OnTheMarket now listing 'over half the market' of residential properties

Less than five months after its initial public offering, property search portal OnTheMarket is displaying more than 550,000 UK residential property listings, which is more than half the total market.

The company pointed out that it now has around two-thirds of the equivalent listings carried by Zoopla and half those carried by Rightmove.

As at 3 July, Zoopla stated on its website that it was listing 580,860 UK residential sales properties and 241,390 UK residential lettings properties, totalling 822,250 properties. Meanwhile, in its annual report and account for 2016 and 2017, Rightmove said it had 1 million UK residential properties.

OnTheMarket said the rise in residential listings on its website reflects the rapid growth in contracted agents with agreements to list their properties on the portal. As at 3 July, the number of contracted agent offices has grown from 5,500 to more than 9,500, which represents an increase of more than 72%.

The company reckons it has listing agreements with approximately 51% of UK residential estate and lettings agency branches.

Chief executive officer Ian Springett said: "The very strong and growing agent support for our proposition has enabled us to rapidly gain ground on the market share of property listings of our long-established key competitors.

"We remain committed to creating an agent-backed, full scale challenger portal that injects some much-needed competition into the property portals landscape by disrupting what has for too long been effectively a cosy duopoly."

At 0915 BST, the shares were up 1.9% to 161p.