Other real estate marketplaces highlighted in the 141-page report included Schibsted, Naspers, Rightmove and CoStar, while themes including AI and consolidation were also analysed.

An Overweight label indicates the bank's opinion that the corresponding company's stock will outperform the sector average moving in 2025. The other labels are Neutral and Underweight.

REA Group was deemed Overweight with JP Morgan saying that, at the core of its thesis, "REA [continues] to take vendor wallet share from [rival portal Domain]."

Domain was labelled Underweight and is expected to underperform in 2025, with the bank saying downgraded offers and free listings led to Domain's average revenue per listing (ARPL) falling by more than 50% from Q4 2024 to Q1 2025. In other words, according to JP Morgan, Domain stock has limited upside in the next 12 months.

In the United Kingdom, Rightmove was also deemed Underweight after it became embroiled in an unexpected tug-of-war with REA in September 2024. JP Morgan said:

On the short side, we stay cautious on Rightmove (UW) - with the final curtain fallen on the Rightmove/REA deal, investor focus has shifted to Rightmove’s strategic execution in the next 12 months with a high bar now set on delivering shareholder value in years to come.

Through a European lens... Rightmove [is] overly expensive for low relative earnings growth over the outlook period.

Meanwhile, an Overweight tag was also reserved for CoStar Group, with JP Morgan on the record saying it has "high conviction" in CoStar's strategy:

We maintain a high-conviction call for CoStar.

The quality of [CoStar's] content is confirmed by over 100M monthly unique visitors (retail customers) across a range of online platforms. The majority of the revenues (>90%) are subscription based with an over 80%+ renewal rate, meaning a highly scalable operating model. CoStar Group already generates >$2.7B in revenue and sizable EBITDA margin (when excluding substantial spend on residential business expansion).

We think the company can deliver an 18% 3Y top-line CAGR. We like CoStar Group’s strategy of widening the audience of potential users of its must-have real estate information services through an online marketplace platform.

In mainland Europe, Overweight marketplace operators included Prosus, Naspers, and Schibsted, while Scout24 was upgraded to Overweight earlier this year.

JP Morgan said:

We recently upgraded Scout to Overweight from Neutral, with the stock standing as one of our top picks across European Internet – pairing competitive top-line growth with ongoing margin expansion, and compounding attractive valuation against its peer-set.

At the same time, we believe the current market environment is likely to reward resilient, less cyclical earnings momentum – where we see the company as positioned to benefit from additional product launches next to a strong core business going forward.

JP Morgan also discussed core themes including digitalization, artificial intelligence, and the likelihood of consolidation in the coming years:

The benefits of AI continue to unfold with product development, content creation and consumer experiences now in focus. There remains a need to tap into new revenue streams, which have already started to unfold. New product offerings include: a) more digital capabilities (such as entirely virtual viewing in the property vertical); b) transaction models that offer entirely new, incremental revenue streams; c) dynamic pricing options; and d) plenty of ancillary services.

The scene looks set for consolidation in Europe and beyond. Strategic activity in the sector has remained high in recent years, with Private Equity showing a strong willingness to engage Online Classified models, with ongoing strategic M&A in play. We expect this narrative to continue, if not intensify.

The $13.4bn take-out of Adevinta in May this year may prove the catalyst the market has been waiting for, and we see growing opportunity to further European marketplace consolidation, while the recent separation of Axel Springer’s classifieds business (now fully to private equity) may see more assets come to market, not withstanding CoStar’s ambition to consolidate across the rest of Europe. Importantly, we continue to see scope for Prosus (OW) to deploy further capital into classifieds, should attractive options arise.

With Classifieds a capital-light asset model where personnel expenses take the lion’s share of costs, we see headcount efficiency under scrutiny.

Finally, Prosus achieved the highest share price increase from January-November 2024, up 41% for the period, while Domain shares dipped the most at -19%. Interestingly CoStar share prices went down by 14%, while REA shares were up 36% for the period.

We'll start with an acquisition in Germany...

Investments: Scout24 snaps up commercial real estate specialist Bulwiengesa

German real estate marketplace leader Scout24 has continued its acquisition strategy with the capture of commercial real estate data and valuation provider Bulwiengesa AG for an undisclosed sum.

Scout24 said it will integrate Bulwiengesa’s products to offer its customers “increased market transparency, innovative data-driven products and more convenient decision-making tools.”

Bulwiengesa CEO Ralf Koschny will join a supervisory board and COO Sven Carstensen will replace Koschny as CEO.

Tobias Hartmann, CEO at Scout24, said:

"Bulwiengesa’s leading data services complement our product range and are fully in line with our strategy to become the leading provider of real estate information in Germany. Together, we will be able to enhance market transparency, advance real estate transaction digitization and offer our commercial customers unique services to navigate the increasingly complex property market more confidently."

The acquisition follows swiftly on the heels of the newbuild marketplace NeuBau Kompass AG, also announced in December 2024.

Scout24, which operates the leading real state portal Immobilienscout24.de, recorded annual revenue growth of 8.5% in its latest financial statement in October.

Meanwhile, Tobias Hartmann has announced he will leave Scout24 in 2025, with a replacement CEO already lined up.

Products and Services: LeBonCoin launches new AI features and confirms PayPal integration

French horizontal portal LeBonCoin has launched a suite of AI features including visual search, the auto-completion of listings and interface personalization.

LeBonCoin will now show a personalised homepage with suggested goods and ads based on their bookmarked items and browsing history.

The image search option, available on LeBonCoin's app, looks for products and listings that match a user’s photograph of a particular object and then generates recommendations from its consumer goods segment.

