As OnTheMarket Hits 15,000 Advertisers, Zoopla Fights Back with Big Agency Deal

The British property portal Zoopla has announced a new long-term listings deal with Dexters, one of London's top agencies with 156 branches across the capital.

As part of a deal that runs until December 2026, Dexters has committed to using Zoopla's Valuation Booster across all of its branches. The tool is designed to win Zoopla's customers more instructions in their area by marking them as pre-selected options when users click through to contact an agent.

In pointed comments, Dexters' CEO Andy Shepherd referred to the British number two portal as an "agent-friendly" platform, parroting the PR line used by Zoopla's rival, the CoStar-owned challenger OnTheMarket.

"We enjoy working alongside Zoopla who puts us, the customer, at the forefront of their business. To show our continued support and confidence in this agent-friendly platform, we are delighted to confirm that we have agreed to a new three-year deal."

The Dexters deal is good news for Zoopla at a time when OnTheMarket has been hitting the headlines for rapidly expanding its agent listing network and embarking on an outreach tour.

A couple of weeks ago OnTheMarket reported that it had added 57,000 listings since being acquired in a £100 million deal by American giant CoStar in December. This week the portal claims to have hit 15,000 agent advertisers, around 15% higher than the number reported in the company's 2022 filings and only 20% fewer than the number reported by market leader Rightmove for 2023.