OnTheMarket has rubbished claims that just 18% of its estate agency customers have seen an increase in leads since OnTheMarket were taken over by CoStar in December last year.

Graham Lock, chief executive of The Federation of Independent Agents (FIA), last week revealed the results of a recent LinkedIn poll asking if estate agents had noticed a rise in in leads since the OTM acquisition by CoStar, with 82% of respondents saying they had little to no change, despite a multi-million pound marketing media campaign to boost consumer awareness.

“This is a snapshot survey of course but quite telling that agents are largely not seeing an increase in leads from OTM. This isn’t to say that they won’t in the future as more marketing dollars are spent by CoStar to ignite the portal in the eyes of the general public,” said Lock

But OTM dismissed the poll as not being reflective of what is actually happening in terms of portal success.

A spokesperson told EYE: “This ‘snap poll’ of a tiny sample of agents, some of whom are not OnTheMarket customers, does not represent the true picture of the growth in scale that we have achieved in a short space of time. We are continuing to invest heavily in sales and marketing and aim to be the number one UK portal.”

OTM recently claimed that it is now the property portal of choice among UK housebuilders and developers, following a significant increase in the number of new homes advertised this year.

OTM informed EYE that a surge in estate agency and developer listings has helped the platform surpass 16,500 advertisers, exceeding the 15,000 listings reported in May of this year, and its previous high of 13,867 recorded back in June 2020.

However, it is important to note that this surge has been helped by a free listings offer as some agents sign up to a trial period on the portal.

It also says that agents saw a 43% increase in buyer leads in the first half of this year when compared with the corresponding period last year, although the CoStar Group acquisition of OTM did not take place until December 2023, and so this is not directly comparable data with those provided by FIA’s snap  poll.

“OnTheMarket’s verified figures shows that we have over 16,500 advertisers and are delivering 43% more leads to our customers (H123 vs H124), whilst Rightmove reported a 10% decline in leads in the same period in their published half year results. We are the fastest growing agent-friendly property portal in the UK, with website traffic up 83% whilst Rightmove’s only increased by 1% in the same period,” the spokesperson added.

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