Rightmove has reported higher revenue from estate agency customers after achieving its highest first-half agency retention rate in more than a decade, while continuing to expand its AI-powered products for agents.

The property portal said agency membership increased by 1% during the first half of the year, with estate agency revenue up 9% as more customers upgraded to higher-tier packages and adopted additional products.

Rightmove also claimed its AI-enabled online valuation tool helped generate around 50% more unique valuation leads for estate agents, while its recently launched “Ask Rightmove” conversational search feature increased consumer engagement and improved lead conversion.

The company said it released 40% more technology products and enhancements during the first half of 2026 than a year earlier and now has 46 AI initiatives under development. New AI-powered workflow tools for estate agents are expected to launch during the second half of the year.

Despite the gains in its agency business, Rightmove lowered its full-year revenue growth forecast after continued weakness in the new homes sector.

The company said the number of new-build developments fell by 6% compared with a year ago, prompting it to revise expected group revenue growth for 2026 to between 6% and 8%, down from previous guidance of 8% to 10%.

Rightmove said its operating profit and earnings guidance remain unchanged, supported by continued cost control.

The business also announced plans to return more than £400m to shareholders over the next 12 months, including around £330m through an expanded share buyback programme, funded by cash generation and a new £200m revolving credit facility.

Johan Svanstrom, CEO at Rightmove, said: “Our platform continues to deliver increased value to partners and consumers. H1 2026 has seen strong business and product results: we delivered our highest H1 retention in more than a decade, agency membership grew 1% and our investment in agentic-powered solutions is showing results and coming on the back of strong foundations laid over the last few years.

“With vertical specialisation and trusted quality solutions at our core, we saw Online Agent Valuation support a c.50% total increase in unique valuation leads for partners. For consumers, early indications from our ‘Ask Rightmove’ conversational search rollout suggest a c.40% uplift in average time on site, with close to double the propensity to send leads. We are on an exciting trajectory for the agentic-powered property marketplace, with true personalisation and new efficiency solutions.

“Despite the current volume headwinds in new homes, our continued momentum gives me confidence in 2026 and beyond. We continue to execute our strategy to build the leading digital ecosystem for the entire home-moving experience, powered by exceptional data and network effects.”

In its half-year results announced today, Rightmove said…

Financial highlights

 

H1 2026

H1 2025

Change vs H1 25

% Change vs H1 25

Revenue

£225.8m

£211.7m

£14.1m

7%

Operating profit

£148.2m

£145.4m

£2.8m

2%

Underlying operating profit(3)

£155.1m

£151.3m

£3.8m

3%

Interim dividend per share

4.17p

4.05p

0.12p

3%

Basic earnings per share

14.8p

14.1p

0.7p

5%

Underlying basic earnings per share(4)

15.6p

14.7p

0.9p

6%

 

·    Revenue increased 7% on H1 2025, supported by continued demand for incremental products and premium packages across the Core Agency and New Homes businesses. Agency revenue grew 9%, New Homes 2% and Other 1%. ARPA growth was strong in both Agency and New Homes, at 8% and 7% respectively, although New Homes membership declined 4% in the half as a result of challenging market conditions and fewer new developments coming to market

 

·    Operating profit increased 2%, with underlying operating profit up 3% resulting in an underlying operating profit margin of 69%. This reflected planned growth-focused investment during the period and remains consistent with full-year underlying operating margin guidance of 67%

·    Basic earnings per share up 5%, with underlying basic earnings per share(4) up 6%

·    Interim dividend up 3% to 4.17p per share (2025: 4.05p)

 

·    £124.7m returned to shareholders through share buybacks and dividends (H1 2025: £112.4m); with 17.4m shares (2.3% of outstanding share capital) purchased and cancelled to 30 June (H1 2025: 9.1m, 1.2%)

 ARPA and Membership

 

Average Revenue per Advertiser (£)

H1 2026

H1 2025

 Change vs

H1 25

% Change vs H1 25

Agency(5)  

1,636

1,520

116

8%

New Homes(6)  

2,247

2,093

154

7%

Total ARPA(7)

1,726

1,609

117

7%

·    Average Revenue per Advertiser (“ARPA”)(7) grew by £117/7%, with growth predominantly product-led, across both Agency and New Homes.  Average products per agency branch increased 14% since H1 2025.

