Rightmove reported strong results this morning with revenue and profits up 10%, despite a 3% drop in agency numbers in the first half of this year.
Its revenue for the six months to the end of June was £143.9m, up from £131.1m in the same period last year.
Pre-tax profit stood at £108.1m, up from £98m.
Average revenue per advertiser (ARPA) “grew more strongly than anticipated”, up £90 per advertiser per month.
Average monthly cost per advertiser on Rightmove was over £1,000, standing at £1,077 per branch per month. The monthly average cost per agency branch was £1,023. Overall revenue from agents in the first half of this year was £104.8m, a rise of 6%.
However, overall membership numbers were down 1% since the start of the year, reflecting a 3% drop in what Rightmove described as low-stock agency branches. The number of agency branches was 16,768 at the end of June, compared with 17,328 at the start of the year.
The drop in agency numbers was offset by growth in new homes developers.
There was continued traffic growth, with visits up 2% year on year, averaging nearly 141m visits per month.
CEO Peter Brooks-Johnson said: “A 4.6% drop in transactions compared to 2018 has put pressure on some low-stock agency branches and created opportunity for others.
“We’re focused on helping all our customers succeed by delivering the most significant and effective exposure for their properties and brands to compete to win home sale instructions and also by being the largest source of high quality leads.
“We’ve seen strong adoption of our new digital solutions and existing packages by new homes developers and agents as they recognise the value of the UK’s largest property audience and Rightmove’s unique data insight.”
This morning Rightmove also announced the acquisition of tenancy referencing company Van Mildert. The acquisition is subject to FCA approval and due to complete at the end of October. The price is an initial £16m with up to a further £4m to come.
Brooks-Johnson said: “We’re looking forward to welcoming Van Mildert, a highly respected tenant referencing company, to the Rightmove family which will augment our Rightmove Tenant Passport in our quest to make renting a property faster, easier and more efficient for tenants, landlords, and agents alike.”
Yesterday, Rightmove share prices were stable at around 512p.
Meanwhile Foxtons has endured a miserable first half to the year, this morning reporting a pre-tax loss of £3.2m – up from £2.5m in the same period last year.
In the six months to the end of July, its revenue declined by 3.5% to £51.1m.
Lettings brought in £31.7m while sales revenue was down 10% to £15.4m. There was mortgages revenue in its Alexander Hall business of £4m, down 3% on the previous year.
Foxtons said there will be no interim dividend.
Chief executive Nic Budden said: “The prolonged downturn in the London sales market and continued political uncertainty continues to impact our results.
“The lettings business remains our priority and continues to deliver stable results underpinned by strong structural drivers of demand. We believe our excellent service offering and compliance culture, combined with our decision not to increase fees for landlords following the implementation of the tenant fee ban, will continue to differentiate us from the competition.
“Low consumer confidence combined with challenging market conditions means selling or finding a property is more challenging than ever before, and we believe this creates even more relevance for our high service sales model.
“In lettings, our professional approach mitigates legal risk for landlords and provides them with reliable tenants who trust us to provide the biggest range of high-quality rental accommodation.
“Looking ahead, we expect conditions to remain challenging and have effectively positioned the business to reflect this. In lettings, we expect our ongoing commitment to landlords in light of the tenant fee ban to improve further our proposition and we are confident this will continue to drive market share.
“In the longer term, our strong balance sheet and leading market position in London will allow us to capitalise on any recovery, in what remains one of the world’s most desirable cities and dynamic property markets.”
Wouldn’t Rightmove’s Half-Year results, from their Subscribers make much more interesting reading – it would expose the truth about how it’s Subscribers view Rightmove performance in terms of value/quality.
One could envisage their share price nose-diving after reading Subscribers verdicts on Rightmove.
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Interesting spin RM.
1% of your customers have LEFT and more to follow.
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But they make up the profit with poor quality listings from new homes where the property isn’t even built.
Another income stream being taken away from agents… We pay £1000 a month to lose £5,000 in payanyway and new home assistance.
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A 3% fall in EA branches in 6 months (4.6% fall in the last 12 months) is not good news for RM shareholders.
