New portal removes listings and insists 'we're not a portal after all'

The operators of a new website which earlier today claimed to have 500,000 property listings appear to have now removed the listings and a spokeswoman insists: “we’re not a portal.”

Earlier today we reported that the ‘portal’ - called Housemap - had launched, carrying 500,000 property details for sale and to let, and describing itself as being free for agents.

At the time it carried text saying: “Our new PropTech startup aims to revolutionise the selling, letting and buying process, by eliminating fees for listing homes on mainstream property portals. Reducing the cost of selling and letting homes, by over £400 per month, that each estate agent pays per branch”.

There are still tweets in its Twitter timeline saying that finding a property has become “hassle-free” for buyers, and linking to the website.

However, spokeswoman Viviane Van der Meeran this morning told Estate Agent Today that: “We are just a startup property news site, and mainly focus on providing insights on current property news topics as well as general topics such as selling and buying process.

“We don't have a plan to launch a portal, but might launch a house prices guide. Still a long way off though. We discussed providing a free listings service but this is perhaps an even longer way off! And we'll wait to see if we have interest in our blogs first.”

She declined to answer our questions about how the property listings previously carried on the site had been sourced, and did not respond to our question about whether the listings purporting to come from some Agents’ Mutual member companies - including Savills, Knight Frank and others - conflicted with OnTheMarket’s ‘one other portal only’ policy.

Van der Meeran also declined to answer questions about a suppliers’ website that had been linked with the Housemap site.

The website-that-isn't-a-portal is here - although at the time of writing, Estate Agent Today was unable to call up the site.