UK Portals Battle for Decreasing Traffic

Internet traffic analyst, comScore has released November figures for the UK. These will be a Christmas present for some, and a source of discontent for others, as the race to claim the overall top spot for 2008 reaches its final stages.

With declining web traffic overall to real estate websites in November, the competition has been heated.

rightmove.co.uk still leads with almost twice the number of unique visitors (1,994,000) as its nearest rival, findaproperty.com (1,069,000) at number two.

Over the last two months findaproperty.com has overtaken propertyfinder.com, who has been relegated to number three (1,030,000).

Controversially, the Digital Property Group, which owns findaproperty.com, as well as findanewhome.com (33rd with 96,000), primelocation.com (4th with 908,000) and homesandproperty.co.uk (8th with 300,000), claims to have closed the gap on rightmove.co.uk.

In November the difference between the number of unique visitors to rightmove.co.uk and the Digital Property Group’s portals was at an all time low of only 211,000. Mark Milner, chief executive of Digital, was quoted in Estate Agent Today as saying: “We have firmly established ourselves as second in the market place and are most certainly gaining ground on the market leader.”

However, the Digital Property Group makes its claims based on combining web traffic for all their portals together, whereas rightmove.co.uk is a single website.

It isn’t the only claim the Digital Property Group have made about the November figures. Earlier this month findanewhome.com claimed it had overtaken UK market leader smartnewhomes.com as the most-visited new homes portal. smartnewhomes.com issued a statement suggesting that the number one spot was only held by findanewhome.com for a short period of time, meaning smartnewhomes.com is still the market leader.

Meanwhile propertyindex.com has issued a statement claiming it has not only overtaken one of its biggest competitors, globrix.com, but also bucked the market trend by doubling its visitor traffic in November. propertyindex.com came in at number fifteen on the list (211,000), with globrix.com at number twenty one (171,000).

Visitor numbers to propertyindex.com in November were reported to be more than double the amount recorded for October and five times the volume of visitor traffic reported for June 2008. By contrast traffic to all real estate websites in the UK fell by around 20%. In November total UK real estate traffic was 6,595,000 while in September it was as high as 7,719,000.

propertyindex.com’s chief executive, Lee Bramzell is putting a very positive spin on the comScore results:

“The fact that we’ve seen our traffic increase in a declining market bodes extremely well for the future. It’s certainly not all doom and gloom…”

“Industry insights such as the comScore figures are invaluable to new portals and will no doubt send a clear message to all estate agents and developers planning how best to market their properties for sale and rent in 2009.”

The comScore Top 10 for UK real estate in November 2008 was:

1. rightmove.co.uk
2. findaproperty.com
3 propertyfinder.com
4. primelocation.com
5. realestate.com.au
6. nestoria.co.uk
7. vebra
8. homesandproperty.co.uk
9. Trovit UK Homes
10. houseprices.co.uk

rightmove.co.uk, propertyindex.com, prian.eu honoured

The OPP Industry Awards were recently held as part of the OPP Live 08 conference in London.

OPP Live celebrates the Overseas Property Industry in an annual business-to-business conference and exhibition attended by property professionals. And the awards are intended to single out the best of the best.

In the Best Online Platform category the honours went to:

Winner: Rightmove Overseas (UK)
Highly Commended: Property Index (UK)
Commended: Prian (Russia)

Mark Bodega from sponsor HiFX said:

“Speaking to people here tonight about what the future holds, the consensus is clear: 2009 will be about service, innovation and, crucially, developing strategic alliances to access buyers and investors in a variety of countries.”

Registration is now open for the 2009 awards.

A full list of 2008 winners in all categories is available here.

propertyindex.com Launches UK Sales Team

UK portal propertyindex.com is ramping up their approach to UK agents in an attempt to convince them to advertise on their ‘pay for results’ portal. Their latest initiative is the introduction of a UK sales team.

propertyindex.com started as an overseas property portal for the UK market in 2006. But since September this year it has been taking on the major portals with full UK residential sales and rental listings.