At this rate the UBS predictions for the end of 2019 may need to be revised !
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“Average revenue per advertiser (ARPA) “grew more strongly than anticipated”, up £90 per advertiser per month.”
……because Rightmove simply INCREASED ITS MONTHLY SUBSCRIBER RATE?!
……NOT because Rightmove delivered better value/quality to its Subscribers?
Rightmove Motto – emblazoned in their souls?
”KEEP SHAFTING OUR SUBSCRIBERS!”
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On behalf of all the agencies who make Rightmove such a success, I’m sure we are all delighted that they are doing so well and making so much money out of the very product we provide?
There will be an alternative to RM one day and there will be little loyalty cometh the hour!
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I’d be interested to know how much Ian Springett earned in the first half of this year?
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Disgusting arrogant greedy b*****ds!!!!!
Karma will slap Rightmove so ****** hard one day and I’ll be the 1st on the phone to laugh!!!!
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The Government could set up their own ‘Rightmove’. That would be very cool from Boris, and out of the box, but will they…..
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Yes it would go down like all his other iconic achievements :
the garden bridge
the revolutionary buses ( they weren’t )
the Thames airport
the water cannon
oh and let’s not forget the unflushable Brexit
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Even Alistair Campbell couldn’t put enough spin on these figures to make them justifiable.
Pure exploitation. You all know what to do.
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Like everybody else above i am delighted that Right Move have made so much money by providing so little. I really cant think of many other digital products that have innovated so little and yet still come out on top. 20 years in the business and the best right move can come up with is a photo a map and a desription.
I really hope that it goes the way of my space or friends reunited. I have spent the last couple of months looking at ways to spend that money that would result in similar coverage. I personally thik its only a matter of time before we go direct on google maps etc.
I will also be under no illusions that rightmove and zoopla are looking hard at how they can sell direct to the vendors and cut us out.
Sigh, no fun being an agent at present
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Anyone can make a profit with price hikes of 12%-15% per year. Losing 3% of your customers and increasing profits is not organic growth, it’s greed.
As for “losing customers with low stock levels”, surely they should be looking to help these customers rather than let them leave because when the market turns and improves for all of us, the smaller, independent agencies who left Rightmove because either the fees were unsustainable or the quality of enquiries (not leads) was poor, will not return because we have long memories.
As for “We’re Rightmove, we don’t negotiate”, that phrase will, I am certain, come back to hunt them in years to come when agents realise that there is life after Rightmove and that we don’t need them as much as they think we do. Other portals such as OnTheMarket and Zoopla provide much better leads, a much high level of service and they support their clients.
People said Woolworths was too big to fail, others said BHS wouldn’t go under, while the market backed Carillion until it was too late, so don’t think for one minute that an entity such as Rightmove is beyond reproach.
We will look back on 2019, and even 2020, as the defining years when those agents with good business acumen decided enough is enough and looked at other ways of spending their limited marketing budgets.
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Unbelievable……. £20,000,000.00 for Vanmildert. References will soon cost £100.00+ per transaction. This is the best news I have read in a long time. When the Hostages break free, we have a safe haven for each of them.
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Any tenant who presents themselves with one of these Rightmove Tenant Passports definitely go way down the pecking order …we don’t want your garbage products
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Seriously???
“I know, let’s put the most motivated applicants who have bothered to pre qualify themselves behind all the other dross that we’ll need to spend hours qualifying!”
the problem with their passport is that no one fills it out yet.
Come on RM, start marketing it to consumers please, so it does what it’s supposed to do!
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I’m happy making our own checks without the assistance of RM, and wouldn’t say it makes anybody more motivated because they pre qualify themselves, afterall I’ve not needed up to now. Anyway its the intefernce of RM in any aspect of our business I have the issue with….its like the reports, webinars, best price guides blah blah its all a load of junk and not needed . Thank you
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We left a few months ago. Got a new member of staff, invested in prospecting…. The numbers have never looked so good! If you no longer want to be shafted from behind there is only one option, the truth is that if we didn’t all list with them they wouldn’t have a business at all, anyone still on RM, it’s you that makes it possible. So, bin it and innovate or suck it up as essential to your business in your view.