 

Membership

30 June 2026

31 Dec 2025

30 June 2025

Change vs Dec 25

Change vs Dec 25

Agency branches

16,591

16,385

16,382

206

1%

New Homes developments

2,766

2,887

2,941

(121)

(4%)

Total

19,357

19,272

19,323

85

0%

 

·    Total membership increased marginally, driven by growth in Agency members as a result of the highest retention in over 10 years

·      New Homes’ membership declined 4% since December (predominantly in Q2), and 6% since June 2025, reflecting developers’ challenges, with new developments coming to market at their lowest ever rate on record

·      Average total membership across the first half of the year was flat compared to H1 2025, with average Estate Agency branches up 173/1% and average New Homes developments down 157/5%

 

Operational highlights

·    Consumer:

o  Share of time compared with portal competitors increased year-on-year, to 90% (Comscore) and 75% (SimilarWeb/Sensor Tower) (June 2025: 80% (Comscore), 74% (SimilarWeb/Data.ai)).(1) Over 85% of traffic was direct and organic in the period, and over 90% in June alone (H1 2025: >85%; June 2025: 89%), while less than 0.5% was referred from large language models (LLMs)(2)  8.4 billion minutes were spent on the platform in the period (H1 2025: 9.1 billion, H1 2024: 8.3 billion),(2) reflecting a year-on-year reduction in UK property browsing and in line with prior years. 

o  Ongoing investment in engaging all generations through channels including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok drove a 5x increase in engagement year-on-year(8) with an increase in the number of consumers subscribed to marketing to over 10m (+11% year-on-year)

 

Partner:

o  Continued growth in the uptake of our top packages:

§ “Optimiser Edge” for estate agents, with 36% of independent agents subscribing (December 2025: 35%); and

§ “Ascend” for New Homes developers, with 36% of developments subscribing (December 2025: 28%)

o  Strong uptake of differentiated products, including Online Agent Valuation for Estate Agents, which delivered Rightmove’s fastest-ever revenue growth from a new product, contributed to c.50% more unique valuation leads sent to estate agents in the period, and has significant potential for further penetration.  New Homes developers have four new/enhanced features – Property Showcase, Virtual Tour Request, Interactive Brochure Request, and Development Profiles – and over 50% of leads either booking an appointment or sharing availability

o  Highest retention of Estate Agency partners for over 10 years at 96% (H1 25: 96%)

o  Over 17m engagements with partners under the “Building Success Together” partnership programme (+11%), through inclusive tools such as Rightmove Hub for training and Rightmove Plus for business management, which saw 10% more sessions in the period

·    Strategic Growth Areas:

o  Commercial Property revenue grew 13% to £8.4m (H1 2025: £7.4m), with membership increasing to 1,275 (December 2025: 1,227; June 2025: 1,106), and achieving over 60% of online commercial user time(9).  ARPA was £1,094 (H1 2025: £1,153), reflecting the impact of lower ARPA partners joining.  H2’s year-on-year growth rate is expected to be higher than that seen in H1

o  Rental Services revenue grew 67% to £5.6m (H1 2025: £3.3m), following the roll-out of Enhanced Leads to all Lettings partners, with over 4m Enhanced Leads sent to partners in H1.  H2 revenues are expected to be similar to H1 revenues

o  Mortgages revenue declined by £1.1m year-on-year to £3.4m (H1 2025: £4.5m), as a result of the strong comparator in H1 2025 flagged previously, and slight weakness in the mortgage market caused by global macroeconomic factors.  Revenues were £1.2m higher than H2 2025.  H2 revenues are expected to be similar to or above H1

o  Together, these three areas contributed £17.5m in revenue, up 14% on H1 2025.  We reiterate FY26 revenue growth guidance of 20-30%, as we expect revenue growth in H2 2026 to be more than double that seen in H1