LeBonCoin will also use AI to auto-complete item descriptions using just a title and an image. The AI leverages will then generate a full description of the item, suggest a suitable selling price, and even recommend the most suitable delivery option for the item.

Finally, LeBonCoin will fully integrate PayPal payments in 2025. Users will also gain the option to make payments in instalments.

UK-based SearchSmartly launches full Computer Vision API

SearchSmartly, a property search specialist for London, has launched Computer Vision API that lets portals process property listing imagery to generate tags and image descriptions.

The tool can detect property attributes (such as furnished/unfurnished), objects (tables, fireplaces) and rooms (kitchen/garden).

SearchSmartly has reported that use cases from partners have been varied, from powering additional search filters for seekers (“wooden floors” or “swimming pools”) to reordering imagery around seekers’ specific preferences.

An emerging use case is portals building their own AI muscle internally, by looking to build internal datasets that can be used for model training and output generation.

Simon Mohacek, Chief Growth Officer at SearchSmartly, said:

"It’s really exciting to see our Computer Vision technology start to integrate into portals around the world. Portal adoption of AI is about so much more than just LLMs, and using CV processing to help power seeker property discovery is a perfect example of how so much of this AI revolution is happening behind the scenes."

SearchSmartly also has a UK portal that showcases their technology, allowing would-be buyers and tenants searching for homes in London to embark on a more comprehensive property search experience, including searching by lifestyle, travel times, the proximity of green spaces, particularly for 'hidden gem' properties that may not be as prominently advertised on portals like Rightmove and Zoopla.

SearchSmartly is backed by investors including Blue Lake VC, REACH UK, and Syndicate Room.

Traffic and Findings: Emlakjet reveals 1.8 million ads published in 2024

Turkish real estate portal Emlakjet says it listed 1.8 million property advertisements this year.

Other numbers revealed by the marketplace operator included listing more than 40,000 real estate consultants in 2024, and directing 2,500 investors to new development projects.

In a press release, Tolga İdikat, CEO at Emlakjet, commented:

"2024 was not only a year of growth and success for Emlakjet, but also a year in which strategic steps were taken to support the transformation of the sector. With technological innovations, customer-oriented services and innovative solutions we developed for the sector, we both achieved a rapid transformation in the real estate market and deepened our contributions to the sector.

"This year, the opportunities we provided for real estate agents and the two-fold growth we experienced in our mobile application gave great momentum to the digitalization movement in the sector. In addition, more than 40 thousand real estate consultants and 1.8 million advertisements were published on our platform, and we directed nearly 2500 investors to the right projects.

"We established stronger collaborations with the branded projects we offered to real estate agencies, and brought investors together with the right projects. We increased knowledge sharing and shaped expectations about the sector by coming together with professionals in the sector through training and panels. In addition, we switched to a performance-based real estate agent-friendly package structure, which is a first in the sector. With this innovative model, we increased our customer base by 50%.

"We have high expectations for 2025. As Emlakjet, we are determined to shape the real estate dynamics of not only today but also the future and to carry the sector further."

Dubizzle passes 400,000 verified users

Dubizzle has revealed an 86% year-on-year increase to over 400,000 verified users signed up to its marketplace offering.

Dubizzle says it added verified accounts to create a trustable, secure environment for its users.

Here is your roundup...

OnTheMarket shares 2024 highlights in annual review

OnTheMarket (OTM) has published its yearly review for 2024.

Highlights include:

• OTM website traffic increased 82% YoY as of Q3 2024
• Unique visitors up 135% YoY
• The number of leads increased 69% YoY
• Total stock on site was up 43% YoY
• The number of listing agents increased 26% YoY

OTM also shared that it overtook Zoopla for website traffic for the first time in September—a claim that Zoopla disputed within days of OTM's announcement.

Meanwhile, OTM said it spent 3x Rightmove's full-year marketing budget, at circa £45.6 million for 2024. The announcement also revealed that OTM has changed how it prices its products this year.

Jason Tebb, President at OTM, said:

"Since our acquisition by CoStar Group, we’ve made incredible progress on our mission to become the UK’s number one property portal, we’ve had a chance to meet many of you along the way and we can’t wait to continue this into 2025.

"This year has seen a shake-up in the way we determine the price points for our product packages, while remaining committed to fair and sustainable pricing. This new pricing model allows us to charge fairly for our services, at a fraction of the cost of our competitors.

"I want to say a huge thank you to each and every one of you who worked with us, visited us at one of our roadshows, came and joined us for a drink at EA Masters or gave us feedback and continued to support us this year. We wouldn’t be where we are now without your encouragement, and we can’t wait to work with you to achieve even more next year."

OTM will officially relocate to London next year after CoStar expanded its UK headquarters in November.

Rightmove launches new marketing campaign

Rightmove will launch a new marketing campaign on Christmas Day.

Under the "If they can find it, so can you" banner, the new campaign highlights how everyone can find a home that fits their requirements.

The first television advert will air on Christmas Day an appear during ad breaks for festive programming around the UK across TV, video-on-demand, YouTube, and cinemas. Rightmove says the campaign will reach over 60 million people.

Matt Bushby, said:

"We’re really fortunate that over 80% of all time spent on property portals is on Rightmove, so we want to use our brand to make sure home-hunting is front of mind from the moment the mince pies come out on Christmas Day.

"Our new campaign shows that whatever you’re looking for, no matter how unique, you can find it on Rightmove. We’re delivering that message across different audiences and life moments, and it’s timed to help our partners at two really key moments for the housing market, the Boxing Day bounce and subsequent New Year activity."

Zoopla shows off Michael Sheen in its new campaign

Zoopla has brought in the award-winning actor Michael Sheen for its latest television campaign.

