Zoopla's near-£1 billion float and the high-end agents who have created OnTheMarket may be just poor relations compared to the wealth tapped by a hard-to-access online private house sales service called Posh.
Operated by financial information service Bloomberg, Posh is a classified ads service for the super-rich. There are 12 sections, four of which are given to real estate - one section is dedicated solely to London property, with others dedicated to homes in Tokyo or New York.
It is hard to access because it requires users to have subscribed - at a reported $20,000 a year - to Bloomberg's data services, which then gives consent to view the classified screens.
Presentation of the details of properties on sale is poor, with screen displays resembling the old Ceefax teletext pages instead of featuring hi-res images and floorplans.
But the contents are aimed at ultra high net worth users, almost exclusively working in the world's major financial centres. And whisper it quietly, but any successful private sales will mean no commission will have been paid to agents.
Bloomberg will shortly be launched additional online classified services including Dine, Fly and Hotel.
Comments
It all seems a little silly to me as most properties for sale in London are bought by wealthy individuals anyways and it seems as they've had no problem using an already established estate agency. And who came up with that name anyways I think 'Posh' seems a little too on the nose, but then again, I'm not exactly their target market.