Mouseprice begins to make its mark on free portal market

As the portal wars hot up, Mouseprice, the free-to-list property site, is announcing today that it now receives direct uploads from more than 3,500 estate agency offices. It is understood that more big wins are in the offing.

While agency numbers are around one-third of the branches that list on Rightmove, Mouseprice began accepting uploads only six months ago. It says it is now working with most leading national estate agents, and is working hard to support smaller local agencies too, by working with software suppliers to provide easy and free uploading.

A report on Estate Agent Today last Friday focused on Rightmove’s plans to roll out a new campaign, worth £10m, that will be its biggest yet. The article attracted around 40 comments from our readers.
 
Zipporah Morrison Baker, communications manager for Mouseprice, said: “Some of the paid-for portals are busy promising more money for TV advertising, but this builds their brands, not those of the estate agents that pay the portals’ bills.

“Why should agents keep paying all this money to support someone else’s advertising if it isn’t benefiting them directly? One look at the comments board on Estate Agent Today should tell them to cut their fees or they face losing their customers’ loyalty.

“We know that the property market is difficult at the moment and so we’re working hard to bring the public’s eyes to our estate agency uploaders’ properties at no cost to them.”
 
Mouseprice also said that it has taken a slower route to building its property databases – eschewing the ‘screen scraping’ used by some free portals in favour of direct feeds. It says this ensures that agents are in control of how their properties appear, and that the listings are more regularly refreshed.

Paid-for subscription portals are under threat from free online services, including Globrix and Propertylive, the NAEA’s new offering, and the pay-by-lead newcomer, Property Index.