Zoopla's ad—the first new TV ad in two years—will premiere on Christmas Day, centred around giving movers the confidence and tools to help them ‘Win at Moving’ and driving more motivated movers for agents, featuring a voiceover by Sheen.

Zoopla says the campaign will reach over 26 million adults in the UK during the festive period across television, Amazing Prime, YouTube and social media.

Rich Hayes, chief operating officer at Zoopla said:

"Agents can expect to see and feel Zoopla a lot more in 2025, and we’re kicking this off by celebrating their role at the heart of the home moving journey and putting them front and centre in our major new marketing campaign. The campaign will not only celebrate agents but also position Zoopla as the home of motivated movers looking to win in 2025."

Read part one here. Read part two here.

As a data-focused company with a strong mission of empowering consumers and agents alike, Zoopla is a great company to ask about industry problems and possible solutions.

The core context is that the UK is a very slow-moving market. Bryant outlines the specifics of the British market and how Zoopla needs to react to long-term tenures, where homeowners stay in one property longer than ever.

"The average occupancy period for a homeowner has doubled since the financial crisis. So people used to stay in their homes for 9-10 years and they're now staying in their homes for 18-20 years.

"Zoopla has a big part to play in helping agents identify future home movers, from those high intent '0-6 monthers' who will move imminently, to the 6-12 monthers, 1-3 years, 3-5 years and then the prospects who the agents should put away in the proverbial bottom drawer for the next five years."

A complication for British buyers and sellers is 'long chains on thin ice'—transactions take between 26 and 28 weeks, and nobody is on the hook until week 24.

In other words, your dream move could go swimmingly for months at a time only for a deal 50 miles away to break the chain for everyone.

All in all, a tough environment for low-margin deals (UK agents are lucky to earn over 2% and often as little as 1% commission for a transaction).

Add this to low-quality leads, and the marketplace becomes a high-risk, low-reward environment.

I asked Rich Hayes what the biggest or most common request from agents is. His answer was simple: quality over quantity.

"Time and time and time again, it is all about quality over quantity. Every time we send a low value lead, that takes time from the agent, time to process, time to contact—time is money for them, especially our smaller agents who run a very personal service and pride themselves on that service."

Any serious marketplace has to find a way to separate the wheat from the chaff. What can portals like Zoopla do to nurture those long-term relationships in the months (and sometimes years) between home moves?

Hayes says propensity modelling is one solution Zoopla is testing—a new term for me but easy enough to understand:

"We've been spending a lot of time looking at propensity modeling and really understanding how user behavior on site can ladder up to a greater understanding of their intent and their more and their likelihood to convert.

"For example, we take 40 'weight-carrying' data points and feed them into a machine learning model. The machine will tell us that consumers' likelihood to go on to do something of value. We spend a lot of time on understanding quality before we send inquiries to the agent. Meanwhile, we're looking to develop or move the score up as much as we possibly can."

This doesn't mean portals should go radio silent. In fact, a major opportunity presents itself: nurturing prospects through to conversion. Hayes says "Your message as an agent can and should evolve as a prospect's propensity score increases over time. We're looking to support agent in nailing that messaging for their consumers."

As for the consumers themselves, Zoopla has been piloting its 'Zoopla Plus'—a subscription service that would-be buyers and sellers can sign up for while they're active in the marketplaces. In return, they get access to data and insights that would otherwise stay hidden.

This product has already been successful in Sweden (Hemnet) and Germany (Scout24), with significant revenue and demand for consumer products. Zoopla has yet to monetise this service... but how is it performing, and how do you get it right?

"It's been a resounding success. We've had thousands of signups and consumers are sticking around for between 4-5 months on the Plus product.

"We're clearly developing a more informed consumer, a more motivated mover. People who consume that data are significantly more likely to go on to send a lead.

"We've been blown away by the value we're generating for the customer and the conversation now is about potentially offering as much of that data to consumers for free.

"We have a world-class product team, and then it's a lot of trial and error. You need to fail fast and get as much new, interesting stuff in front of the consumer as possible, then measure it and repackage it for the next trial. If the consumer doesn't value what we build, we dust ourselves off and go again."

This brings us to the inevitable topic: artificial intelligence. AI has taken over the industry's product output in the past 12 months, so how does Zoopla perceive AI?  "It's a game changer, and we're obsessed," says Hayes.

"There are obvious perks to helping consumers move. An AI concierge service is going to help hugely. Machine learning and recommended listings are becoming table stakes. We believe there will be meaningful changes in how consumers interact with portals through generative AI, especially when they are high-intent.

"It won't be about scrolling through listings, it will be about getting answers to questions like 'when should I move home?', 'why should I move home?' and 'what do I need to do get ready to move?'

"We believe there's a lot more innovation to come in the next 12 months. There's so much we can do to complement search when consumers are moving house. It's an issue that remains unsolved in the UK and if there's a better brand than Zoopla to solve it, I'd be flabbergasted. We're in an amazing position to use our core data-first approach to help movers move confidently."

I ask Charlie Bryant what the industry should spend more time talking about.

"I don't think we focus enough on on the overall economics for the end customer. We spend a lot of time as an industry focusing on ARPA, user exeperience and content coverage. We would learn a lot more if we spent more time thinking about the end of economics and the real pain points from our customers in terms of their business operations."

This begs the question, how would you solve this problem? Unsurprisingly, AI is part of the answer.

"We need to automate mundane tasks. When I talk to agents today, they say their negotiators are spending less than 50% of their time actually out there talking to home biyers and sellers. That figure should be closer to 75%.

