Property Portals What Is The True Value For Estate Agents?

Many are questioning the real return on investment for portals, Homehere have done some deep analytics on the subject and set out below is their findings based on a sample group.

New HOMEHERE report reveals disparity in value for money and lead conversion rates from online property portals

1. Research found less than 3% of all leads from property portals converted to sale or let

2. Report analysed nearly 25,000 email enquiries and 9,000 telephone calls from UK estate agents over a six-month period

A new independent report, written by digital property lead software company Homehere, has found disparity in lead quality and value for money between online property portals.

The report analysed the sales, lettings and valuation leads from estate agents around the UK all of whom had subscriptions to Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket from July 2020 to January 2021.

The research found that Zoopla offered the best value for money per converted lead with an average cost of £83.92, while OnTheMarket cost per lead was almost double the price at £161.76. Rightmove’s cost per converted lead came out as £112.15.

When tracking all incoming leads and their outcomes, none of the portals achieved more than 3% success. The researcher found that Rightmove converted 2.65% of leads into a sale or rental, Zoopla 1.9% and OnTheMarket just 1%.

Valuation leads also showed a big difference between the portals, with Rightmove delivering 54% of all email valuation leads to participating agents, Zoopla 43% and OnTheMarket just 3%.

Founder of Homehere, the digital lead conversion system designed for estate agents, Lou Quinn said: “’We’ve published this data to bring some transparency to the ongoing conversation around portal performance.

“What we found was surprising. Areas that we thought the portals would be stronger in, such as valuation leads, actually aren’t, with very few of them actually converting to instructions.

“The number of late leads – those that arrive after a property has been taken off the market – was also something that we were shocked at. The research revealed a massive difference between portals, with OnTheMarket reporting 40% of late leads compared to 6% from Zoopla and 5% from Rightmove.”

Lou explained: “The data suggests that there’s areas that the portals can improve on, maybe focusing more on quality over quantity. As our customer base grows, we plan to issue a quarterly industry report which will hopefully make it easier for agents to see which channels are generating the most value for them.”

A full downloadable copy of the property portal research can be found here: http://zpr.io/RR3FX

Andrew Stanton

CEO & Founder Proptech-PR. Proptech Real Estate Influencer, Executive Editor of Estate Agent Networking. Leading PR consultancy in Proptech & Real Estate.

You May Also Enjoy

to let sign 2025
Breaking News

Thames Valley Rents Surge to £1,448 – 6% Above UK Average

Average rents in Thames Valley reach £1,448 pcm, nearly 6% above the UK average, new report reveals Rents in Thames Valley reach £1,448 pcm, nearly 6% above the UK average of £1,369 Wokingham and Reading highlighted as key areas of interest for renters and investors Renters in Thames Valley are more likely to be older than anywhere else in…
Read More
Breaking News

July’s HMRC Property Transactions Report

Headline statistics Headline statistics from the latest transactions data include: the provisional seasonally adjusted estimate of the number of UK residential transactions in July 2026 is 96,710, 1% lower than July 2025 and 2% lower than June 2026 the provisional non-seasonally adjusted estimate of the number of UK residential transactions in July 2026 is 106,620, 5% higher than July…
Read More
Breaking News

Almost half of homesellers hit by broken chains

The latest research from House Buyer Bureau has revealed that almost half of home sellers who form part of a property chain have seen that chain break during the sales process, with buyers changing their minds and pulling out by far the most common reason why.   House Buyer Bureau commissioned an independent survey of 1,072…
Read More
Social Housing 2019
Breaking News

Only 1 in 10 new-build homebuyers happy

Just 1 in 10 new-build buyers got the home they wanted before moving in   The latest research from UK Property Development (UKPD) has found that just 11% of people who purchased a new-build home in the past two years were able to personalise their property exactly as they wanted before moving in. As a…
Read More
Breaking News

One-third of tenant income in the UK goes on rent

Lomond’s Summer 2026 Quarterly Insights report reveals tenants now spend an average of 32.7% of their yearly income on rent UK average rents rise to £1,369pcm, increasing by +4.3% in the same period last year Average rent in London reaches £2,418pcm, 76% higher than the UK average The average age of renters across the UK is now 31.5   Lomond, the UK’s leading network of lettings and sales agents, has…
Read More
Finance

Six in 10 UK businesses look to adapt operations in response to extreme heat

37 per cent have increased heat-related investment, with 23 per cent considering it Cooling equipment, including air conditioning and ventilation, is the most common investment priority (28 per cent) Barclays anonymised client data shows that air conditioning suppliers saw cash inflows increase by 4.3 per cent year-on-year into Barclays accounts Consumers claim 25.1°C is their…
Read More