If you have an estate/lettings agent or property manager, then you shouldn’t have to worry about this as it will be done for you, usually as part of your fee that you pay to them.  However, you may wish to check your property is being fully advertised on all avenues possible or maybe you are looking to advertise it yourself.

Quick Answer…

Our favourite for Short-term tenants

• Eviivo

 

Our favourite for long-term tenants

• Strike

Major UK property platforms

Rightmove

Rightmove is easily the largest platform in the UK for advertising both sales and rental property and one of the biggest sites in the UK.

Pros

• Most traffic equalling most possible viewings and offers

Cons

• You cannot go directly meaning you have to use a third party. A third party can be an estate agent who may charge you 5%-7% to list it. Or you can use a list it yourself website that will charge you a one-off fee.

Zoopla

Zoopla is the 2^nd largest property portal in the UK playing 2^nd place to Rightmove for years. It is still a major portal with millions of visitors and plenty of opportunity to get you tenants.

Pros

• Lots of traffic, views, and offers similar to Rightmove due to the size of it.

Cons

• You cannot go directly meaning you have to use a third party. A third party can be an estate agent who may charge you 5%-7% to list it. Or you can use a list it yourself with a 3^rd party website that will charge you a one-off fee.

• In our experience Zoopla seems more prone to spam or weak leads compared to Rightmove.

OnTheMarket.com

Onthemarket is a growing platform designed to bring some rivalry to Zoopla and Rightmove. Although it is not as large, it is growing and has seen early success.

Pros

• Growing major property portal
• They offer certain properties weeks earlier than Zoopla or Rightmove, this has by their own research shown that this gets early offers in quickly. But this is more of a benefit for renters than landlords

Cons

• You cannot go directly meaning you have to use a third party. A third party can be an estate agent who may charge you 5%-7% to list it. Or you can use a list it yourself website that will charge you a one-off fee.

Gumtree

Gumtree is not a property site but is a listing site similar to Ebay. The site allows anyone to make an account and list any items for sale or even properties for sale / rent or just individual rooms.

Pros

• No limits to what you can list, given that it is not illegal
• Free listing

Cons

• Open to bad leads and individuals that may not be serious about renting as it is not wellregulated

List it yourself Third party website

With the major portals as you cannot list properties yourself you will need a third party to list properties for you. These Third parties will have accounts on all major portals and typically charge you just a one-off fee. These are good for anyone wanting to manage their own listing and organise viewings themselves.

Purple Bricks

Purple Bricks is the UKs largest self-listing website. They are a cheaper alternative to estate agents and offer a range of services such as free valuation and will list your property on Rightmove. Purple Bricks as a company are technically an estate agent but sit somewhere between estate agent and property portal.

Pros

• Cheaper than estate agent
• You are in control of everything

Cons

• You will have to do viewings yourself, without a professional touch or advice you may not get as much for your property as you could through an estate agent

Stirke.co.uk

Strike is a relatively new competitor and are really trying to lay down the gauntlet in the way they are changing the sellers and renter’s market. Most services will either charge you but then offer you plenty of services such as professional photography, floorplans, expert advice, and assistance etc… or they may just allow you to list a property and leave everything to you. Strike is working towards a free option that gives you the free listing along with much of the service.

 It can offer a free service by using your details and details of all your enquiries and then cross selling mortgages, insurance, moving services etc… for a commission. So essentially it is a lead generation business for them to sell other products.

They do have a paid package if you do not want to do your own viewings.

Pros

• Free listings on major portals
• Other free services that you traditionally only get with an estate agent
• Fast growing service

Cons

• Will have to do your own viewings and provide your own photography

Advertising Rooms

Spareroom.co.uk

Spareroom.co.uk is the largest spare room dedicated advertising platform with operations in the UK and US.

Pros

• Free advertising
• You can request a room as well as advertise a room

Cons

• Can only advertise rooms individually
• You have to manage everything yourself

Gumtree

As already mentioned above, Gumtree gives you the option of advertising pretty much anything you want including individual rooms.

Serviced Accommodation

Advertising holiday properties or short term lets is a different ball game, as you will need a new occupier weekly/daily. This makes it even more important to get your advertising right.

As this is so much more involved you will ideally (and we highly suggest) you get a property manager or channel manager to take care of this for you. What they will do is list your property on your behalf on as many booking sites as possible. One such example is eviivo.

One of the major obstacles is you can potentially get visitors globally, and every country has its own booking sites, making it practically impossible to advertise everywhere you need to.

Eviivo

Eviivo will list your Serviced accommodation / Short-term-let across all major booking sites globally  (70+).  Eviivo has all the tools built in you need to manage your online bookings to ensure you never get double booked.

Pros

• Book on all major platforms
• Manages your booking for you

Cons

• Monthly subscription cost

Booking.com

Booking.com is the largest serviced accommodation booking site and is well known for anyone looking to book a short break, hotel or house anywhere in the UK for either a weekend or 1-2 weeks. They will charge a percentage of your booking, so depending on the property rental price could be a pro or a con.

Pros

• Largest site with plenty of possible tenants
• Cheaper than AirBNB

Cons

• Difficult to manage yourself if you are listing on other sites.

AirBNB

AirBNB is another major global portal for advertising your property. It is popular for investors who only have a few properties and tend to manage them themselves.

Pro

• Lots of competition for renters looking to book a serviced accommodation

Cons

• More expensive than closest competitor booking.com