Rightmove’s god-like status means that Rightmove is now over eight times more likely to be ‘googled’ than the term ‘property for sale’.

And the firm’s astonishing 70% profit margins over the last five years is more than success – it’s downright alchemy.

Notwithstanding the huge marketing costs invested to build the brand to the status that it now enjoys, Rightmove is not a clever business in that it simply takes an estate agent’s own hard won inventory and aggregates it with others to provide one consolidated destination for the consumer.

It merely takes advantage of the fragmented nature of our industry.

But now there are threats to its immortality and it must react. However, there is no sign that it will.

The threats that I refer to are as follows:

  • ZPG and On The Market are better funded than ever and are seeing brand awareness grow. This is no longer the monopoly that Rightmove previously enjoyed.
  • Disintermediation of the industry is taking place. We will see fewer estate agency brands in future and therefore the opportunity arising from fragmentation will dilute. When and if two ‘online’ agent players take 35%+ of the UK market between them, they become destination sites in their own right. This may take longer than some of us thought, but it remains a threat.
  • Technology will lead further transformation of search – Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence will become prevalent and may change the underlying way that search is constructed. New disruptors will emerge (Rummage4, etc).
  • International – Once Zillow, Scout24 and REA decide that they have squeezed the pips on their local markets, thoughts must inevitably turn to other territories
  • Facebook – If they decide to play in the portal space as now seems likely given their tie-up with ZPG and OTM as a tester, they could swallow Rightmove in one gulp.
  • Google – Often threatened as an entrant to property search in a big way and was tested in Australia back in 2012. Google already own all global search traffic and data plus control ad revenues that are enough to buy Rightmove thousands of times over. Be afraid, be very afraid.
  • Customer sentiment toward Rightmove is declining, especially as the company tries to balance making announcements to the City regarding proposed revenue per agent increases, versus justifying agents’ subscription value to the agents themselves.

With regard to the latter threat, the agency fraternity are really pissed off.

A softer property market and tougher times are the backdrop to a significant marketing overhead that becomes more expensive every year and by an increasingly unjustifiable amount.

A typical £1,000 per month expense when you’re selling three homes a month at a reducing fee level and whilst rent and rates and staff costs increase, is unsustainable. Is rebellion afoot?

Rightmove should not underestimate the impact of ‘people power’ and the traction that a David and Goliath campaign can muster, fast.

So what does Rightmove do? On the one hand it must suck up to the City and show growth (public companies are like sharks in that they die unless they are constantly moving forward).

On the other hand they must also endear themselves to their customer base, the 20,500 monthly subscribers that are, some would say, its forgotten lifeblood.

Rightmove were innovators once.

When Harry Hill first architected the idea whilst boss at Countrywide, the concept was frankly genius and remained so for a number of years.

Since then, (and I mean this in a respectful, constructive way) Rightmove has become lazy. New products are scant and their historic add-ons such as Premium Listings, Featured Agent and Featured Property are tired and unproven in an ROI sense.

It took years to revamp Rightmove Plus and even then it was but a re-skin.

‘Draw a search’ is probably the most revolutionary of its new products and that’s not exactly reinventing the wheel – just pumping up the tyres a little.

Therefore Rightmove must begin to innovate again and to disrupt – itself even. If it does, it will be able to both justify its increasing fees to agents and endear itself to the City all at once.

What It Must Do

Search – reinvent it: Conventional portal search is predicated around knowing the area that you want to live in and the type of house that you want to buy. But that’s not the way we really think.

Fundamental to choosing a new home are other primary considerations such as travel time to work and schools (not distance, but time taken); character and style of property; adjacent facilities; community demographic; school ratings etc – in other words I should not be asked to search for the ambiguity of a ‘3 bed semi within 1 mile of Aylesbury‘ but rather ‘show me houses with character and big gardens a 45 minute commute of EC2 and 15 mins walk to an Ofsted ‘Outstanding’ school in an ABC1 community’ for instance. This can be done.

Then, as the site visitor clicks and dwells on houses that they like over a period of time, use that data to serve up recommendations to them on the basis of what the data says they like and rather than what they think they like (they’re often two different things – the head vs heart dynamic etc).

Valuation leads: these are key to showing a value added to agents. Simply sending an email to agents that a consumer says they want a valuation because they filled in a form, is too 1990’s.

Instead, creating an outbound call centre that contacts all prospects that express interest in a Rightmove property and then qualify them and book a valuation visit for local agents, selling that lead to them – that’s the future. Each lead would be worth BIG money indeed to Rightmove.

Copy ZPG: Insurance comparison, mortgages, conveyancing… these are all missed tricks in an industry where many independent agents do not promote these as additional revenue streams.

Make it easy for them and create the backdrop to earn much-needed income from these ancillaries via a B2B proposition and, dare I venture, a B2C approach too. And at the same time reduce reliance on pure agency subscription revenue and de-risk the threats above.

Software: There is a huge gap in the industry for what I refer to as ‘estate agency software 2.0’. Reapit, DezRez and the PSG suite of products are all ‘1.0’ products and agent-facing only. The next generation  is consumer facing and creates customer empowerment and control, a better user experience and at a reduced cost of servicing. If Rightmove aligned itself with such a platform they could ‘own’ search and software as ZPG does.

Take risks: Calculated risks but risk nonetheless. No one ever stayed top of their game by playing safe.

New blood: All teams need internal challenge. An injection of fresh ideas and edginess from new people that seek to prevent the complacency of the status quo.

This is not to be underestimated especially when big businesses actually crave the safe hands that will otherwise ultimately grow tired and drop things by staying in the same position for too long.

Charm offensive: PR is important to any business. But PR is not just an external tool to gain coverage and customers but should also be used as a means to communicate a narrative and tone of voice internally.

In this case, to alter the perception that Rightmove are an arrogant and complacent overlord that looks down upon its customers. This suggestion is of vital importance right now. Winning hearts and minds is not just about the ideas above – but must also be sincerely meant.

This is my humble contribution to the Rightmove debate as it continues to rage and with all and sundry threatening to boycott, leave or to build alternative portals to rival it.

What are your thoughts? Can Rightmove reinvent itself?

And if it does, can this justify ever higher fees and a bolstering of its future share value?

  • Russell Quirk is founder of online agent Emoov