature: They feature properties up to 24 hours ahead of Rightmove and Zoopla, so the race is on!
What you need to know as a buyer or a seller
We recommend that your property is listed on more than one property portal – we are on all three, to maximise the number of potential buyers who can see it.
Remember there’s no clear leader, they all market themselves with a slightly different offering.
Remember it’s not all about big numbers, not everyone clicking is actually going to view and buy these homes. Many people just enjoy looking at houses they can never afford to buy or places they will never move to.
Getting your property seen by as many people as possible DOES increase your chances of catching the eye of a motivated buyer. To make sure your property stands out you need excellent photos, and engaging property descriptions, to beat the competition and not get lost in the high traffic portals.
