Housemap, the aspiring new property portal which launched just before Christmas showing 500,000 agents’ listings, appears to have shut up shop – temporarily at least.

EYE’s story about Housemap (link below) suggested that agents might not have known that their properties were on the site.

Savills said it had been unaware and said it was putting the matter in the hands of its lawyers.

The day our story appeared, on December 22, Housemap links rapidly and progressively disappeared, leading some readers to wonder whether this was ‘fake news’.

Now the portal itself seems to have gone.

Our attempts to contact the director, Viviane Van Der Meeren, by email, have failed.

She had said that the portal would make its money from affiliate deals and Google advertising.

We wanted to ask her whether the portal will launch this year. However, our email has repeatedly not been delivered, with a “temporary problem” cited.

The Twitter account for Housemap now tells us that the page does not exist and a search for the Housemap website shows the domain has been parked.

However, the associate website, Estate Agency Suppliers, a separate company with a separate director, is still available, although now showing no links to Housemap.

The matter has raised queries as to how, and exactly from where, Housemap sourced its listings.

• Separately, a new service has launched, called openMoov. It says it is not an estate agency but that it can instruct an agent on behalf of the vendor or landlord. Agents who are provided with properties pay 0.2% of the commission. The site says it accepts bitcoin. https://openmoov.co.uk/agents/

Savills instructs lawyers after new property portal launches with over 500,000 listings