OnTheMarket says agent support will snowball once it overtakes Zoopla listings

OnTheMarket boss Ian Springett has forecast that the portal will enter 2016 in a strong position, “intent on overtaking Zoopla” in terms of available listings.

He added: “From that point, we believe that agent momentum will snowball.”

Yesterday’s breaking news story from EYE about OTM’s growth was picked up quickly by analysts at BNP Exane Paribas which sent out an investor note quoting Property Industry Eye.

The note told investors:

“The update is supportive of our anti-consensual view that:

1) Zoopla membership growth since April reflects market growth rather than market share gains from AM

2) Agents’ Mutual is here to stay and

3) AM brings an additional tail risk to Zoopla that it may take another tranche of Zoopla members through its Letter of Intent strategy.”

The firm rates Zoopla as an underperform and Rightmove as a ‘key pick’.

However, Credit Suisse sent out a note to investors yesterday suggesting it was unimpressed by OTM’s update, although conceding that OTM had continued to recruit contracted members at the rate of 50 per month.

Its note said: “We believe it shows that growth in contractual membership has all but dried up. In March 2015 the site had 5,000 members – meaning the group has added 400 contractual members in around eight months.”

It thought that “net movement of agents” between Zoopla and OTM was now likely to be “flat”.

Zoopla is to announce its full-year results for the year to the end of September on December 2.

Originally posted here.

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