"Despite what some may tell you, agency is still very much a face-to-face business. Buying a home is an individual, emotional choice and agents exist to help movers navigate that path. We should strip away as much as we can that isn't critical to nurturing a personal relationship with a customer—that's the job we're here to do.

Time is running short and Christmas drinks wait nearby. I have time for one more question: Charlie Bryant, what does Zoopla look like in five years?

"Oh, it's a good question! The first thing is that our customers and consumers will have real clarity on why they come to Zoopla. I don't think we've yet absolutely nailed that. Whether it's the apocryphal person in the pub, an agent on the street, or a developer, we want everyone who uses us to say 'I use Zoopla because...'. In five years, that will be ingrained into our brand.

"Number two, we will have really stepped up our game in how we use data to deliver consumer and customer experiences.

"Thirdly, we want people to want to love working with and for us. I've long said that I want Zoopla to be the place where everyone who works here loves being here, and those who aren't here want to be here and we attract the best people in the market. Maybe not one for your readers, but a big one for us."

A final, brief aside. One question I had planned on asking, but didn't have time to, concerned layoffs and restructuring at Houseful—hindsight is 20/20 given that Houseful announced a consultation period with team members in its software division (namely Alto and Jupix) just one week after our in-person interview.

Zoopla cut more than 90 jobs according to 2023's filings, while the departure of the long-serving Nikki Cole—who was already at Zoopla when I entered the industry circa 2015—marks the end of an era.

Zoopla told Online Marketplaces that its portal business will be unaffected, and shared the following quote from Riccardo Dawson, Chief Operating Officer of Software at Houseful:

"As we look to 2025, we are focused on driving further efficiencies in our software business and recalibrating certain roles in our organisation. These proposals, which do not impact our core products of Alto, Jupix, Expert Agent and CFP, were very much a last resort.

"We want to reassure our customers that no roles involved in the development, support, or delivery of these products are affected. Our goal is to ensure we continue delivering enhanced products and services at pace, maintaining the value our customers expect from these industry-leading platforms. We are fully committed to supporting our affected colleagues throughout this process."

Oceania: View Media Group launches REIP Nexus data on its portal

View Media Group, which operates view.com.au, has integrated REIP Nexus data into its portal.

REIP Nexus will provide view.com.au with access to property listing data on over 10 million off-market properties and high-quality Sales Price Estimates.

Antony Catalano, Executive Chairman at View Media Group, commented:

"We are always looking at ways to ensure our products and services provide the best possible experience for property seekers and to our agent partners. Partnering with REIP Nexus ensures our audience has access to rich data on over 10 million properties to assist them in their property research.

"Our property seekers also receive access to REIP Nexus sophisticated Sales Price Estimate tool providing agents and their vendors with an up-to-date price on their property. These tools work hand in hand with agents to stimulate the market and create potential vendors."

REIP and VMG entered a multi-year partnership earlier this year as view.com.au looks to rival Domain for the number two spot by listings volume in Australia.

Catalano said view.com.au has seen sales listing volumes grow from less than 130,000 to over 185,000 listings in the past 13 months.

United Kingdom: Jitty launches first monetised service

The AI-powered challenger portal Jitty has released its first monetised service—allowing buyers to access homes before they hit traditional portals like Rightmove and Zoopla.

Dubbed "Jitty Pre Market", Jitty will work directly with estate agents and send email digests with off-market opportunities in specific areas, granting early access to properties nobody else has seen.

Jitty hasn't revealed the price point for the feature.

Graham Paterson, CEO at Jitty, said on LinkedIn:

"Jitty Pre-Market shows you homes before they go onto portals - sometimes days before, sometimes hours, sometimes weeks. Some homes will never even make it onto the portals. And as they’re pre-market they sometimes won’t have the usual information, just basics like bedrooms, size, address, and price - they’re literally pre-marketing. It’s our first paid-for feature, and there will be a big discount for early signups."

Europe: Gestilar iBuyer expands operations to five major cities

The iBuying subsidiary of residential construction specialist Gestilar, "Homes by Gestilar", has revealed it is now operating in five major Spanish and Portuguese cities.

The firm says it is now live in Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Malaga and Lisbon. Meanwhile, Homes by Gestilar has bought, renovated and sold 300 properties since it launched in 2022.

Gestilar also said it took on a project to renovate 66 apartments in the prestigious Salamanca neighbourhood of Madrid.

Miguel Silmi, CEO at Homes by Gestilar, told El Economista:

"We have a system, an ERP [enterprise resource planning], which is an asset manager in which, both in the acquisition of the reform and the sale of the assets, all salespeople and technicians have a real-time application.

"Every time they see a business opportunity or any modification to the reform or a sales opportunity, they have online access to decision-making by the company’s management committee to make agile decisions at any time.

"We have taken the concept of house flipping to the extreme. The demand in the Salamanca neighborhood is extreme; in recent years the absorption that has taken place is six houses a month, and with the business model that we have put in place in this last month, we have sold 14 houses — we have doubled the usual rate of sales in the market.

"Therefore, it is an agile business model that can be extrapolated to different segments of the real estate industry."

Asia: Hogangnono adds banner ads to showcase agents

Hogangnono, the subsidiary of the South Korean rentals brokerage Zigbang, has launched a banner advertising offer for agents specialising in rental properties.

The "ApartmentPro" feature is for apartments only, showing the name, photo and contact details of certified realtors on banner ads.

ZigBang said the new ads provide agents with more opportunities to consult with users of ZigBang and Hogangnono.

Jason Ahn, CEO at ZigBang, said:

"We expect that users’ brokerage service experience will also improve through apartment-specialized certified real estate agents in each region.

