Knight Frank returns to Zoopla after five years of absence

An agency that is considered the most active when it comes to OnTheMarket's (OTM) humble beginnings is trialing its return to listing on Zoopla (ZPG) after it left the former nearly five years ago.

A report in the trade publication Prime Resi last evening stated: “Knight Frank (KFH) trials ZPG listings after five-year hiatus ... [the] High-end agency follows KFH, Carter Jonas, Strutt & Parker and Humberts in making a return to Zoopla and Primelocation, after cutting ties over the launch of OnTheMarket in 2014.”

It is understood that Knight Frank will remain listing on Rightmove and OnTheMarket; no details of its Zoopla trial have been released, but there were recent properties listed for sale and rent from 21 Knight Frank London offices from Aldgate to Wimbledon.

The first of the OTM founding agencies to return to Zoopla was thought to be Douglas & Gordon in February 2018, since which time many others have returned too.

Knight Frank's split with Zoopla came in 2014 - ahead of the early 2015 launch of OTM - when firms had to drop an existing portal to abide by the ‘one other portal’ rule imposed at the time by OnTheMarket.

Knight Frank and most agencies decided - apparently independently - to drop Zoopla.

An early board member of OnTheMarket was Noel Flint - at the time a partner at Knight Frank but now no longer with the agency.

He said on behalf of Knight Frank in a statement issued on December 12 2014: “Knight Frank has decided to continue utilizing Rightmove in addition to OnTheMarket, the new property portal, which launches at the end of January. After consideration of the data available to us, we noted that Rightmove generates considerably more referrals to our website than its sole rival in the existing market, Zoopla."

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