Dutch Competition Authority Drops Investigation into Leading Portal funda

Competition authorities in The Netherlands have dropped an investigation into leading real estate portal funda after failing to find any "convincing indications" that the company's practices breach anti-monopoly laws.

The case followed a complaint from FSBO platform Gmak.nl which had argued that funda's strict regulations around which businesses can list homes on its portal combined with its dominant market position hampered businesses with non-traditional revenue models in real estate.

Like many real estate markets across the world, the Dutch market has suffered from a chronic lack of listings for some time - at the time of writing, there were fewer than 45,000 homes for sale on funda's portal in a market of some 17.5 million inhabitants.

With such a shortage of available housing stock, Gmak and others have attempted to grease the wheels of the housing market by encouraging potential sellers to get a free valuation of their house, gauge interest before listings and then sell without a broker.

While Gmak's listings were previously permitted on funda's portal, following an update to the portal's rules in 2020 they were removed, sparking the anti-monopoly complaint.

Funda enjoys clear market leadership in The Netherlands and is one of few leading portals around the world to be majority-owned by an agents' association (NVM). The portal's regulations update in 2020 was designed to protect NVM's members from the competition and meant that any business wishing to list on the portal had to be actively engaging in the sale of the property it listed and had to have physically viewed and assessed the house it was attempting to sell.

Last week's ruling is not the first time that funda's market position has been challenged by a competitor. In 2020 a complaint was brought by rival agents' association VBO Makelaars that claimed that funda had been giving preferential treatment to members of NVM.