"We hope that users will not miss this golden opportunity to be introduced as the first complex expert on Hogangnono."

Europe: Scout24 CEO to step down, successor already appointed

Tobias Hartmann will leave his position as CEO at Scout24 in March due to personal reasons, and his successor has already been appointed.

Scout24's current Chief Product & Technology Officer, Ralf Weitz, will take over from Hartmann for a period of five years, starting 1 March 2025.

Hans-Holger Albrecht, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, said in a press release:

"The Supervisory Board is looking forward to continuing the close and trustful collaboration with Ralf Weitz. He will assume the CEO role from Tobias Hartmann on 1 March 2025, in addition to his role as Chief Product & Technology Officer. Due to his many years of experience and impressive track record within the company as well his product management expertise, Ralf Weitz has everything it takes to further drive the successful strategy and growth of Scout24 SE.

"Tobias Hartmann has led and developed the company with great success since November 2018. During his tenure, the Group's revenues, profitability and growth have increased remarkably. As a result, the company has delivered exceptional results and created excellent value for its shareholders. Under his leadership, the Scout24 Group has been focused on the real estate business. Tobias also completed successfully several strategic acquisitions to strengthen the company’s market position. We regret his departure but respect his decision not to extend his contract for personal reasons after two successful terms."

Tobias Hartmann said:

"Scout24 SE is a very special company. It has been an extraordinary honor and pleasure to steer and manage the company over the last few years together with such a strong and committed team."

Scout's most recent financial filing was made in October—the Q3 2024 statement announced typically strong performance.

Meanwhile, Scout24 hired a new specialist CTO in September, appointing Gertrud Kolb to the role. It is unknown whether Kolb joined the company in the knowledge that its CEO was due to depart and the CPTO was set to step up to fill the role.

Swedish rentals proptech Qasa appoints new CEO

Maria Björkander has been appointed CEO of Qasa, the Schibsted-owned proptech that provides Sweden’s largest service for renting out housing.

She replaces the co-founder of the company, Fredrik Strömsten, who left the company in September to join Sana.

Strömsten and the rest of his cofounders all stepped down in September.

Björkander, who was most recently a product manager at Volvo, said:

"I am taking over the leadership at Qasa at an incredibly exciting time.

"The company has had an impressive development in recent years and really proven that both the product and the business model work on the Swedish market by becoming the largest in rental housing. Now we are facing the next phase, both in terms of the development of the business and expansion into new markets. It feels incredibly fun to lead this strong and committed team into the next chapter in our growth journey."

Qasa operates in Sweden and Finland and is set to expand to Norway as part of strategic partnerships with the market-leading real estate portals Finn.no and Oikotie.

Adevinta Spain head of digital leaves

Aingeru Duarte has left his role as head of digital at Adevinta.

Duarte returns to MediaMarkt, where he worked before joining Adevinta.

Duarte is one of many Adevinta employees to leave the business in a flurry of changes since Permira and Blackstone took control of Adevinta earlier this year for circa $13 billion.

The company has already renamed its Spain entity, divested from Irish portal Daft.ie (and other Irish marketplaces under the Distilled Media umbrella.

United Kingdom: Houseful enters consultation period with potential redundancies at its software division

Houseful is entering a consultation period with some employees in its software business, with veteran Nikki Cole being the first big name to leave the company after 17 years.

Houseful's software segment includes Alto Software, Jupix and Expert Agent and CFP.

A spokesperson for Houseful said:

"As we look to 2025, we are focused on driving further efficiencies in our software business and recalibrating certain roles in our organisation. These proposals, which do not impact our core products of Alto, Jupix, Expert Agent and CFP, were very much a last resort.

"We want to reassure our customers that no roles involved in the development, support, or delivery of these products are affected. Our goal is to ensure we continue delivering enhanced products and services at pace, maintaining the value our customers expect from these industry-leading platforms. We are fully committed to supporting our affected colleagues throughout this process."

Staff at Zoopla are not expected to be affected.

Cole posted on LinkedIn to announce her departure, saying:

"After 17 years working across estate agency, new homes, commercial portal and software – from start up, to PLC, and then PE owned, it’s finally time for me to hang up my ZPG/Houseful hat and move on to new adventures."

Oceania: REA Group appoints new national customer training manager

REA Group has appointed Tara Christianson as the group's new National Customer Training Manager.

Christianson will lead customer training initiatives across franchises, ownership groups and agencies.

The appointment comes as a response to customer feedback which found 60% of consumers wanted more proactive support and training.

Christianson said:

"We’re doubling down on service, committed to helping you get bigger, better results. This new structure is about creating better employee experiences so that we can create better customer experiences. It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, and I’m feeling good."

Asia: Carousell cuts 7% of jobs amid demand slump

The Singaporean horizontal marketplace Carousell has cut 76 jobs in response to lower demand from consumers.

A spokesperson for the company told This Week In Asia:

"Affected roles were from both business and tech departments … with ongoing slowdown of consumer demand, we sought to proactively make adjustments to ensure the long-term sustainability and operational efficiency of our Group."

Carousell lost $38 million in 2023, from revenues of $116 million.

Sahibinden hires new CTO

The Turkish generalised marketplace Sahibinden has appointed technology veteran Bulent Akar as the firm's new CTO.

He was previously CTO at Turkey's leading food delivery platform Yemeksepeti, and he is currently co-founder and Chairman at the boutique software development and consultancy firm Agada Tech.

Europe: LeBonCoin up for sale? Not Yet, says CEO Antoine Jouteau

LeBonCoin CEO Antoine Jouteau has hinted that the marketplace may be up for sale, but insists "it is not a subject for now." [translated from French]

Jouteau told the French business channel BFM Business that a sale could be a "possibility" for LeBonCoin, the Adevinta-owned generalised marketplace.

