Nick Churton of Mayfair Office is pleased to announce the launch of a great new property market resource for buyers and sellers.

Many property buyers and sellers will soon be aware that there is a new property portal to help them find or market a home. In recent years there have been two main portals, Rightmove and Zoopla. Both these appear on television commercials and, until now, they have been supported by many corporate and independent estate agents up and down the country who upload all their properties onto these sites.

But over the coming weeks and months homebuyers and sellers will become very familiar with OnTheMarket which was launched on 26th January this year. OnTheMarket will be hard to miss. There will be television commercials on the main channels and independent high street estate agents like us will feature the arresting red, white and blue Google-style map pin logo in our local, regional and national newspaper advertising, websites and prominent office windows.

We support this new site because it is easy to use and uncomplicated for buyers and sellers - and it is free from extraneous ads, pop ups and announcements. We strongly believe that before long most independent firms – the bulk of the UK’s estate agents - will be on this site. Very quickly it will become a leading property resource.

But we want to stress that any property portal is only there to let people know what is on the market. Property portals won’t value property, tell owners what they can do to add value to their homes, accompany and influence prospective buyers, negotiate fiercely on a seller’s behalf and then diplomatically, respectfully and tactfully steer a sale to completion through the complexities of conveyancing, mortgages, surveys and other chain-related issues – including other buyers and sellers all with very different needs, wants and timescales.

We hope that you will come to enjoy and regularly use OnTheMarket for your property research. But never forget that the best way to buy a home is through a house agent and not a mouse agent. Mouse or house it is your choice, but in the world of estate agency dealing with experienced and empathetic people is always preferable to dealing with an electronic rodent with no imagination.