Type Website Founded January 26th, 2015 Area served United Kingdom | Industry Real Estate, Internet Headquarters London, United Kingdom | |
Services Property search and research | ||
OnTheMarket.com is a British property search portal that launched in January 2015. It covers the residential property market including sales and lettings throughout the United Kingdom. OnTheMarket.com is the property website of Agents' Mutual Ltd and competes with companies including Rightmove and Zoopla. OnTheMarket members signed up to a 'one other portal' rule as a measure they saw as necessary for the portal to enter the UK market, which was overwhelmingly dominated by two players.
Contents
History
In 2013, estate agents including Knight Frank, Savills, Strutt & Parker, Chestertons, Douglas & Gordon and Glentree Estates founded Agents' Mutual Ltd. The company launched its portal OnTheMarket.com in January 2015.
The Financial Times reported in April 2016 that the relationship between OnTheMarket and many estate agents had soured, owing to dissatisfaction with fee levels, service levels and a lack of traction in the marketplace. The FT notes that many fewer estate agents are listed with OnTheMarket than are listed with Zoopla or Rightmove; and that agents who had sought to withdraw from OnTheMarket received legal threats from its owners.
Operations
OnTheMarket.com is an online directory of UK residential properties for sale and to rent. Property listings are only accepted from locally-visible, office-based, full-service estate and letting agents. It does not accept listings from online only agents. Users can search by postcode and see the properties located on Google Maps. HM Land Registry data is available to provide searchers with sold house prices. The website also lists properties for sale overseas and commercial property lettings and sales.
All estate and lettings agents using OnTheMarket.com automatically become part owners of the business and are required to commit to list all their properties at OnTheMarket.com and on a maximum of one of the two other major competitors. This feature of the site had led to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) warning estate agents against colluding to damage the business of other property portals.