Adevinta has already begun transitioning itself to divest from its diverse marketplace portfolio, beginning with Jouteau returning to his previous post if heading up LeBonCoin after Adevinta opted to operate without a centralised CEO.

In a wide-ranging interview, Jouteau also confirmed that LeBonCoin is seeking damages from Google in a multi-mission dollar lawsuit, and said the platform grew by 10% to €550 million in 2024.

Cinven completes $3.1 billion takeover of Idealista

Private equity firm Cinven finally closed its €2.9 billion ($3.1 billion) acquisition of the international real estate portal operator Idealista this week.

Despite being all but signed, sealed and delivered since this summer, Expansíon has reported that the official transaction closed on December 10, 2024.

The newspaper claimed it is the biggest single deal involving a Spain-based internet business of all time, with the valuation rising from the agreed sale price after changes in Idealista's operating performance in recent months.

Cinven's took a 70% stake in the portal operator, a clear market leader in Spain and Portugal, and a close-run market leader in Italy against Immobiliare.it.

Idealista Global, Idealista's parent company, increased its revenues to €259 million in 2023, a 19% increase year over year.

Asia: MagicBricks takes majority stake in PropViz

MagicBricks has acquired a majority stake in the proptech PropViz for an undisclosed sum.

PropViz offers 3D visualisation and immersive technology solutions such as virtual tours and smart maps, an integrated bookings system and real-time inventory management tools.

The proptech has developed 125 million sq. ft. of virtual spaces, designed 1,800+ interactive spatial layouts, and works with over 100 developers in India.

Sudhir Pai, CEO at Magicbricks, said:

"We now offer a full suite of solutions tailor-made for both homebuyers and developers as part of our full-stack positioning. For developers, apart from our leading ad-sales solutions, we’ve launched Site Visits & Verified Leads as disruptive solutions. With PropViz, we will expand our range of solutions for developers covering the entire funnel from prelaunch to launch to sustenance selling of projects."

United States: Compass to acquire Christie's International for over $400 million

The top broker in the United States, Compass, has agreed to acquire @properties and Christie’s International Real Estate for $444 million.

Compass is a big-name, coast-to-coast brokerage operator in the States and also competes with Zillow across mortgages and other services.

The addition of @properties (Chicago) and Christie's (nationwide, luxury properties) will

Robert Reffkin, CEO at Compass, said:

"We’re operating two great companies ‘as is,’ and that’s a really important message. We want to make sure we get the best from each other but not necessarily change quickly."

United Kingdom: Dwelly acquires another U.K. lettings business

The AI-enabled lettings marketplace Dwelly has made another acquisition after a busy second half of the year which has seen the challenger marketplace close two significant investments in rentals businesses.

Dwelly acquired Gallant Richardson earlier this month, adding circa 450 rental properties to its portfolio.

The acquisition follows the purchase of Lime Property in September, which added circa 1,000 properties to Dwelly's marketplace.

Read part one here.

It is difficult to speak about Zoopla without understanding the pressure it faces from both above and below.

Above, the incumbent market leader Rightmove is (in)famous for its extraordinary success among the upper echelons of real estate portals worldwide. Below, the American-owned OnTheMarket (OTM), flush with billions in the bank, a long-term strategy, and a bullish CEO who hates losing.

According to Similarweb figures, Rightmove had 74.3 million web visits from November 8-December 8 2024. In the same period, Zoopla had 22.6 million views and OTM, 15 million.

Bryant's summation of the competitive landscape in the United Kingdom—a mostly three-horse race between Rightmove, Zoopla and OTM—is an excellent summary worth sharing:

"Rightmove was the first portal out there in the UK and that shows through today in that it clearly the number one portal in the UK from a traffic perspective, from a brand recognition perspective, and in some areas, from a listing perspective, as well.

"OnTheMarket is a more recent entrant (publicly launched 2015) as an agent-owned challenger. Most of that was driven by the fact that agents wanted to have a hedge against potential fee increases from Rightmove and Zoopla. It didn't really get traction in its ability to challenge either Rightmove or Zoopla, and this has been a fairly constant picture.

"Obviously that changed in 2023 when it was acquired by CoStar which has been successful in bringing in a number of agents through what Zoopla understands to be principally free offers. It's also been working hard on digital marketing to get greater visibility with consumers.

"From our perspective, Rightmove remains a clear number one, Zoopla remains a clear number two, and quite some distance ahead of OTM. But there's no question that there is a third challenger portal in town that now has more firepower behind it than the original OTM."

Andy Florance told Online Marketplaces that his CoStar business is willing to be patient to take market leadership in the UK from Rightmove—alluding to a ten-year investment strategy involving a huge amount of marketing spend.

I asked Bryant if the American CEO could realistically wrestle the number-two spot from Zoopla simply by spending his way to the top.

He's not so sure.

"It takes three things to be a successful portal, and there's no rocket science to this.

"One is content. You have to have the listings coverage. You know consumers will not go to somewhere that only shows them half of the homes for sale.

"Number two, you have to have a product, a consumer experience that really engages consumers and and gives them something that they are not getting from elsewhere or not used to seeing elsewhere. And thirdly, you need to go out there and develop the brand.

"Only if you have all three of those can you really change consumer preference. I'm not suggesting that any of our competitors are just focused on one of them, but what I would say is if someone did come into the market thinking that they could purely drive advertising and spending and shift consumer preference that way, I think [CoStar] would be missing two legs of the stool."

