Portal drops its charges to agents

A property portal run by estate agents, HomesAlone, has decided to offer free listings.

Launched in late 2007, it previously charged £45 per month per branch, but has now decided to drop its fees.

It said that it is doing so in response to a number of takeovers, management buyouts and new portals arriving in the market which the company believes is not only fragmenting the market to saturation point but also providing little value to estate agents.

Mijal Raja, managing director, who ran his own estate agency for 22 years, said: “There has been a lot of movement in the property portal market this year. Questions have been raised regarding which payment model is best – subscription or pay per lead. The truth is that neither model works for the estate agent, but both work in favour of the portal.

“We have redefined our core business with current and forthcoming products which are subsidised by ancillary services, and allow us to provide estate agents with a free alternative to what we believe are outdated and one-sided offerings.”

The site recently underwent a redesign, providing better property searching, integrated business services such as mortgage quoting, price comparison for home appliances and overall improved performance. Images have also been optimised to improve download speed on mobile devices.

Technical director Martin Bailey said HomesAlone currently has some 400 branches listing properties and that the site works with most software companies. Agents can request for their properties to be added to the site, either by contacting the company or making a request through their software provider.

A major print and TV campaign is said to be scheduled for 2010.