Leading UK and international property search portal TheMoveChannel.com has acquired top lead generation agency Lead Galaxy.

TheMoveChannel.com will take over the overseas property website portfolio operated by Lead Galaxy, in a deal which stands to create the world’s largest and most popular international property website.

With more than 45 different ‘venture’ sites dedicated to property sales in countries all over the world, the deal will see TheMoveChannel.com take an even greater share of web traffic, particularly in locations such as Cape Verde, the Caribbean, Egypt, Florida, Italy, Malaysia, Montenegro, Turkey and the UAE.

Whilst all of the property sites will now come under TheMoveChannel.com brand, the combined power of both TheMoveChannel.com and Lead Galaxy will ensure that visitors can browse the broadest spectrum of properties for sale, while allowing advertisers to maximise the number and quality of leads generated for their listed properties.

Dan Johnson, of TheMoveChannel.com said, “This deal will undoubtedly consolidate our position as the leading overseas property portal.

“With a bigger advertiser base and a far wider choice for investors, TheMoveChannel.com will be at the forefront of overseas property search and of course, the more users and more enquiries we attract, the more sales there will be for advertisers,” he said.

Gerard Doyle, Director of Lead Galaxy, said, “I am very much looking forward to joining the board of directors at TheMoveChannel.com.

“This amalgamation between two extremely strong networks will allow existing Lead Galaxy advertisers to reach an even wider audience and attract more interest than ever in their properties.

“The consolidated brand and new technology platform can only help to improve visitor loyalty and maximise value for our advertisers,” he added.

Going forward, the joint forces of these two industry heavyweights will provide a powerful platform for launching into new and untapped markets, with a wide range of planned projects that includes multilingual portals, web services and personal finance.

The consolidated sites will be live today, Thursday February 5th, at www.themovechannel.com

The property portal boom of the early noughties was never so much feared but certainly kept an eye-on by high street estate agents all over. The dot com boom had finally spread to this sector also, and thus it came as no surprise when some of the larger players in the market joined forces to incept RightMove. It cornered the web market for UK property overnight, a position it cemented furthermore over the oncoming years.

Certainly as the decorations had been put back in the attic this time last year, RightMove began January 2008 where it had left off, top of the tree with not a bauble in sight. Whilst they did not have complete domination they most certainly did have such a sizeable market share that funding for listing their properties there was already allocated before the word ‘budget meeting’ could be raised in your average high street agency. For UK property, the online marketplace was very fragmented. Whilst it was realistically accepted that Rightmove sat atop the pile, agents still believed they needed to be on board with at least 2 other portals to further cement their online presence in the wake of competition.

This time last year paying per enquiry generated was virtually unheard of. Whilst there could be arguments as to which other web portals could claim to be 2nd or 5th etc (which I won’t go into), it’s fair to say that they all carried the same business model as RightMove  – signing up for a period of time, usually twelve months – and paying a flat monthly fee for the privilege. I was saying this time last year that the UK portals could learn a lot from the overseas sector where commission share and especially pay-per-lead were more prevalent amongst the key players. Having witnessed three years of competing companies using virtually the same tactics, the time was right for one of them to take a bold decision and announce a performance based business model. None did.

At the time I still think I was right and from an agents perspective I’m sure they would love to turn round the clock & choose such options, had they been available of course. This is hypothetically speaking though and we all know how the industry went as the year went on, don’t we? The portals were fine as they had their agents contracted to a period of time, but now the agents were in many cases paying subscription fees for reduced results.

Approximately half way through the year some of the “second tier” companies aimed to consolidate their positions by joining forces. This began with the acquisition of HotProperty in the spring by PropertyFinder and was followed shortly by the formation of the Digital Property Group in July who united the marketing arms of FindAProperty and PrimeLocation amongst a few others.

Following the traditional “August lull” there has usually been an upturn in interest as soon as September hits although this year saw the opposite as we headed towards recession. We saw a number of agents unfortunately cease to trade for a variety of reasons, but un-negotiable marketing costs will have certainly been contributing factors whilst not inadvertently the sole blame.

With this in mind there is a realistic danger that when subscriptions lapse there will be an alarming low rate of renewal retention. I’m quite sure that the portals themselves have recognised this and have contingencies in place should it be the case, but if not it could spell a tough year for them. The fact of the matter though is that the industry is only in decline, it is not dead, and those agents still winning instructions and seeking buyers need an online presence in order to attract both vendors and customers alike. With this in mind I reiterate my statement of this time last year. The time has come for performance related business models. If just one of them tried this, I think they would, quite frankly, clean up.

For more than three years now I have often cast a very watchful eye over the property portal industry. Whilst working within it I would always keep tabs on what the competitors were doing and now I have stepped outside the circle I am moreso keeping tabs on new developments.

I started out working for one of the smaller independent portals in the UK side of the market and we were operating out side of the top five yet trying to build market share. We always had a firm belief that through hard work we could achieve a standing close to or even above those situated in second place and below, but the top dog was always perceived as untouchable. Never say never I know, but they were a bridge too far.

So as the economic times continue to constrain the budgets of estate agents all over the country, how do they survive? Cutting costs is the obvious answer. The aforementioned portals aggressive business model of demanding considerable amounts per month is one such reduction that can be done away with virtually immediately, especially if on a rolling contract, so it came as little surprise that of the 22 agents in Hereford an astonishing 70% have chosen to withdraw their subscriptions [Source: Global Edge]. So if Hereford serves as an example, what of the rest of the nation?

Whilst I have yet to research the response of various competitors this has heightened a perspective that I have held for a few months now in that the portal market is set for a radical change. It has always been such a fragmented market, but now, in line with other industries, it will whittle down to the industrious few. I personally believe that smaller sites will unfortunately now cease to exist over the course of 2009 and that the market leader will not be the only one to face reductions in subscriptions. In fact, they’ll all face it. If the best performer faces reductions, any other portal believing there is market share to seize has, quite frankly, delusions of grandeur.

In the oncoming weeks I shall further analyse competitor reactions to this and intend to make a few phone calls to that effect. Watch this space.