Mediahuis Shuts Dutch Portal Jaap Citing Fierce Competition

The Dutch real estate portal Jaap quietly shut down earlier this year after seeing its profits evaporate in the face of overbearing competition.

The news was first covered by local media outlet Emerce.nl in February. The article quoted a spokesperson who said:

“The site and app are now offline. All brokers have been informed. The reason for the decision is the strong competition in the Dutch market, which means that Jaap is no longer profitable. In recent years, we have worked hard to grow Jaap's market potential, but without satisfactory results. This means that Mediahuis did not see a long-term future for the real estate platform and decided to discontinue its activities. ”

Jaap competed with market-leading portal funda which is majority-owned by an association of Dutch real estate agents and recently received investment from the US private equity firm General Atlantic.

The portal was operated by the Belgian publisher Mediahuis which also owns the Zimmo portal in its native market and recently acquired Logic-Immo.be from IPM Group.