Which property website should your agent use when selling your home?

With more house-hunters than ever now starting their property search online, it is crucial that your property has a good website presence when selling, and that means ensuring that you or your estate agent have listed your property on the main property websites, particularly the portals, as part of a good marketing strategy designed to achieve the highest possible selling price. 

New research reveals that usage of property portals in the UK is now at a record high with 47% of population having used a property search website in the last 12 months. What’s more, 62% of those questioned claimed that the portals an agent advertises on would factor into their selection of an agent when selling or letting their home. 

Of the main portals, Rightmove remains the most visited property website in the UK. The website generates by far the highest number of leads for many estate agents, giving them the best chance possible of achieving the highest property price.

But although Rightmove is the undisputed king of the property portals industry and therefore potentially offers the best possible chance of helping homeowners achieve the highest property price possible, it is Zoopla that is currently the number one portal in the UK for national consumer brand awareness. That is according to a new study by Harris Interactive, on behalf of the Zoopla Property Group. 

The research, conducted last month by questioning over 1,000 adults, claims that more people have heard of Zoopla than any of the other UK property portals, including Rightmove, with Zoopla’s national spontaneous brand awareness among all adults stood at 45% versus 40% for Rightmove and just 4% for OnTheMarket. 

Lawrence Hall of Zoopla Property Group said: “We’re delighted that our investment in both our product and marketing is delivering record levels of brand awareness and exposure for our members. Consumers increasingly recognise that we're the most useful resource when looking to move home, resulting in record levels of enquiries and instructions for agents listing on Zoopla.”

Although more consumers appear to be familiar with the Zoopla brand, the number of estate and letting agent offices listing at OnTheMarket.com has increased by over 1,650 over the past 18 months, which is a greater rate of growth compared to any other property website, albeit from a low initial point, and that means more choice for prospective homebuyers and renters.

Ian Springett, CEO of OnTheMarket.com, said: “It will clearly take time for OnTheMarket.com to attract as much consumer traffic as the market-leading portals. However, our progress has been rapid: we had over 7.25 million visits in April, we are providing a growing volume of high quality enquiries to our agents and we are greatly encouraged by the feedback we receive from the overwhelming majority of our members and consumers alike.”