Online agents are more ‘friends than frenemy’ to Rightmove, says analyst

Agents will pay Rightmove an extra £85 this year, a City analyst has forecast.

Exane BNP Paribas says its prediction is above management guidance of a £70 rise in average advertising rate per advertiser.

Exane last week hosted new Rightmove CEO Peter Brooke-Johnson at an event where it was stressed that it would be ‘business as usual’.

In a note to investors after the event, Exane reported that Rightmove management also argued that “the progress of the Optimiser suite of products has improved agent relations and offers significant growth potential as penetration increases. Products such as Outside View can deliver further incremental growth”.

Exane reported that online agents are being seen as more friend than frenemy, and that Rightmove is “well placed to navigate any structure change to the estate agency industry from the rise of hybrid players”.

Hybrid agents’ market share of listings is 6%, up from 3% in March 2014.

Exane’s note gives Rightmove an ‘outperform’ rating, with a target of £50 for its shares, up from around £41.

It concludes: “In our view, Rightmove offers sustainable double digit structural growth, a rarity in European media.

“Rightmove operates as the UK’s market leading property portal and one of the country’s most visited websites, charging estate agents a subscription fee to list unlimited inventory per branch in an ‘all you can eat’ model.

“We see Rightmove, underpinned by its ‘must have’ status with estate agents, as a key winner from the recent competitive upheaval.”

Separately, Morgan Stanley has claimed OnTheMarket has lost listings.

It claimed: “In the UK, ZPG and Rightmove listings remain stable, whilst OnTheMarket continues to lose share.”

It said that since December, Rightmove has added 58,000 properties to its inventory and Zoopla has added 38,000 but that OTM’s inventory is down by 6,000.

 

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8 Comments

  1. Thomas Flowers

    Posted this on other Rightmove article today but also applies to this one.

    PB and others are frenemy’s unless RM agree some sort of terms?
    Thomas Flowers
    MAY 22, 2017 AT 8:20 AM

    The problem with RM is that they are very innovative when it comes to squeezing their customers for more money but appalling at helping the backbone of their customers grow their income.
    Optimiser products are a very clever way to keep the elite troops battling each other whilst RM gain more income but what about the small one branch agent?.
    The last thing RM want is member unity?
    RM’s biggest problem is that they have now undermined many 1000s of small members, who cannot afford to lose business, to the call centre agents and continue to pay their unfair fees so may have to migrate, in ever growing numbers, to their main competitor?
    Brilliant time for the last RM boss to bail out?
    RM need to consider fair ways to help their members not to ultimately betray them?
    Is it fair that a small agent could pay RM £100s rather than £10s per listing?
    Factor in one or two lost instructions per month to the call centre agents and is that backbone under too much pressure?
    Nokia failed to see the danger of a new competitor and so could RM with PB?
    Soon to be the third largest portal in real time listings?

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    1. Property Peep

      This is exactly the point I have been making, RM helps PB grow, wiping out many smaller, bread and butter customers for RM.
      PB then have such brand presence that they do not need RM anymore, or have such power they can start dictating the fee’s to RM.
      Hopefully RM will see this one coming and take action before its too late.
      All agents know that it is not good practice to have one client so large they can bring your business down if they want to by taking their custom away.
       
       

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      1. AgentV

        Google started up on Yahoo!!!

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  2. Frown Please

    Can anyone provide evidence to support this 3% -> 6% increase?

    Robert May?

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  3. Robert May

    6% where did that come from?  Count them,  remove the duplicates, the other agents’ listing and see what  actual number you come up with. It isn’t 6%

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    1. Frown Please

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  4. P-Daddy

    Read the following article, from another analyst that highlights a slightly different challenge to the machine that is Rightmove   http://proptechconsult.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/rightmove-0-the-innovators-dilemma.pdf

     

    Bearing in mind that we are all supposed to be negotiators for a living, now’s the time to start protecting your bottom line and negotiate!  We are ready for battle this week.

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  5. AgentV

    Good points…..we need to take more control of our data back and make it work harder for us than for constantly building up other people’s businesses.

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