A purple-branded UK property website for finding, valuing and moving home, part of the property software and data business Houseful.
Zoopla is one of the UK's biggest property websites, where people search for homes to buy and rent, check what nearby houses sold for, and get estimates of what their own home is worth. Its parent company, Houseful, describes Zoopla as a consumer platform covering moving, managing and financing a home. It also includes PrimeLocation, a site for prime and overseas property, and Mojo Mortgages. Houseful's two other businesses are Alto Software Group, which makes software for estate agents (Alto, Jupix and Yourkeys), and Hometrack, which provides valuation and risk tools for mortgage lenders.
Zoopla was founded in 2007 by Alex Chesterman and Simon Kain, who had earlier built the DVD rental business that became LoveFilm. The site launched in January 2008. Mr Chesterman has said that when it began there were about a dozen other portals, most offering only basic search, and that Zoopla set out to combine search with research using public property data so users could make better decisions. He chose a name and a purple colour deliberately to stand out. In 2023 the property division was renamed Houseful.
Houseful states its purpose as "creating the connections that power better property decisions". Its mission is "to balance progress with care, empathy and ethical values", and it says it places its responsibilities to people, the planet and investors at the heart of its work. Houseful says its three businesses operate independently. Its chief executive is Charlie Bryant.
Houseful is a London-based British company. Wikipedia gives its size as about 600 people, though that is an approximate figure and may be out of date. Houseful's own site gives no office locations or headcount, so we could not confirm which UK cities its teams work from beyond London. It operates throughout the UK, and its Hometrack business also serves the UK mortgage market. The company says half of all UK housing transactions already use its software, and that 18 of the top 20 lenders use its tools. Both are company claims.
The jobs in a business like this are a mix of technology and customer-facing work. Houseful's three businesses employ software developers, data scientists and analysts who build valuation models, product designers, marketing and content staff, sales and account managers who work with estate agents and housebuilders, and support teams. If you like computing, maths, data or design, this is a company where those subjects connect to everyday life, because almost everyone moves home at some point. Houseful's site links to its open roles.
Website: www.zoopla.co.uk
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