Are home sellers at risk of losing money from estate agents’ rivalry?

A new property website, called On The Market, has become the apple of discord for estate agents.

The recently-launched portal is in direct competition with established online real estate market places such as Zoopla and Rightmove.

Competitors’ main concern with the new website is that it would split the market because, to become a member, estate agents have to pledge they would advertise on only one other website. That way, if an agent wanted to use On The Market they would have to choose between Zoopla or Rightmove, or another website, pulling all of their advertising from the rest.

This not only creates a problem for competitors but could cost sellers as well, according to Zoopla.

By using an agent that does not advertise on all major portals, sellers may lose thousands of pounds off the price of the property they are putting on the market due to the lack of exposure. Less buyers seeing your advert means less good offers for your property.

“Marketing a property as widely as possible is an essential part of getting the best price. Most property searches are now conducted online, so being on all the UK’s main property portals is something that sellers today simply take for granted. That all changed last week and any seller using an agent who restricts marketing is going to get less interest in their property as a result,” Lawrence Hall of Zoopla commented.

The new website is also being criticised because of conflict of interest.

On The Market, which was launched at the end of January this year, is owned by Agents’ Mutual Ltd. and its founding members are estate agents among which Savills, Knight Frank, Douglas and Gordon.

While competitors are questioning its approach, the new portal itself promises customers a clean, fresh look, easy search for properties with “no irritating ads, no unnecessary information, no spam mail and no nonsense”. In its welcoming message to clients, On The Market said the choice of one of their agents would mean that the property deal would be handled by “full-service, office-based estate or letting agents who are experts in their local area”.

It is still early to assess the impact the newcomer would have on the online property market but one thing is clear for now – it is certainly causing controversy. And an outright war between estate agents could indeed come at the cost of people looking to sell, buy or let a property