Rightmove dominate the UK property portal sector in market share, by customer numbers, website visitors and in revenue terms. But they might want to take note of data that may indicate that new competitors are quite a threat to their cosy position.
Because if the speed at which a new portal gains traction is any indication of future success, the sector could be in for a shake-up and, frankly, not before time where the need for competition is concerned. More competition means that the incumbents must work harder at their relationships with their customers (you) and in innovating user experience and at better value. That means greater opportunities for agents to earn revenue from the portals rather than being at their financial behest and should lead to slower subscription cost growth – or even reductions. That’s the beauty of free market economics in that the fat have to get fit and the fittest survive.
For two decades or so the portal landscaoe in Britain has been characterised by Rightmove and to a lesser extent, ZPG. Rightmove have a stock market value of £5.6bn and ZPG were sold to US investment house Silver Lake for £2.2bn in 2018. Not bad for second place.
Yet with their success has followed frustration on the part of their estate agency customers. Hostility even. Why? Because many say that as the portals have become so big and have overshadowed estate agents, they have become more distant, more expensive and rather arrogant in their attitude toward agents.
This in turn has provided an opportunity for a third major portal. And a fourth.
Hence OnTheMarket, son of Agents Mutual, was born in January 2015 and with much promise given its ownership pedigree of Savills, Strutt & Parker, Knight Frank et al. Yet despite this provenance, maybe even because of it, it quickly fell into a life of disappointment and wayward behaviour much like the spoiled child of a busy millionaire parent. It also became less trusted than Rightmove and that’s certainly a low bar to limbo under. This may be set to change though of course under new leader Jason Tebb, untainted by the Springett era.
Room for one more? You might feel that three portals is enough and I know that many of you do. After all, the point of a portal is to aggregate and it seems kind of odd for there to be multiple aggregators – it rather defeats the object. But then I’d steer you back to my point in the second paragraph because in this instance, for you more is more – more portals equal more benefit to agents. Why else do you think that Alex Chesterman worked obsessively to consolidate the sector into a handful of players rather than have lots roam dangerously around him as he tried to beat Rightmove.
In any case, sensing the prospect of success as a consequence of doing things differently and as they are famous for, the Bruce brothers launched Boomin in April this year. I won’t get into the ins and outs of which portal is the ‘best’ or which one is truly on the agents’ side (at last) as that’s subject to much supposition and opinion and will only tie this publication’s commentators into knots. But, what the traction data does highlight is the incredible difference in speed at which each portal has been adopted by agents. Do first impressions count? Does early adoption indicate a propensity for future dominance?
Boomin recently announced that they had already reached the milestone of 6,000 customers. That’s one-third of that of Rightmove, a 20-year-old business.
But how does this compare to the other players as they grew from scratch?
| Portal | Launch | Date 6000 Reached | Months Taken To Reach |
| Rightmove | 2000 | 2004 | 48 |
| Zoopla | Jan 2008 | 2012* | 48 |
| On The Market | Jan 2015 | 2018 | 41 |
| Boomin | Apr 2021 | June 2021 | 2 |
*Zoopla agent numbers are sketchy until their public listing in 2014 (15,858 agent numbers). However, Zoopla revenue in their financial year was £13.8m according to their accounts and their ARPA approximately £200 therefore it can be comfortably estimated that at the end of 2011 they had under 6000 agent customers).
The data suggests that Boomin are the fastest growing property portal ever launched in the UK – by a mile.
This may be for several reasons including the appeal of Boomin’s innovative approach, its ‘agent first’ attitude, or something else. But it doesn’t appear that it’s just because they are not charging agents for their first 12 months – because all their competitors have utilised a similar incentive. Indeed, On The Market still do to an extent.
No other property portal has had such a successful launch, and all sit way behind Boomin on early customer traction.
Yes, the spotlight now is on whether Boomin continue their growth trajectory and if it’s done at the expense of their competitors’ numbers. And then, how many free accounts they convert into paying subscribers.
But remember that Boomin’s 6,000 agent threshold was reached without much of their marketing war-chest being spent yet and it appears that they have much, much more to deploy. In contrast, Rightmove, ZPG and OTM all spent hundreds of millions to get to where Boomin have started at.
This weekend I watched Richard Branson finally launch himself into space for a few minutes having spent billions of dollars over 20 years doing so. NASA (and ok, Russia), the first to command the outer atmosphere before him, spent even longer doing so and even more dollars and were, for quite a while, the ultimate space agency.
If NASA are Rightmove in this scenario and ZPG are Virgin Galactic, just watch what comes next from Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. They’ll spend much, much less time reaching space relatively speaking, and will likely long outlive the previously dominant institutions because they will be properly commercialised entities – having watched, learned, innovated and then gained early traction fast.
Astronaut or astranought. Who is now set to win the race in this space?
Russell Quirk is Co-founder of ProperPR, the specialist property PR agency, a veteran UK estate agent and media commentator.
Despite the fact that Boomin seem to have a team of influencers batting off any dissenters and criticism on social media about lack of leads and quietly promoting, portal wars is only just hotting up .
