Rightmove PLC has just published its Results for the year ended 31st December 2022
Its operating profit rose 7% on the previous year, to £241.3m.
Average revenue per advertiser (ARPA) is up 11% to £1,314 per month (2021: £1,189); second-highest year ever for absolute ARPA growth.
Total membership stayed flat at 19,014 (2021: 18,969), with Agency branches down 178 and New Homes Developments up 223 since the start of the year.
£197.7m (2021: £238.8m) was returned to shareholders through the share buyback programme and dividend payments.
Rightmove says it experienced resilient traffic despite a significantly less frenetic property market than 2021, with a total of 16.3 billion minutes spent on the platform in the year (2021: 18.3 billion).
There was a continued uptake of the premium Optimiser 2020 package, with 34% of independent agents now subscribing, up from 21% in December 2021.
Chair, Andrew Fisher said:
“The Group’s results reflect the strength of our business model and core value proposition, delivering underlying operating profit of £245.4m (2021: £231.0m) and operating profit of £241.3m (2021: £226.1m) from revenue of £332.6m (2021: £304.9m).
“Underlying earnings per share were 23.8p (2021: 21.8p) and basic earnings per share 23.4p (2021: 21.3p).
“Our cash position at the year-end was £40.1m (2021: £48.0m), having returned all surplus cash to shareholders.
“In keeping with our policy of returning free cash to our shareholders, £197.7m (2021: £238.8m) was returned through the share buyback programme and dividend payments.
“The Board remains confident in our ability to deliver sustainable returns to shareholders and is recommending a final dividend of 5.2p per share for 2022 (2021: 4.8p). The final dividend will be paid, subject to shareholder approval, on 26 May 2023, taking the total dividend for the year to 8.5p, an increase of 9% on 2021 (2021: 7.8p).
“Our ambition to innovate continually to make home moving easier in the UK and to create long-term sustainable growth for the benefit of all stakeholders is undeterred as we move into 2023 and continue to execute on our long-held strategy for the benefit of our customers, consumers and shareholders.”
Comments (21)
You would be well justified in thanking Giles of Homesearch for this increase; by promising to be able to build a portal in 100 days he effectively destroyed 10 years work designed to break the Rightmove/Zoopla duopoly.
Well done Giles and all those smart people who rushed to the front of an opportunity rhat had been carefully engineered
On the Market has not dented RM. The only thing it has done is make the agents who use it spend more because in most instances they are also on RM and quite often Zoopla as well. Far from the revolution OTM was going create it has only added to the spend an agent makes. I think OTM looks nice but ask the public and they have all heard of RM and most do not really know who OTM are. If you want to save money you should drop one of them, simple. I know which one I would drop if I was on both.
OTM may well have fancy tools for agents to use etc etc but I’m not sure it means anything to house hunters, in reality. They’ve not come close to taking RM on. A real shame.
Baaaa
Time for a campaign? Perhaps call it SAYNOTORIGHTMOVE2023 and it won’t be anymore successful than previous campaigns because estate agents do not trust each other.
100%
They take money out of the sector and put nothing back , this means less to invest in people, tech and value add suppliers etc and as such standards conitinue to drop and with it fees and the customers view of the value our industry brings drops and the cycle contines.
Ween yourself of RM and you do not need your competitors to foliow suit , they will if you show the way, if you wait for them to go first then its the divide and conquer policy of RM that wins and in effect they are making more out of your activites than you are .
1. do noy sign long term agreements , the differnt end dates kill any notion of a mass exodus
2. go to basic pacgages only
3. remove your strong market leading offices
4. lettigns is not needed ditch
5. beef up social media, marketing spend, and nurting processes and other portals with any savings made
6. remove all signage and marketing relating to RM from everywhere
7. have a clear pitch that promotes your values , your usps and your marketig strategy
analyse the effects , reapeat steps 1 to 7 if posotve or go back to where you are now if the analysis shows a negative impact on your buisness
in the words of the immortal Cilla ‘surprise surprise’
We can all moan about the cost of Rightmove, but unless agents come together to tackle the monster, nothing will change. If one agent in a certain postcode area removes themselves from Rightmove, but their competition remains loyal, those agents will use this to their advantage when sitting on a clients sofa pitching for their listing. The portal of choice for customers is Rightmove whether we like it or not, so unless all agents come together to bin them off, nothing will change.
