What does each kind of portal account see in the dashboard?

A portal account is one of three kinds, and the kind decides what the left-hand menu contains after you sign in. Nothing is hidden behind a setting you can turn on — the menu is built from your account type, and three entries for every account type appear only while the portal has that feature switched on.

Every account type

• Dashboard — the landing page after sign-in.
• Enquiries — your messages. A property shopper opens the ones they sent; an agent or home owner opens the ones they received.
• My Stay Requests — the vacation rental stays you have requested, with the owner’s answer.
• Favourites — properties you saved.
• My Profile — your name, contact details and account settings.

Every account type, where the portal has the feature switched on

• Support — ask us for help and follow your support requests; conversations from every Housing Market Group product are kept here, in one place.
• My Service Business — offer your services to people on the portal, and answer the quote requests they send you.
• My Service Requests — the quote requests you sent to service providers; a provider’s contact details appear once they accept.

Agents and home owners, but not property shoppers

• Properties — your listings, with All, Published, Pending, Rejected and Draft views and an Add Property form.
• Vacation Rentals — rates, availability calendar and booking requests for the properties you list as vacation rentals.
• Featured Property — buy a paid placement for one of your listings.
• Social Sharing — connect social accounts and publish listings to them, under Posts and Accounts.
• Ads — opens Housing Market Ads, likewise a separate application.
• Keyword Planner — opens the Housing Market Ads keyword planner in a new tab.
• Network — opens Housing Market Network, the finder for every country portal, in a new tab.
• Market Insights — opens Housing Market Insights, likewise a separate application.
• Invoices — what you have been billed for the paid tools above.

Agents only

• Premier Agent — the location-based lead subscription.
• Featured Agent — paid placement for you rather than for a listing.
• API/XML Sync — automatic listing import from your own system or feed.
• CRM — opens Housing Market CRM in a new tab; it is a separate application, not a page inside the portal, and you sign in to it with the same email address and password.

So a home owner is not a cut-down agent: the only things a home owner cannot reach are the tools built around running an agency — buying leads, promoting yourself as an agent, syncing a listing feed, and Housing Market CRM. Everything to do with putting a property on the portal and handling the enquiries it produces is identical.

You choose the account type when you register, and there is one change you can make yourself afterwards. If you registered as a property shopper and now want to advertise a property, your dashboard offers a banner — “Want to list or promote your property? Upgrade to a free home owner account.” — and Upgrade for free makes the change and takes you straight to Add property. It costs nothing and there is no card to enter.

Everything you already have comes with you: your favourites, the enquiries you have sent and the replies to them, your saved searches, your alert preferences and your stay requests. Your email address and your password stay the same, and you sign in exactly as before. Dismiss the banner and it comes back in a week, so the offer is not lost if you are not ready.

It goes one way only — a home owner cannot turn back into a property shopper — and it is the only switch you can make yourself. Any other change of account type needs support. Opening a second account is not the alternative, because one email address is one account across the group: see the answer on using one email address across the group.