Rightmove says that a number of agents listing properties with its website have seen a significant increase in the number of leads from the portal thanks in part to the platform’s revamped draw-a-search tool, which has been completely rebuilt and integrated into the property search flow.

The property website reports that the latest enhancement to the platform has led to a 37% rise in the volume of people creating bespoke search areas since the tool was introduced last month.

So far this year a quarter of a million areas have been drawn and in March home-hunters were sent more than 78 million property alerts for sale and rental properties across the UK, according to Rightmove.

The draw-a-search update leads on from portal’s overhaul of its property details page last year, which Rightmove says has increased the amount of time spent by home-hunters looking at each property by 70%.

Other updates last month include integrating the stamp duty calculator into the property details pages so people can more easily see the current savings they can make, the start of the roll-out of the new digital feature for online conditional auctions with more providers signing up following the initial launch, and further enhancements to Rightmove’s tenant appointment booking tool, Viewings Manager, based on feedback from agents.

There are currently 430 agents signed up to use Rightmove’s Viewings Manager tool, with analysis showing that 86% of tenants are responding to agent messages through the tool.

The tool, available to all agents as part of their membership, is designed to make it easier to set up viewings and prevent wasted time for tenant no-shows as prospective tenants can confirm or cancel at the click of the button.

Tarah Lourens, Rightmove’s chief product and technology officer, said: “Our analysis shows that home-hunters using draw-a-search are more likely to be in the serious stage of looking for their next home, so our rebuild to integrate it into the search flow has encouraged more people to specify the area they most want to live in and sign up to receive real-time alerts when their dream home comes up for sale on Rightmove.

“The update is the latest in our ongoing investment in enhancements to the site to ensure home-movers can easily find their next home or consider coming to market. We know that the frenzied market is quickly depleting agent’s stock levels, so much of our product innovation is centred around keeping home-movers more engaged and giving them more reasons to consider why now might be a good time to move, as well as developing tools to help agents save time.”