Former Online Agency Owner Plans Another British Challenger Portal

A British entrepreneur has said that he is "sick and tired" of agents complaining about portal fees and has announced the launch of a new property portal to challenge Rightmove and Zoopla.

In 2017 Kae Travis was one of the cohort of founders that believed that estate agency needed a re-think. His venture, MoveSelf was essentially a discount FSBO play which ultimately went the same way as many other online or discount agencies.

Travis' new venture is a bare-bones real estate portal named Find Properties which states that its mission is to...

• Create a simple property listing portal.
• Drive traffic directly back to agent websites.
• Provide agents with opportunities to monetise their own data.
• Give agents control over the platform, features, fee structures and more.

The portal is aiming to succeed where so many other real estate portal upstarts have failed in the Rightmove-dominated British market.

UK Challenger Portals

In a press release circulated to the UK estate agency press, Travis said that his attempt to unsettle the market leaders would be different to other attempts:

“In previous attempts, estate agents have seen mutuals demutualise, privately owned portals sold to marketing companies, failed shareholder-backed portals (that would have possibly resulted in another Rightmove minus the stagnant technology stack), and more recently a portal attempt that scrapes estate agent data without their permission.

“So, I can understand why agents would be sceptical of any new portal offering. Especially since the proposer of this portal offering is the founder of a former property sales platform which attempted to put more control into the hands of the homeowner [MoveSelf].

“But Find Properties is different to previous attempts. Shareholders will not majority-own it. Agents will collectively be able to shape the development of the portal and manage the cost of subscription fees. And importantly, agents will regain control of their own data."

Travis, whose employment background is in coding, is now seeking financial backing from agents to get the project off the ground.