Over the past few years property portals have become a big part of the UK property buyers and “property voyeurs” daily life.

One portal Rightmove  has become the front runner claiming 31% of all UK property portal visits equating  to 80 million searches per month. This has led to the site entering the top 10 most visited UK websites, overtaking the BBC.

Because of Rightmove's success it's top executives recently received bonuses worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

 Due to these potential rewards and the demand for UK  property information it is little surprise that more & more portals are being developed.

In January 2012 linking onto the growth and success of Facebook, Solhil Rashid launched the first property portal facebook app and last week Doug Munroe and Andrew Hunter latterly of Zoopla and Gumtree respectively launched a new property search engine Adzuna.

However, many portals come at a price. For example Rightmove’s basic package costs each agency office, in excess of £700 per month.

To offer an alternative to agents, some sites including Mouseprice and Needaproperty have started to offer a free agent listing service to estate agents.

The property buying agency Elite Property Search offer a unique service in that they offer free listings to property sellers who can list their £1m+ properties privately and discreetly on Elite's property listing service at www.elitepropertysearch.com/properties/ with all buyer enquiries being pre-screened by an Elite Director before details are released.

 The advantage to the buyer being that they are able to gain access to buying opportunities that cannot be accessed anywhere else.
 
To try and challenge Rightmoves dominance two of the top four property portals Primelocation (part of the property digital group (DPG)) and Zoopla are in negotiations to merge. This would automatically give them 19% of market share but would still be some way behind Rightmove.

Whether the new free portals will be able to create a real threat to the power house that is Rightmove will have to wait to be seen.

To discuss your property's listing or to gain access to Elite Property Search private property portfolio contact an Elite Director on +44 (0) 207 060 2338 or email: info@elitepropertysearch.com.