gumtree.com > Reviews (29)

I first came across Gumtree when I was looking for a place to live in my student days, a friend mentionned it to me and I checked it out.
I have since used it whenever I am looking for a new place to live and for job hunting too as there's often plenty of ads to choose from...

That is what Gumtree essentially is: an ad board for all sorts of categories... The categories consist of 'flats & houses', 'jobs', 'cars for sale', 'cars for sale', 'stuff for sale', 'services' and 'friends/dating?!' even..

The site is also divided into areas/locations; for the UK - most of the popular UK cities are listed and ideally you'd post in the gumtree for the city you're in or post in another city depending on your target audience:)

There's also Gumtree Poland, Australia, Newzealand, South Africa and Asia now.

I will comment on my general experience with the Gumtree UK site which has consisted of the following different scenarios:

House-hunting. I've been able to search for various properties on the site; they list both properties from private tenants and those to let through agencies... Using the serach tool, you are able to select which you'd like to view by price, location and type of property.

Job hunting: Jobs are grouped according to category and I tend to check through the IT, Banking and Admin jobs but there's all sorts of other categories listed.
I did find one of my first IT jobs through the site and it was a legit one:)

Advertising property: When I needed to find people to rent a property I was in previously, I put an ad on gumtree with the specs; got a number of people replying to the ad and phoning me up almost immediately so it is rather popular and that explains the large number of agencies that advertise on it because it is FREE to advertise in this section.

Advertising jobs: I have had an ad up previously when I was looking for a sitter for my toddler.
I paid about £20 for the ad and although I got a number of responses, they were not the ones I was after even when I specified in the ad... a number of spam ones too, wouldn't recommend displaying your email on the site but to hide it with the option provided which is what I do and get less spam...
Other sections are free to advertise in as far as I know; I have advertised previously in 'services' for free too.

Selling 'Stuff': I was getting rid of some of my property almost a year ago and posted ads on the site. I received a number of replies/ phone calls and arranged for them to be picked up - A few things I have sold through the site include a pushchair, a fridge, sofas and a bed. On all occassions, I found good buyers for my stuff who paid what I asked for so I am not complaining....

I have not had a look in other sections of ads on the site so cannot really comment on them.

One aspect of the site that needs to be reviewed and 'manned' is their forum! The reason I say that is because various threads of the forum contain a lot of abuse.

The site has recently had a 'face-lift' and a couple of changes in the appearance of ads and the like...

Think they could get a lot more users using the site's forum if they cleaned and tidied it up..to make it more of an 'online community'.

Advantage of the forum is that you can get to know about any scams operating on the site and there are a number of these to look out for in the property section.

On the whole, the site is easy to use, easy to navigate, don't need to register an account (except for posting on the forum of course..) - you just provide your details as you post ads; name, email, phone number and password (you need the password to edit the ad later..)

©marina321 Ciao.co.uk January 2009; Dooyoo January 2009