OnTheMarket falsly advertising number of available properties

eshroom

As some of you will be aware, OnTheMarket has been launched by a conglomerate of estate agents in a bid to a) drown online agents from the market and b) reduce the dominance of Zoopla and Rightmove.

So far they seem to be having a bit of an effect on Zoopla - though it is still worth checking both Zoopla and Rightmove when searching for a property.

As an investor I spend a lot of time searching for properties online and I have been utilising all three portals.

- Estate agents signed up to OnTheMarket often display ads on there for 3 days prior to releasing on other portals, so it shouldn't be unusual to see a few properties that an agent lists on OTM, when they aren't on Rightmove

- KFH (and probably other founding members) are leaving properties on OTM until after exchange of contracts (not marking them as Sold-Subject-to-Contract), while they mark the same property as STC on Rightmove, thus making it look like OTM has a greater abundance of properties for sale not featured elsewhere

I have verified this by a) comparing with Rightmove and b) going through a list of properties with KFH and seeing which are available and which are not.

This undoubtedly wastes a lot of time for buyers and agents alike, but in the war against Rm and Zoopla, it seems OTM are prepared to try any trick.

You will still find more properties utilising Rightmove and Zoopla than any other combination of the three.

I don't like the tactics the agents are using and will avoid OTM on principle, it markets itself as by agents for agents, and I never trusted agents to being with. I'd implore anyone else to do the same.

ndi149

So glad you mentioned about KFH, I thought that was just the issue in the Bromley area.
It was only after driving past 3 different places listed by KFH, which had said STC on the boards outside the properties that I realised what was going on. Very frustrating!!!
I completely agree with you and look at all 3 websites religiously each morning.

SplanK

If my area is anything to go by, a lot of the big players around here didn't bother with OTM, and the ones that did (incidentally, the EA I am using) is moving away from OTM back to Zoopla!

Mallotum_X

The biggest two near me also didn't shift to OTM. It's not as user friendly as Zoopla, and doesn't have the coverage of rightmove.

fairy_lights

On the market is absolute pants. It's much less user friendly than the other two and doesn't display any useful data about time on the market, similar properties etc. And as for supposedly listing properties for 24 hours before they go on other sites - that doesn't seem to be happening at all.

Running_Horse

Just did a search for Maidstone. Their map of the town is very strange, to say the least. But more importantly they don't list a house we are interested in that does appear on Rightmove. Cannot see any reason why anyone would use it on a casual basis. And would only use it on the off chance they had something nowhere else, which doesn't seem likely on current evidence.

rosie383

I get an email alert from OTM which does show the occasional property about 24 hrs before RM, and I check those out, but the majority of alerts that I get are ones which have been on RM for a few days or longer.
I think all of the sites are frustrating in that they don't update which properties are SSTC. Some agents will remove the listing pretty quickly, but if you do a search on RM for example, of properties that were added anytime, filtering out those SSTC, there are a huge proportion of those which we know for a fact were sold many months ago.
It's annoying as we are now trying to look back at properties which have been sitting unsold for a number of months, in case there is a potential good one that we may have dismissed at the time, but are now getting desperate!

eshroom

These Alexa rankings say it all really.

With all the advertising effort, OnTheMarket climbed into the top 20,000 in January, but is steadily dropping, now just inside the top 30,000 websites globally and no.650 in the UK.

Zoopla meanwhile took a hit during the Christmas period, but seems to have only been slightly affected by the OTM launch having dropped a bit in the global rankings. It currently stands WAY above OTM at no.60 in the UK.

Rightmove didn't seem to be affected at all by the OTM launch, currently standing at no.22 in the UK.

heckmondwike06

OTM has such a huge catch up to play with mights of RM.

Wasn't RM owned by a number of banks as well as being a plc?

Hoploz

Rightmove was started by nationwide EA chain Countrywide. It was boycotted by many to begin with due to its monopolising effect. Now people think of it as the independent good guy. Times change especially with the online marketplace