Driven by Ian Springett, the former head of Primelocation and backed by property heavyweights including Savills, Knight Frank and Strutt and Parker, the portal will be advertised on television across the main terrestrial and digital channels as well as high-profile press publications such as the Daily Telegraph, Times, Sunday Times, Daily Mail, Scotsman, Glasgow Herald and Western Mail as well as key magazines including Country Life, The London Magazine and Fabric.  There will also be a very heavy digital display and pay-per-click campaign.

As a mutual organization, OnTheMarket.com has no external shareholders so it is able to plow all profits back into improving the property-searching experience.  There will be no distracting adverts for other products and no spam mail – just a focus on properties to buy and rent in the UK.

However a major source of concern to some vendors is that agents are being asked to market their properties on OnTheMarket.com and one other portal only.  This has created a panic within the industry raising concerns properties may be missing out on vital exposure in an already tough market and journalists at the Daily Mail and The Guardian have even gone as far to say we may see a fall in house prices.

So after a brief overview, what is our take on OnTheMarket.com?

Wellbelove Quested have been involved with this project from the beginning and fully support the idea behind an industry backed and owned portal.  

We have been members of the Primelocation / Zoopla partnership for over 8 years now and are delighted with the results we achieve for our clients, believing it is the best portal for our prime central London properties to receive maximum exposure.  The team at WQ has never felt the need to join a second portal such as Rightmove.com as they tend to focus on properties out of central London. For the larger agents with offices across the country, we can appreciate the decision is somewhat more weighted. 

Therefore, we are in a somewhat privileged position of not having to choose between the two and have in fact increased the exposure of properties we currently have for sale or rent with our listings showing on www.Zoopla.com, www.primelocation.com and www.wellbelove-quested.com.

In todays challenging property world we must not be afraid of change and should be open to trying new ideas.  We very much look forward to hearing your thoughts on the new portal.