Housesimple hires Citypress to handle online presence as Yopa announces funding

Housesimple, a property portal in the UK, has brought on a company to help with its PR and social media presences as it begins its new service where users can sell their homes for free.

Back in June the firm became the first to claim it was selling homes for free.

Rather than charging commission or fees for selling homes, Housesimple says it will in future earn referral fees from no-obligation selected services provided to sellers and buyers such as mortgage, conveyancing and insurance advice.

The free service, which has been trialed in selected postcodes in Yorkshire since January and the North West region since April, will now be rolled out permanently across these markets before the business makes its move into other regions in the coming months.

Now it has appointed Citypress to handle much of its media, branding and related advertising activities in the roll-out.

Other Citypress clients include Coca-Cola, Lloyds Bank, Unilever, Aldi, British gas and Tate & Lyle. Its only property client listed on its website is agency and consultancy JLL.

In a statement announcing the instruction, Citypress describes Housesimple as “the UK’s fifth largest single brand estate agent” and says it has been appointed “across a PR, social and content brief to support the national roll-out of its new ‘sell your home for free’ service.”

Independent property consultancy The Advisory, which publishes frequent market share analyses for estate agencies, says that in the two week period to June 28 (its latest analysis) Housesimple took on 396 new instructions. 

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