Andy Florance told Online Marketplaces in October that he is 'a patient man' and is willing to invest in OnTheMarket for at least the next ten years. Does Bryant agree that the long game is key?

"CoStar is a listed company and shareholders tend to be demanding. The business is not a charity and over time the shareholders will need to see that OnTheMarket is on a commercial footing. The idea of building up listings through free offers isn't a long term game. Whether that changes over the next two, five or ten years isn't for me to judge. But the shareholders need to be willing to wait for that change."

And this is where the conversation gets interesting.

Firstly, Hayes submits that the top of the pyramid isn't for the faint of heart: "The consumer experience leg of the stool will be critical [for OTM]. If they serve up a bog-standard listing that doesn't help a consumer move confidently, then you're making it much harder for yourself to win."

I push back. I put it to the execs that the harsh reality for Zoopla is that in CoStar—which already operates a hugely data-heavy set of marketplaces including Homes.com and Apartments.com in the United States—the purple portal has a deadly rival that loves buying and packaging data more than Zoopla itself.

CoStar is not in the game of bog-standard listings and has the billions to blow Zoopla out of the water. So won't Zoopla have to find a way of beating OTM away from its data-focused USP?

Bryant steps in:

"The UK market is, in this sense, much different to the US market. The vast majority of UK movers move less than three miles. So actually, the idea of really indepth education data and drone flights (an allusion to Matterport), are arguably less relevant in the UK market than they might in the United States.

"Pretty much everyone knows which neighbourhood they want to live in, a good percentage know what street they want to live in, and some even know which specific house they want to live in."

Zoopla has a functionality whereby would-be buyers can track individual properties whether they're for sale or not. But, the data is all publicly available, so what is stopping CoStar from using the exact same data for its own listings?

Rich Hayes says Zoopla has a headstart.

"We've invested heavily in it. The valuation element is also unique to us because we get the data from Hometrack (a Houseful business) which is the best in class of what portals can offer consumers. [CoStar] is not going to win on a great listing experience because we're all doing it."

Meanwhile, the duo are unbothered (and perhaps slightly unimpressed) by OTM's claim that it was the UK's number two destination for web traffic in September. Bryant said:

"We have no desire to be getting into a sort of prolonged game of 'he said, she said' here. The trade press loves to stoke the fire on what they call portal wars and honestly that's not our game.

"But when people are going out in a very public fashion with numbers we believe are manifestly misleading, we did feel it was necessary to correct it, especially when they brought our name into it as well. We don't intent to comment on this any further but if they poke the bear again and we feel something is injust, we'll correct it."

As for Rightmove, Bryant wants Zoopla to be an "and"—not an "or"—for agents in the UK.

"Agents are all grown ups. It's public record that Rightmove has seen substantial revenue growth driven in large part by growth in ARPA, and that inevitably garners the attention of agents, sometimes with frustration.

"They can make their own decisions on whether they feel they get an ROI for something. Yes, there is some frustration that is often publicly quoted around agent fees. But it really is up to every agent to make their own decision on ROI, and that's why it's something that we focus very, very heavily on: deliver the best ROI for agents."

Does Zoopla need to improve its ARPA to perform more like Rightmove? Bryant is quick to shut down this line of questioning.

"No. We need to deliver more value to our agents and products that work for them. What we talk about internally is offering something different. A great example: today, Zoopla knows one in four properties that are set to come to market before [the owner] has even thought about coming to market. If we can harness that information for the benefit of our agents, that will be really important to them."

This reporter will admit that, from the outside, a portal like Zoopla facing two kinds of pressure (or three if you include ROI for Silver Lake's investors) may be driven to conversations revolving around what its rivals are doing.

But what became patently clear, from this part of the conversation at least, is that Rightmove and OTM are not top of mind for Zoopla—nor should they be.

With Bryant and Hayes laser-focused on doing what they do best, the bigger picture view is that Zoopla has more than laid the foundations for its own success. With a suite of useful businesses like Alto, Jupix and Hometrack under the Houseful umbrella, Zoopla is not a business that will willingly hand over its silver medal to OnTheMarket/CoStar 'just because'.

Meanwhile, the shadow of Rightmove looms large, but Zoopla honestly doesn't seem to concern itself with the reputation or methods of the market leader. The short and simple message to agents appears to be: go for Rightmove if you want, but if the numbers stop making sense, Zoopla will be there—and you'll probably like it more here anyway.

Part three of Online Marketplaces' exclusive interview with Zoopla will go live next week.

The survey of over 2000 nationally representative respondents was carried out by YouGov and asked respondents to identify which platform they would expect to see their home advertised on if they were to put it up for sale.

54% of respondents cited Rightmove.

Zoopla, which CEO Charlie Bryant says is historically popular in London, was a close second in the capital, with 33% of respondents in London saying Zoopla compared with 39% for Rightmove. OnTheMarket again lagged behind at 7%.

Rich Hayes, Chief Operating Officer at Zoopla said:

"We’re pleased to share the results of this survey with our customers and shine a light on the strength of the Zoopla brand and its iconic purple across every region of the UK. This combined with the launch of our upcoming marketing campaign and product innovations will ensure we hit the ground running in 2025, driving even more motivated movers and ROI for our agent customers."

In a wide-ranging exclusive interview with Online Marketplaces, Bryant and COO Rich Hayes discussed competition, artificial intelligence, quality listings, and industry standards.

The main takeaway? Zoopla is confident, profitable, unconcerned by "noise" surrounding its business—and a portal that truly celebrates its relationship with its customer base and its role as a data provider to the industry.

