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Zoopla embarks on rebrand exercise

Propertyfinder, Hotproperty and Thinkproperty are to be rebranded in the next few weeks.

The group is shelling out around £100,000 to add 'powered by Zoopla' to each brand. Alex Chesterman, chief executive officer of of Zoopla, denies that this is the first step on the road to ditching the brands but confirms that the group will not continue to market them. "We could potentially phase them out, it's hard to say, but there are no immediate plans to do so. They will remain visible to consumers and agents."

Zoopla acquired Thinkproperty.com from Guardian Media Group in July and Propertyfinder.com and Hotproperty.co.uk from News International and REA Group in August. UKPropertyShop.co.uk was also part of the deal, but this brand is expected to remain unchanged for the foreseeable future.

As The Negotiator exclusively revealed last month, the combined group will offer agents a dual pricing structure comprising a fixed monthly fee option for unlimited leads and a pay-per-lead option. The group insists that there will be no change to fees for existing members of each portal.

Chesterman says the group will spend multi millions of pounds on marketing to support the rebrand exercise, and that the group will retain property partnerships with UK websites including MSN, Yahoo, Guardian, Tiscali, UpMyStreet and Virgin.

He adds: “We plan to continue to transform the online property landscape in the UK and partner with our member agents to deliver more leads, more viewings, more services and help them to win more instructions and business.”

The news follows the group being named Best UK Property Portal at the 2009 Daily Mail UK Residential Property Awards last week.