Analysts at brokers Jefferies have upgraded Rightmove to “hold” from “underperform” and lifted the share price target from 2,131p to 3,600p – although its closing price yesterday was 3,997p.

Jefferies also upped Rightmove’s profits forecast after costs for this year by 7% to £161.1m, and for 2017 to £178.7m.

Jefferies, which advises Zoopla, said Rightmove operates the most robust business model it has ever seen.

It said that its offering is increasingly seen as integral to the operation of its clients – agents – and that sellers expect to see their properties on Rightmove.

Jefferies also referred obliquely to OnTheMarket, saying: “The group is focused on maintaining its dominant core advantage and defending its position against disrupters and believes that such are the untapped opportunities in the core, venturing into adjacent markets is not required.”

Jefferies suggested that Rightmove could make deeper inroads into the estate agency market, by “cementing links with the agent’s back office and IT systems”.

n a note to investors Anthony Codling of Jefferies said: “If Rightmove is running the agent’s back office, the agent may have less negotiating power than they believe to be the case.”

In a somewhat obscure reference, Jefferies said that Rightmove was hinting that it could offer the traditional agents service offered by the newer wave, more digitally focused agents, “which could put the cat among the pigeons”.

Rightmove last week delivered strong results showing increases at every level – in revenue, profits, traffic and advertiser numbers.

Revenue increased by 15% to £192.1m. Underlying operating profit increased by 16% to £144.3m and operating margin improved to 75.1%.