What noise, readers may ask? One of the wealthiest real estate companies in the world (Rightmove) under offer from another one of the wealthiest real estate companies in the world (REA Group), and an upstart challenger (OnTheMarket) funded by, you guessed it, one of the wealthiest real estate companies in the world (CoStar Group).

Rightmove (which recently rejected four takeover bids by REA Group) and OnTheMarket (owned by the ambitious CoStarGroup) have rightly dominated the headlines for British real estate portals this year with vast sums of money bubbling away in the background.

Zoopla, meanwhile, sandwiched between the two and with a couple of years of losses under its belt, has had fewer fireworks to set off—so much so that Online Marketplaces discussed Zoopla as an 'under threat #2' along with Australia's Domain and American portal Realtor.com earlier this year on the PPW Podcast.

Yet, Zoopla—ever the savvy competitor—remains a consistently active company with an equally consistent pipeline of useful new releases. Rarely a week goes by without Zoopla announcing the launch of something or other, and Bryant and Hayes both agree that Zoopla's vision of putting data in the hands of buyers, sellers and agents is at the very core of what makes it a going concern for consumers and investors alike.

Charlie Bryant explains the context behind Zoopla, where it sits in the British market, and the business's financial performance since 2018:

"Zoopla started as a challenger portal in 2007. When sales prices became public in the UK, Zoopla was one of the first places that you could go and find that information, and over the years we have supplemented that with our own AVM (Automated Valuation Model) and a number of other valuation tools.

"We tend to be the place in the UK where people start their property journey—what makes us stand out from the market leader (Rightmove) is that we get to people earlier in the journey when they're looking for information. We have a very data-led audience, particularly in the city centre and particular in younger age brackets.

"The conventional wisdom is that Zoopla tends to serve a slightly more, a slightly younger, more digital savvy group demographic than than the competitors do. Something not often appreciated is that we're number one in London by a meaningful margin and we're number one in lettings in London by a very, very significant margin.

"We're also in a complex holding structure in that we operate several different businesses. We have our three property businesses [at Houseful], HomeTrack, Alto Software Group and Zoopla. We also have a number of comparison sites including Confused.com, Money.co.uk, and Uswitch.

"We have been consisently profitable at a significantly larger numbers than the ones you've quoted.

"If you look across the journey since we went private, we've seen uptick in ARPA [average revenue per agent], we've seen uptick in branches. We've had good, solid profitability, and our cost per lead is lower than the competition. We really pride ourselves in offering agents the best ROI out there."

Zoopla, part of Houseful, is owned by Silver Lake, which acquired the business in 2018 for circa $3 billion (GBP 2.2 billion), but public filings from the portal paint a disappointing picture driven in no small part by 2020's COVID-19 pandemic.

How is Zoopla's relationship with Silver Lake?

Bryant said:

"There isn't any formal message [from Silver lake]. There are few certainties in life but one of them is that what goes into private equity must come out.

"We're six and a half years into the journey and there is no rush or time pressure from Silver Lake. They tend to be a very-long-term fund with a lot of patience.

"At some stage they'll be beginning to think about what the next step is but we're not in that position yet."

How has Zoopla performed in 2024? At this stage of the conversation, COO Richard Hayes, who has been with the Group since September 2023, joins in.

"It's been an important year for Zoopla. We've found some big wins including a 10% increase to our search performance, and we've also focused heavily on consumer exerperience, particularly the ways in which users of Zoopla engage with the listing, the quality of the listing itself, and our first meaningful foray into AI.

"We're investing in bringing even more data to the listing itself, allowing our consumers to understand more about individual properties as well as the surrounding area as well."

These are unsurprising answers—Zoopla's approach to the consumer experience has always been to empower homebuyers and sellers with information and data. The question is, what data is Zoopla leveraging? Hayes said:

"We focus on two key areas, data we can find and redistribute to users, and data we can create ourselves—all greater than the sum of their parts.

"We've given users access to planning data, planning applications, and much greater insight into the local area such as noise pollution.

"We're seeing more users looking to understand their property's value, then start broadening their search to find out about neighbourhoods much further afield than previously. Area data had been less useful in the past, but it's becoming more important today.

"We then have our own data—data that we curate—and we are currently testing giving consumers access to data so they can understand demand for their home. Zoopla is focused on growing its homeowner base, so it is critical for us to help homeowners understand whether anyone wants to buy their house and is now the right time to sell? We'll be delivering more of this type of data and insight in 2025."

What's the next big win for the company? Hayes says:

"Growing our audience of homeowners. Zoopla will end the year with circa four million homeowners tracking the value of their home with a 60% active return rate.

"Zoopla also knows circa one in every four listings before they come to market, so we believe we will be able to provide extreme value for our customer base once we develop the products that allow them to access a selling audience before they publicly list their property. Without giving too much away, we want to to give our customer base access to more motivated movers than any other portal, including Rightmove."

Does Hayes have any pushback on recent comments by OnTheMarket that it is beginning to snatch the number two spot away from Zoopla?

"For the past few years, certainly this year, portals have made a lot of noise about fighting for share. At Zoopla, we feel very strongly about this idea about growing the market for our customer base. We want to be the business that rises the tide for all boats.

"While other people are talking about positions and session volumes, we have a very very high conviction in our ability to connect far more vendors than any other business with our customer base. We want to deliver demonstrable ROI for our customer base.

His CEO agrees. Bryant said, "If we can help more home movers in the UK move to the next home of their dreams, that's what we want to do and frankly everyone will benefit from that."

Further quotes from Charlie Bryant and Rich Hayes will be published this week, from topics including Rightmove and OnTheMarket, industry problems, the specifics of the British real estate journey, and what the industry is ignoring about its agent customers.