Most of the time potential buyers will visit a real estate website via an online property portal. For any business, having an online presence is essential, but 80% of the enquiries that real estate companies receive come from the Internet, so it is vital they have an online presence.
Property portals originated from the newspaper. Properties would be advertised within a section of the paper from a variety of different estate agents. This was the initial idea that led to online property portals we have today. We are now able to search for properties whenever and wherever making it a 24-hour service. This became appealing to estate agents as opening hours where no longer a restriction.
Now the main property portals are being challenged by free online property portals such as ‘Globrix’ and ‘HomeCo’. However ‘Rightmove’ still remains the main property portal in the UK with a new competitor coming close called ‘on the market’. But it seems that Estate Agents are going to benefit the most between this new rivalry.
Rightmove has over 1 million different properties based in the UK for clients to scroll through and estate agents to advertise on. Right move now has an overseas section making it an international service. This invites a larger audience to the website and the advertising estate agents, making it more appealing for them to add their properties to a website like Rightmove.
Estate Agents that are advertising their logo next to the properties on property portals will give them more brand recognition and a chance for them to stand out from their competitors. The more homes they have listed on property portal websites the more of a chance they are going to be viewed, therefore increasing the viewing of their business.