What will happen when Boomin’s free lunch is over and agents will have to put their hands in their pocket?
The not so subtle RQ getting his PR bit in with the winner of the fastest 6k agents competition.
Forgetting of course that Boomin delayed launch so they already kicked off with some big wins on board .
In another piece on EYE Jason Tebb confriming he is quietly getting on with the job winning hearts and minds despite all this .
The very best of luck to him
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Russell can you confirm whether or not Boomin is a PR client of yours?
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I second this, it reads like a paid-for piece from Boomin’… can you confirm it was written without their invovlement?
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I think Eye should clear this up too. Any commercial interests should be declared.
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I couldn’t agree more. Any comments Russell…?
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We asked Russell to confirm the position and he has responded:
“Boomin is not a PR client. It was written totally without their (Boomin’s) involvement. They are not a client and I am not paid by them.”
I will also take this opportunity to reiterate the policies regarding editorial on EYE.
No-one can purchase editorial space.
No-one is paid to contribute articles.
No advertiser can make editorial coverage a condition of their advertising with EYE.
The independence and integrity of the EYE editorial content is, always has been, and always will be, paramount.
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Thanks for removing my post, you clearly didn’t like the first sentence which amplified other people’s concerns. You could have removed that sentence and left the rest of the post intact which was also a valid point.
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Unaccustomed as I am to trawling the comment section of this fine publication, the Editor has asked me to respond to this and it’s a fair question raised.
I am happy to confirm that Boomin are not our PR client and the piece is all mine and has not had Boomin’s involvement in its writing. When I critique Rightmove for their presumption that rubbish leads are a metric with which to justify growth in subscription costs, it’s not because Zoopla are ‘paying me’. When I call out the RICS and Propertymark for being awful and unaccountable, it’s not because FIA have asked me to. And when I justifiably target Countrywide or Foxtons for inadequacy it is not because LSL are clients of ProperPR (they’re not). I just write stuff that probes and provokes thought even if it’s controversial and yes, because it’s often controversial.
You all know my style of writing – I aim to provoke readership and feisty debate by raising issues big and small that are perhaps spikey in nature and which fits my nature as someone unafraid to say things that others will not or that others just don’t think to say, frankly.
Or else you wouldn’t all be so entertained every fortnight, would you 🙂
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Has anyone else had any leads from Boomin? I have had one since launch!!
Is that not the proof a challenger portal needs to establish??
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We’ve had 2 leads so we are doing well compared to you ! Definitely won’t start paying once the free trial ends.
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Rightmove think they’re too big to fail… I’m backing OTM all the way. Jason has really changed things around and we now solely list with them. As for Boomin… don’t make me laugh. Let’s see how many agents they hold on to when the free period ends.
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How many leads were RM/Z/OTM providing when membership was 6,000?
Boomin’ is marmite, a significant number of agents will never use it !
However, with just 6,000 members they have captured a lot of data on buyers and potential vendors.
The next obvious step is to cut out the middleman and deal directly with Joe Public – for the consumer this would create an ideal foil to the normal EA/Portal model for a simple listing fee.
Boomin’ would also make money on FS/Conveyancing referrals and could offer EA the chance to earn some income as sales progressors.
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I think it’s a tad bit to early in the ‘race’ for Boomin to be included. RM have been comfortable for far to long, what will it take to knock them off of their money grabbing pedestal.
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Saying Boomin landed 6k agents in 2 months is, as we all know, total nonsense. There was a lengthy, slow-burn, campaign to gain traction- although if you say this was 12-18 months that is still faster than anyone else by a long shot. However, this also ignores the environment the others launched in- Rightmove was not just having to sign agents but having to convince them that the internet was here to stay!? Zoopla joined the party later- but again- tech was not the ‘must have’ it is now.
We also all know that it doesn’t matter if Boomin land every agent in the UK- if they can’t overthrow the headlock Rightmove and Zoopla hold on the consumer’s psyche- it’s all irrelevant.There is only one thing any agent should want from a portal- the highest quality of leads- as many as possible but without compromising the quality.
I wonder if Boomin might have been better off starting regionally, rather than nationally- Zoopla not only went regional but had a strong focus on lettings- steering clear of Rightrmoves (then) obsession with sales.
Whilst buying a lamp you like easily might be a nice touch- I’m not convinced this is what consumers feel is lacking from the existing portals. I would argue that they want: better marketing assets & media, the complete removal of fake and old listings, prompt enquiry and viewing services, a tool that helps them easier balance/identify properties that meet budget/bedroom/property style/location/etc more easily. If yo see consumer comments about portals they hate calling agents about properties that arent available, or calling agents that don’t get back to them, they want to know more about a property (but specific to their wants/needs).
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Wink wink
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J’adore boomin, car ils ont des pubs folles.
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Qu’est-ce que sais?
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And the point of this article is what? Preaching to the industry that already knows these stories from personal experiences. It offers no new enlightening information or a conclusion for the industry…
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