Anyone worried about their competitors must have little or no confidence, if they cant list or sell property without RM, then they are not a real estate agents.
18.5% increase will be next years results…..
I have not used a single add on product now for 4/5 years, I just have the basic package. In all that time we have remained the market leaders, by far, in our town without a “premium listing” in sight, our nearest competitor sells 50% less units, so i know these products are of no use.
The basic package is more expensive for me now than one “with products” but i am sticking with the basic, it will be interesting to know if others have the same issue. I have recently been notified of my next annual increase that starts on the 1st April (of all days) which is 18.5%.
Now my basic package costs £1895 plus VAT for a single sales/lettings office. This is not at all justifiable with the profit levels they are already receiving.
Do larger agencies have better fee structures with Rightmove, I have no doubt about that.
Will there be a day that I tell Rightmove to “stick it”….. its getting closer……
Agents must be able to afford the fees, otherwise they wouldn’t be with them, simple economics.
Why are agents so deluded, we have saved more than £150,000 since we left Rightmove, spent some of the savings on employing staff and business levels have increased.
Rightmove is by far the best form of advertising any agent can do, the results are good and agents have become to rely very heavily on them to do their job for them. Before the portals we were paying £400/week per office to newspapers for advertising so actually I think it is reasonable value for money. If you think you can operate without them then take your business elsewhere, if the alternatives were better and cheaper then I am sure the agents would move their advertising without a thought. Sometimes you have to accept that if you want good quality you have to pay for it, a bit like employing a proper estate agent! Stop moaning and pay up.
Imagine if Rightmove wasn’t the best form of advertising, imagine if, between a properly run database of buyers and a strong and continuing social media presence, you were able to self-generate your own sales and instructions. Imagine what that would do to your brand, rather than being lost on Rightmove your brand would develop its own identity. Think of the off-market deals you could do, think of the spec-intros you could do, none of this is possible if you immediately list on a portal. So, while the portals are a necessary evil we should all be doing as much as we can to make sure they are NOT the best form of advertising. Let’s take ownership of our marketing, let’s make it local and relevant, let’s pick up the phone and talk to people and when the portals become less important to us let’s stop using them.
absolutely staggered by the Optimiser take-up, especially by independents paying full whack – presumably the same people who signed up to “say no to Rightmove.” I’m as guilty as the next person for hating their price rises but resolutely staying put, but at least I’m paying the basic rate (with no adverse effects). Perhaps a more realistic call to action is “Say no to Rightmove…extras”
Yeah we’re the same. All of those extras are a marketing fad, they do nothing at the very least all remainers should cut to the basic.
I really don’t understand why we the industry at the coal face suffer it. There’s no other industry like it is there?
When will we learn?
Why can’t we stand together against this?
It’s got to be the biggest public flogging ever and year after year it continues 🙁
We moved away from all our optimiser packages back in 2020 and haven’t noticed any difference… nothing, zero.
Rightmove are masters at pricing and will do what they can to keep you off their essentials package. Just resist and sleep a tiny bit better knowing Rightmove is costing you the minimum amount.
Your enquiries won’t change and you’ll be more focused on what really matters to a good agent, maintaining an amazing database of buyers and more investment (from your Rightmove savings) in social media to grow YOUR brand rather than contributing to Rightmoves coffers.
You can always count on Rightmove supporting their customers when times are hard for them
Oh Joy!
If they’ve been able to get 10% increases year on year before we had inflation touching 10% you can guess where this year”s rate increases (known as their annual customer slap in the face) will be going.
We should cross our fingers and hope for the best I guess. It’s bound to work…..surely ?