The national field sales team for the UK will give the online portal a face in the real world, and no doubt more growth and a larger footprint in the market will follow.

As Estate Agent Today revealed, the new team looks familiar, since most are staff who were made redundant last month by market leader rightmove.co.uk.

The new team comprises of the fresh recruits from rightmove.co.uk, who join existing sales staff and will be overseen by up by UK Commercial Director Ben Grove, who formerly worked for propertyfinder.com:

In a statement issued by propertyindex.com, Managing Director Lee Bramzell said: “With proven track records, this team will help take us from strength to strength. We offer a fresh approach marketing solution to agents who are tightening their belts, and our new recruits will be aiming to show estate agents that propertyindex.com can generate high quality leads on a pay for results basis, even in a difficult market’’.

In an interview with propertyportalwatch.com earlier this month, Lee Bramzell said that propertyindex.com’s innovative ‘pay per results’ business model has so far been received well by agents. It requires no set-up fees, no monthly subscriptions, no commission on sales and no minimum term contracts. Instead, agents pay for leads. UK agents pay £1 for a buy lead and £5 for a vendor lead, while overseas agents pay £10 for a sales lead.

Interview with Lee Bramzell - propertyindex.com

From creating currys.co.uk for Dixons, to launching P&O into the consumer events market, starting Thomson Holiday’s website, and running “Chemistry” dating evenings, Lee Bramzell has worked with some diverse clients.

Since 2006 he’s been Managing Director of propertyindex.com, originally an overseas portal, which is taking on the UK domestic market with its innovative ‘pay for results’ model.

propertyportalwatch.com spoke to Lee about portals and the UK market.

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propertyindex.com Ups The Ante in UK

After a successful UK launch, overseas portal propertyindex.com has announced two key senior hires, aimed to push their “pay per results” sales drive to a new level.

propertyindex.com has poached Darren Saunders, formerly of propertyfinder.com, to be its business development manager for London, and Jasmine Jalaf, a former senior sales executive for thinkproperty.com, to manage the West Midlands territory.

propertyindex.com is operating on an innovative “pay per results” model with no set-up fees, no monthly subscriptions, no commission on sales and no minimum term contracts for agents. Established in September 2007 the website now features over 150,000 properties for sale and rent across 4,000 destinations worldwide.

Revealing the appointments, Lee Bramzell, Managing Director of propertyindex.com said:

“With proven track records, these new additions will help take us from strength to strength. We offer a solution to agents who are tightening their belts, and both Darren and Jasmine will be aiming to show estate agents that propertyindex.com can generate high quality leads, even in a difficult market’’.

“In the current climate, the industry is undergoing a massive shift. Agents no longer reap the benefits once achieved through long standing subscriptions with online property marketing partners. It’s time for new ideas and my team has been working tirelessly since launch in September to convey our ‘pay per results’ message to agents looking for a fresh approach to marketing.”

In keeping with their focus on recruiting agents, propertyindex.com is participating in and sponsoring a host of industry events this month.

propertyindex.com Sets Up Own Foreign Currency Trading Team

The company has announced it will be trading its own foreign currency leads with the launch of Currency Index. A press release says that the move has been “prompted by the poor deals often offered by established currency brokers”.

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(Yet) Another UK Site - propertyindex.com

It was reported this week by Estate Agent Today that there is a new portal in town to take on the market leaders - propertyindex.com.  Now a cursory review of the site shows that it has been around for a while although it was focusing on advertising international properties to the UK market. It seems that the busiess has now turned its sights onto advertising UK properties to the UK market.

Now, at last count, there has to be 15 or more portal sites serving the UK market. Off the top of my head i can think of rightmove.co.uk, propertyfinder.com, findaproperty.co.uk, primelocation.com, nestoria.co.uk, globrix.com, upmystreet.co.uk, zoomf.co.uk, hotproperty.co.uk, zoopla.co.uk, and dothomes.co.uk.

Now the UK is the MOST competitive portal market in the world. Therefore what makes propertyindex.com different from the rest and will it really take on the market leaders?

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