OnTheMarket Reports Very Healthy HY21 As More Agents Move to Paid Listings Packages

British majority agent-owned property portal OnTheMarket has reported strong results for the first half of its financial year to follow up the announcement that 2020 was the company's first profitable full year. Highlights of OnTheMarket's HY21 include:

• Operating profit for the period was up 163% to £2.1 million
• Traffic was up 36% to 159 million for the period
• Percentage of agency branches on paying contracts is now 91%, up 9% from last year
• Monthly leads per advertiser was up 26% to 132
• ARPA was up 52% to £188 from £142 in HY20

The results represent a huge step forward for the company which seems to have come through the troubles associated with its former CEO Ian Springett and his infamous 'one other portal' rule.

OnTheMarket did have to spend over the period to make these gains. Staff overheads went up 28% and marketing spending went up 105% to £4.5 for the period and is expected to go up further for the second half of the year as the portal looks forward to a refreshed brand and website.

The firm's PR work among its agent core has been well documented recently and speaking on the Vox Markets podcast, company CFO Clive Beattie was keen to point out that there are now over 900 agency branches in the UK that list exclusively on OnTheMarket.

Recently appointed CEO and ex-agent Jason Tebb pointed out that estate agents are now more willing to pay "a fair and sustainable price" for the portal's services and the company is looking to diversify its offering for them. In March OnTheMarket completed the £1.5 million purchase of cloud-based rental software provider Glanty and the company will look to build out more functionality for agents with some features already in beta testing according to Tebb.

The latest set of results was slightly above what the board had predicted and have prompted company bosses to predict that full-year results will include revenues ahead of previous expectations and operating profit substantially ahead of them.

The focus is now for the portal company to reinforce its USP for consumers which is that many properties are available on OnTheMarket 24 hours before they appear on Rightmove and Zoopla. To this end, the firm has signed deals with national media outlets including Reach media, Sky and Channel 4 to get its message across to consumers.