The fact is that most house hunters simply do not have the time, let alone the inclination, to trawl around properties and estate agents day in, day out, which is why they plump for the convenience of searching online across a wide spectrum of property listings on the portals, with Rightmove the number one platform of choice for many consumers.
The property website puts agents’ brand and properties in front of the biggest home-hunting audience in the UK, sometimes helping to offer firms a competitive edge in their local market, which is largely while they are so profitable.
Rightmove boosted revenues and profit last year as estate agents spent more with the UK’s largest property platform to market properties amid a significant slowdown in the housing market. The company on Friday reported an 8% increase in annual profit before tax to £260m, on rising advertising revenue as agents paid more for marketing.
Rightmove also forecast revenue growth of between 7% and 9%, despite the fact that online traffic to its site had fallen in 2023 and warned that customer numbers would likely drop further this year.
The property portal added that revenue surged by £31.7m in 2023, marking a 10% rise from 2022, reaching £364.3m.
This boost was fuelled in part by agents upgrading their packages and embracing digital products, while Rightmove has also connected an estate agent broker to its online application system, allowing users to get mortgage advice without leaving the platform.
Of note, the average revenue per advertiser (ARPA) increased 9%, reaching £1,431 per month, which contributed to the small decline of 1%.
However, the reality is that many agents remain reliant on the leads Rightmove – and other portals – provide.
Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: “[Rightmove’s performance] reinforces its position as a must-have product for estate agencies and provides significant pricing power when it comes to securing subscriptions from agencies.”
However, he pointed out that there are “nagging worries” emerging for Rightmove.
“The threat from OnTheMarket – now backed by a big US operator in Costar – is such a concern for investors,” he explained.
Having established itself as the UK’s third largest portal, after Zoopla, in terms of consumer traffic and agent support, OnTheMarket firmly believes that it is now well-placed to challenge Rightmove’s dominance at the top of the portal market.
OTM focussed on becoming ‘the number one property portal in the UK’
Who wrote that? Whoever it was has NEVER sold property, never sat a single day in a negotiator’s chair; anyone who has will know what’s been written about house hunters is nonsense. Furthermore its likely they’ve never bought a property.
When people are serious about finding a home they sacrifice both work and leisure time to know what’s coming on the market so to say house hunters don’t have the time is piffle, marketing spin to reinforce reliance on Rightmove.
Anyone serious about achieving home ownership uses the portals to find out the agents most likely to sell what they want to buy and then uses that research to get to be best buddies with the neg who’s going to call them.
Estate Agency does not work as portrayed in this PR piece, passive intermediary listing might work like this, hit and miss amateur agency might work like this but professional agency doesn’t
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Well said Robert.
Those who complain about RM (and I am certainly one) might also be those against minimum entry requirements or qualifications to operate as an estate agent : ideal conditions for RM in which to take advantage and secure such a monopolistic position. More agencies need to show their worth rather than rely on this (or other competitor portal) in the future.
In that way we can perhaps begin to bring an end to the annual 10% + slap in the face that RM rewards their customer base with.
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For sure a few people may take a day off work to see some houses
Most people who work will view at weekernds or evenings however
They do not take days off to visit estate agents they look at web portals
When I was an agents in the 80s Saturday and Sundays were manic with people coming in
By the time I got out in the mid 90s Saturday and Sunday woukd be busy with viewings but the level off footfall enquires was minimal
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I build systems that look at this industry in such detail I can remotely identify when a board has been put on a property, I know more about portal content and traffic than most
The people completing on property purchases are no different now to what they were in the 80’s; instead of looking at the portals they are the ones on the telephone, text or face time to agents they’ve identified are likely to list what they’re wanting to buy. About half of the industry still works that way. those agents are on Rightmove because they can afford to be on Rightmove and it provides an expensive burden for their competition. The other half the industry is on Rightmove because without it they have no #local presence and no business at all.
There is a lot of traffic to portals, 80% of it is unique to each home listed,only about 3% of traffic is people who view anything. With no doubt record levels of traffic last year the industry completed on about 43% of the expected number of sales. This article is trying to pit-prop confidence in Rightmove shares rather than a commentary on what purchasers do. There is no correlation between traffic and completions
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Is that Rummage4Boards a new thing?
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Funny!!!! Boggart Hole Clough!!!!
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Buyers don’t care about rightmove.
Buyers go where the properties are..
It would take about 3 days to organise 1 month rightmove walk out. ( walk out till they reduce to £495 or charge by properties on market. Not by office
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100%
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I don’t think you could achieve a walk out in 3 days its been tried for years and agents buckle with fear of their competitors doing a dirty on them.
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Anecdotally, I rarely if ever mention RM on vals anymore and it doesn’t seem to make any difference, if I do it’s always as the trident RM/Z/OTM so that I’m not bigging up their brand for them.
I think The City have every reason to be nervous. RM have a very shallow foundation built on what our cornish cousins would refer to as mundic block.
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