I’ve got a feeling something interesting is happening to the way real estate operates online in the UK. Anecqdotal evidence is emerging that social networks like Facebook and less conventional startups are perhaps starting to find the chink in the armour of the traditional property listing market here.
In particular, Facebook Marketplace is starting to be used by niche poperty agencies like Pimlico Flats, more successfully than the usual online suspects like Craigslist and Gumtree. That latter site has had problems with other aspects of its site like, having to dump dating because of spam and scams. The same problems are plaguing Craigslist in the UK, and this is something that Pimlico Flats picks up on in a blog post on the subject. The ability to verify Facebook users turns out to weed out the scammers.
At the same time, although findaproperty and rightmove remain strong, less conventional sites like Globrix, Nestoria, Zoopla (see below) and even niche social networks like Asmallworld are being used.