LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Nearly 500 estate agent branches have signed up to OnTheMarket, the property portal said on Thursday, as leads continued to grow following the easing of lockdown rules.
The Aim-listed firm said the branches had been contracted under the company's most recent listing offer, launched on 27 April. The new contracts offer either £1,000 of welcome shares per office with flexible portal choices, or £2,500 of welcome shares if agents commit to list exclusively for a minimum of 12 months.

Of those signed up, more than 60% are contracted to list either exclusively or on a one-other-portal basis, of either Rightmove or Zoopla and Primelocation. Zoopla owns Primelocation.

The UK property market ground to halt during the lockdown, with estate agent offices shuttered and viewings cancelled. But a partial easing of restrictions saw a jump in interest, and last month OnTheMarket said 870,000 leads were delivered in the two weeks to 21 June, while visits totalled around 6m a week, more than 20% up on the first week of March.

The agent-backed portal confirmed on Thursday that a record total of more than 1.8m leads had been generated throughout the whole of June with an average of 134 leads per advertiser.

Clive Beattie, acting chief executive, said: "With agents owning around 65% of OnTheMarket, it is clear that our interests are directly aligned.

"The record month for leads, achieved despite a substantial reduction in advertising since the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown, highlights the increasing value are we delivering to agents for their listing fees."

Roddy Davidson, analyst at Shore Capital, the firm's joint broker, said: "We are pleased to note that OnTheMarket continue to see strong momentum in both the take up of new contracts and the number of leads that it is delivering to agents.

"We will reinstate our currently withdrawn financial forecasts when greater clarity on the impact of Covid-19 on trading becomes available, but in the meantime, and not withstanding uncertainty for the outlook for the UK property market, we continue to see considerable scope for management to drive shareholder value."

As at 0945 BST, shares in OnTheMarket were ahead 8% at 86.0p.

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