Investor Boost for lettingsearch.co.uk

UK rental portal lettingsearch.co.uk has announced plans for further expansion with the arrival of two new shareholders and increased funding.

A statement from the company explains that entrepreneurs Martyn Sellick and Kevin Rice – co-directors of niche developer Red Admiral Homes – have joined forces with lettingsearch.co.uk director Phil Calderbank with the aim of expanding the portal’s agent and tenant base substantially over the next six months.

Originally founded in 2002, lettingsearch.co.uk lists approximately 250,000 properties and says it averages over 1 million searched per month. lettingsearch.co.uk runs over 300 town specific websites and says its listings are updated every few minutes.

The portal was rebranded in June this year, and it seems likely more upgrades are in the works. Calderbank had this to say about lettingsearch.co.uk’s plans for the next few years:

“In 2010 we want to further consolidate our position as the UK’s number one in the lettings’ market. A lettings-only portal that concentrates its efforts on driving targeted traffic to an agent’s properties is the key to a successful future.

We will look to constantly evolve our website throughout 2010 and 2011, so that it is attractive to our consumers who will in turn continue to deliver high quality leads to our member agents.”

lettingsearch.co.uk hired Peter Everett as sales and marketing director in April and has since appointed 22 licensees across the UK, who are responsible for promoting the portal to agents in their local areas.

1. lettingsearch.co.uk Rebrands With New Site

   UK lettings portal lettingsearch.co.uk has unveiled their new company identity together with a redesigned website. ...

2. lettingsearch.co.uk Revamps for Agents

   Following on from an investor boost in November 2009, UK-based rentals portal lettingsearch.co.uk has added a range of new features based on feedback from agents. The portal's agents can now benefit from a weekly key statistics feature, which provides agent-specific information on the volume of landlord and consumer leads received, as well as the number of clicks through to the agent’s own website....

3. Peter Everett Joins lettingsearch.co.uk

   One of the UK’s largest specialised lettings websites, lettingsearch.co.uk, has announced the appointment of Peter Everett as Sales and Marketing Director....

4. Snow Drives Property Search

   Data from a number of UK property websites has revealed an upside to recent freezing temperatures: big jumps in traffic. The Digital Property Group network has already released numbers for the period 1 to 5 January 2010 that have unique visitor numbers up 27 percent over the same period in 2009. Now, three other property websites are reporting similar traffic increases, including rightmove.co.uk’s specialist website holidaylettings.co.uk, which had over 1 million visitors at the start of the New Year. ...

5. jaap.nl Investor Goes Bankrupt

   Telegraaf Media Groep (TMG) plans to increase its stake in the Netherlands' number two ranked property portal, jaap.nl, by purchasing another 40 percent....