Zoopla.co.uk acquires Thinkproperty.com
July 15, 2009 at 6:53 AM Zoopla 2 comments
Consolidation underway in UK property portal market
Today Zoopla.co.uk, the UK’s fastest growing property website, announces today that it has acquired Thinkproperty.com from Guardian Media Group (GMG) for an undisclosed sum.
Thinkproperty.com is a well-established UK property portal, launched by GMG in 2006 and focuses primarily on delivering leads to UK estate agents. Under the deal, Zoopla.co.uk will take over and integrate the Thinkproperty.com brand and website, benefiting from its current traffic of over 200,000 unique users per month, along with becoming the exclusive property search partner on the Guardian.co.uk website.
The deal stands to be a win for agents currently listing their properties on Zoopla.co.uk, who will now gain more exposure and receive more leads as a result of the acquisition.
Alex Chesterman, Founder and CEO of Zoopla.co.uk commented: “We are delighted to be leading the latest round of consolidation in this market as it reinforces our mission of delivering the best possible value to estate agents by increasing their exposure to a wider audience and offering them a broader range of services. We plan to continue to grow our traffic organically and look at possible further acquisitions as part of our commitment to become the most efficient marketing partner for UK estate agents.”
Mark Goddard of GMG Property Services commented: “Zoopla.co.uk has made impressive progress in a crowded marketplace and their success in engaging with the UK property consumer via a differentiated experience reinforces the belief that the UK portal market is still able to be disrupted. The acquisition of Thinkproperty.com by Zoopla.co.uk continues to build on what is becoming a very compelling proposition for the UK estate agent and I wish Alex and his team well”.
Since its launch last year, Zoopla.co.uk has already made a significant mark on the UK portal market, achieving record traffic growth despite property market conditions, bucking the fundraising climate by raising almost £4m at the start of this year and having become the 5th most-visited property website in the UK in its first year of operation.
Entry filed under: General business. Tags: .
2 Comments Add your own
Why not leave us a comment or share this with the buttons above?
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed
1.
property owl blog | July 22, 2009 at 9:08 AM
From the Property Owl blog:
One, two or ten portal purchases, the real management challenge is integrating these portals and creating one dominant brand.
There are of course still too many portals and whilst this will increase traffic for Zoopla agents it leaves Zoopla with the headache of integration. Zoopla’s acquisition strategy will have faced these issues and I suspect this is the long term plan to integrate front and back end systems and perhaps feeds, but just how long do Zoopla have to complete the task, will the task be complete only to find the market has changed? It is possible that after a two to three year acquisition and integration process the market will have changed. I have to say however that if the market is going to change then it will be towards the Trulia/Zoopla model and therefore this strategy would appear spot on.
That said, I do wonder whether Zoopla’s strategy ought to be more focused on new technology rather than building a portfolio of portals. Perhaps it is as they are certainly not shy to innovate. Whatever the course they are steering they are the ones to watch.
Having a strategy to regularise property feeds would also be a marvellous idea and one that the industry as a whole should work towards, but this is another debate.
Anyway, all the above activity keeps us busy and I still think Zoopla needs to purchase another blog, know of one?!
2.
gprofessionals01 | October 5, 2009 at 6:45 PM
I hope that this is the best time to start a new partnership, to overtake, or for mergers and acquisitions. That is why we have seen number of acquisitions and mergers during this time.