Trinity Mirror has signalled an exit from the online property market after selling one of its digital subsidiaries for £3.3m.

The publisher has sold its stand-alone arm Trinity Mirror Digital Property to the Zoopla Property Group, despite the subsidiary bringing in a profit last year.

TMDP previously owned four sites namely SmartNewHomes.co.uk, Email4Property.co.uk, HomesOverseas.co.uk and Zoomf.com – but these will now be owned by the Zoopla Property Group, which runs Zoopla.co.uk and PrimeLocation.com.

An announcement of the sale by Trinity Mirror said that it would have “no impact on the group’s strategy for growing its digital revenues”.

TMDP had revenues of £2.9m and made an operating profit of £0.5m for the year to December 2012.

A spokesman for the publisher said that the sale had been made because significant investment would have been needed to grow the business.

He said: “To drive growth in the TMDP business would have required significant investment in both marketing and technology in a business whose scale is small by comparison to the market leaders.

“ZPG can provide this investment as part of their overall multi-brand property strategy.”

Trinity Mirror Digital Property’s website said it had a combined 840,000 visitors a month across its sites.