How to search Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket at once

No property portal searches the others, so to search Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket at once you either save the same search with an alert on each portal, or use a tool that reads all of them into one feed. The free route costs nothing and works well for one area, while an aggregator earns its keep once you are watching several areas or comparing listings on numbers the portals do not show.

Which one suits you depends on how many areas you watch and how much a day's head start is worth. A first-time buyer with one postcode in mind can manage with three alerts. For an investor or deal sourcer covering a patch of London, the harder job is reading everything that arrives.

Why one portal is not enough

The big portals do not carry identical stock at the same moment, and OnTheMarket says so openly. Its Only With Us page says it features "thousands of new properties every month, 24 hours or more before they're advertised on Rightmove or Zoopla", and that between January and August 2024 there were on average over 4,000 new properties a month listed that way.

Member agents choose how long the exclusive window lasts. OnTheMarket says it is generally 24 hours but may be longer, and shows a countdown clock on the listing. Some agents list with OnTheMarket exclusively, and those properties do not appear on Rightmove or Zoopla at all.

So a buyer running only a Rightmove alert sees those properties a day or more after OnTheMarket's alert subscribers, or never. In a busy postcode, a day's head start can decide who gets the first viewing slots.

The free way: one saved search on each portal

Set up the same search on each portal, with identical criteria, so the alerts compare like with like.

• Rightmove: create a free account, run your search and press the "create alert" button. Rightmove offers four frequencies, Instantly, Daily, Every 3 days and Every 7 days, and describes Instantly as "the best option if you don't want to miss out on new properties". Alerts come from property@alert.rightmove.co.uk, and you can change or delete them under Searches and alerts in your account (Rightmove Help Centre). A free account also saves drawn search areas, which helps when your patch does not follow postcode lines.
• OnTheMarket: set up a property alert and it sends instant alerts "as soon as new properties hit the market in your search area" (OnTheMarket). This is the alert that catches Only With Us listings before the other two portals have them.
• Zoopla: run the same search, save it to a free account and switch on its email alerts.

Use the same boundaries everywhere. Postcode districts are the easiest to match across three sites; drawn areas are more precise but harder to copy exactly. Match the price band, bedrooms and property type, and decide up front whether new homes, retirement homes and shared ownership are in or out, then set those filters the same way on each portal.

Keep the alerts from burying you

Three portals with alerts on a busy area produce a lot of email, and some of it repeats. OnTheMarket's exclusives are released to the other portals when their window closes, so the same flat can reach you two or three times on different days.

• Keep instant alerts on your phone for the one area you care about most. Send the rest to an email folder per portal, filtered on the sender address, and read them at fixed times.
• Keep one shortlist in a spreadsheet or notes app with the address, asking price, portal and the date you first saw it. Check each new alert against it before opening the listing.
• On Rightmove, use the Hide It tool on listings you have ruled out so they stop reappearing in your results, and add notes to the ones you save. Both come with the free account.
• Write down why you rejected a property. When it comes back with a price cut, you can decide in seconds.
• Prune the search every few weeks. If a filter keeps sending listings you never open, tighten it on all three portals together, or the alerts drift apart.

Where the manual method breaks

Three alerts handle one area and one budget well. They strain when you watch several postcodes, switch between buying and renting, or want to compare listings on something the portals do not show, such as likely rental yield. Most of your time then goes on opening listings to rule them out. An alert tells you something is new without telling you whether it is any good.

If you are weighing up a buy-to-let, the yield sums are a step of their own; we worked through this year's numbers in London buy-to-let in Q4 2026.

One feed with a score on every listing

Housieve is Braivex's London property search built for this. It reads sale and rental listings from Rightmove, Zoopla, OnTheMarket and Gumtree every night and puts them into one feed, with Buy, Rent and Invest modes in a single search box. Each listing gets a score from 0 to 100 built from yield, location, condition and growth, and anything at 70 or above reads as a hot match. The score travels with the listing to the feed, the map and the alerts.

You save what you are hunting as a watch profile once, and Housieve sends an email or WhatsApp alert when a match lands or a watched price moves. Each alert carries the score, the map pin and a link to the original listing, so you can check the number against the source. You can also ask the Market Copilot in plain English, for example "2-bed under £600k near SW3", and it answers with matching listings.

There is a trade-off on speed. Housieve reads the portals overnight and scores by morning, so for a single street where minutes matter, keep that portal's own instant alert running as well. What Housieve adds is breadth and triage: four sources in one feed, ranked by a number you can trace back to the listing.

The trial runs for 14 days with no card and includes 25 credits, 3 saved searches and 20 alerts; WhatsApp alerts and Gumtree listings start on the paid plans, from $49 a month for the Investor plan. Start hunting free on Housieve, save the search you have been running across three portals, and compare tomorrow morning's feed with your inbox.