 

·    Innovation and Platform:

o  Product teams delivered more than 4,000 technology releases during the period, +40% year-on-year

o  Examples of new products for partners included refreshed Development Profiles, a new Showcase Carousel and Virtual Tour Leads Requests for New Homes developers; Rental Development Listings for Rental Operators; a new suite of products called “Leader Advantage” for Commercial partners; and upgrades to the Rightmove Hub and Rightmove Plus platforms

o  Examples for consumers included the “Ask Rightmove” conversational experience, an Equity Tracker within our Affordability category, and ongoing enhancements to our apps.  Early findings from the AI Search Assistant within “Ask Rightmove” (based on data to 30 June) suggest a c.40% uplift in average time on site, and roughly double the propensity to send leads; those engaging with both AI Search and the Evaluation Assistant record still higher time on site and lead propensity

o  100% of applications are in the cloud as of 31 July, with >5 petabytes of historical and live data now on Rightmove’s unified data platform while maintaining 99.99% uptime in the period

 

Current end-market trends

The UK resale and lettings market remains resilient. We continue to monitor the impact from volatile global macro conditions, including interest and mortgage rate expectations, as well as overall consumer and partner confidence.

 

Rightmove’s latest leading property market data shows:

·    Mortgage rates are higher compared to December, with average two- and five-year fixed rates both at 5.0% on 30 June 2026, compared to 4.3% and 4.4% respectively on 31 December 2025;

·    In the Resale market, house price growth was positive in H1.  Available listing volumes are at an eleven-year high, and at the end of June were 2% ahead of the same point last year;

·    The Rental market continues to see an imbalance between supply and demand, with rental prices ahead of last year but with reducing rent growth and demand. There were, on average, 9 enquiries per available property in the period, lower than the equivalent period in 2025 but still above the pre-COVID average of 6-7; and

·    New Homes developments in the market remain at low historical levels due to continued softer build rates, which we expect to persist near-term.  Developers are seeing conditions among the most difficult experienced since the global financial crisis and, as a result, new developments coming to market are at their lowest in over a decade. Despite this, Rightmove retention of developers was strong in H1, with numerous initiatives implemented to support our partners through the current period and ARPA increasing 7% in the period. 

 

Outlook

We continue with our strategy to build a broader, more diversified, digital Rightmove ecosystem.

For the full year, we expect revenue growth of 6% to 8%, a reduction on previous guidance of 8% to 10%, due entirely to lower development volumes in the New Homes market. The lower end of the guidance range would require a further deterioration in market conditions compared to current expectations.

We guide to a change in Core membership of -1% to +1% year-on-year (comprising New Homes developments declining 6-10% and Estate Agency membership growing c.1-2%).  We reiterate ARPA growth guidance of £110-£120 for the year across Estate Agency and New Homes developers, alongside 20-30% growth in the Strategic Growth Areas. 

We reiterate guidance of +3% to +5% growth in full-year underlying operating profit.

We expect exceptional costs of c.£4m to £7m in 2026 related to the ongoing proposed claim, of which £2.3m has been recorded in H1.  Further details are in note 15.  Rightmove believes that the proposed claim is without merit and will defend it vigorously.

We reiterate guidance of underlying earnings per share growth of at least 5% in 2026.

The strength of our business model, our clear strategy, and our focus on innovation underpin the Board’s confidence in Rightmove’s outlook for 2026 and beyond.

 

Capital allocation

During the period, the Board reviewed Rightmove’s capital allocation policy and capital structure and concluded that the existing approach of prioritising investment in the business, maintaining a progressive dividend policy and returning all surplus cash to shareholders remains appropriate. 

The Board also believes that Rightmove’s strong cash generation and business model can support a moderate level of leverage while maintaining financial flexibility. 

Accordingly, Rightmove entered a £200m revolving credit facility on 21 July 2026, with the current intention of utilising this to fund additional share buybacks.  Rightmove expects to return over £400m to shareholders by 31 July 2027, including share buybacks of c.£330m.