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As a Van Mildert client I have been happy to use them up to now.
However, I shall now be leaving Van Mildert as I can not bring myself to give RM any more of my hard earned £££……..
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I know it’s not going to be going with the flow with much of the sentiment today but it needs saying anyway.
I want to give Christian my heartiest congratulations and say what an amazing deal it is for both parties. It’ll be the dream ticket for VM because they get to become part of the family for the UK’s biggest supplier and for RM they’ve got an innovative partner who embraces technology and customer service equally. I’m sure there’ll be opportunities for them to prove it over the coming years.
of course I get the resentment and to a certain degree RM can’t win, they get accused of a lack of innovation so they do an acquisition which with the passport promises to be disruptive you innovative and they still get critiqued.
This isn’t a love letter to RM , although it definitely is to Christian , most who know me will have heard my constructive criticism of them as a group, as if the views of a lowly pleb like myself matter anyway. But there’s no point losing a complete analytical ability to see them for what they are.
But ignoring the big picture here the small story which should be told is the story of a lad who came into this industry, pretty much like be all who know him, whose built a hell of a business in the North East hardly your typical Silicon Valley , albeit with I Am Sold and a few others there maybe it now needs it’s own title Greggs Gorge?
I digress he’s sold his business for an eye watering sum and if we can’t see the aspiration and success story then maybe it’s true the Brits naturally resent it and like to build us up to knock em down.
Anyway long rambling way of saying massive congrats Christian you were a good friend before you’re an even more amazing friend now, and as one of your mentors it would be remiss for me to just check you’ve got all of your financial long term planning sorted and how’s that long and difficult to shift cough going ?
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Agree with Simon wholeheartedly. Van Mildert is, in my opinion, the best referencing product on the market and whilst Christian remains at the helm I can’t see that changing regardless of ownership. But to the point…
Massive congratulations to Christian, he created a business 8 years ago which he has now sold for £20M, he built the business by being a hard-working, honest and a nice guy. No gimmicks or discounts, no big marketing budget or account reps calling every week and no big VC company coming in on day 1 to accelerate growth. We should celebrate this success story rather than focus on who happened to be the buyer.
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Much like RMD couldn’t agree with you more Whaley. Huge congratulations to Christian, one of the nicest guys you could ever wish to meet. I can only hope that RM have the vision and ability to keep him invested in the business for the long term.
VM is a great strategic purchase for Rightmove and hopefully begins a much overdue path to start bringing more value back to agents for all the money we are paying them. Time will tell!
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RM has to look at other revenue streams – knowing that its agency income will be squeezed in years to come (as agents jump off the voracious RM profit-waggon). VM will not be the last acquisition…
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Be very wary when portals make this type of acquisition. They’re certainly not doing it to help you, their loyal customers! You can’t call it innovation either, particularly when it inevitably involves either further monetising your data or, as in this situation here, creating another tentacle to wrap around your business. In the scheme of things, £20m is loose change to RM (hats off though to the lucky guy selling), so I ‘d be wanting to know the real reason why they’re doing this. If they believe it will help retain letting agents or even pull leavers back in, I think they’re very mistaken.
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In short, the remaining agents have been and continue to be milked for more. As for ‘low stock agency branches being under pressure’, it’s clear from that comment that rightmove’s attitude problem comes from the very top. The bottom line is you’re losing customers and if you think that’s a good thing best of luck for the future.
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Time to bring down the beast.
Agents need to work together.
How much can it cost to develop and run a website £5m? £10m?
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OTM need a trigger in my opinion to get agents to act together. I note RM;
1) Have extensive advice information aimed at private landlords
2) Have just bought a tenant referencing company
3) Discount fees to large agents including online operators
4) Have pay as you go advertising models already developed ( see overseas private sales )
5) No longer trade only as deal direct with developers and landlord property
companies
Are agents especially in lettings just turkeys waiting for Christmas ?
Everything is in the timing –
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