An agent has complained to the competition watchdog about Rightmove.
Luke Bennett, director of SW19 Estate Agents in London, has told the Competition and Markets Authority that he believes the public is being misled by Rightmove’s ‘How much is my house worth?’ service.
Rightmove has totally denied the claim.
Bennett has told the CMA that when consumers opt to get a valuation from “local experts” via Rightmove, they are only shown agents who have paid for this product – and who may not even be local.
Bennett, whose offices are in Wimbledon, south Wimbledon and Colliers Wood, says in his letter:
“I would like to bring to your attention a concern I have with the way Rightmove promote their valuation feature on the Rightmove website.
The link is https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-valuation.html
“The heading is “Get a free, no obligation, accurate valuation from local property experts you select “
“What Rightmove fails to highlight to consumers is that the only agents shown by Rightmove (five in Wimbledon) are agents that have paid Rightmove for this product and not necessarily local.
“Using our office postcode of SW19 3RZ as an example, I am given the following local agents according to Rightmove:
“Ludlow Thompson. (1.8 miles away)
“John D Wood. (0.7 miles away)
“Foxtons. (the closest, 0.4 miles away)
“Hamptons (0.8 miles away)
“Samual Estates (1.1 miles away)
“Using the same postcode of my office on Google, you will find a wider selection of local agents, all of which including SW19 Estate Agents are members of Rightmove but not shown on the valuation section of the website.
“Rightmove are misleading the public by only showing agents that have paid extra to be shown.
“If they continue this practice I feel the user experience should be transparent and Rightmove should make it clear that the selection of agents presented are paid to be shown and not necessarily local.”
A spokesperson for Rightmove yesterday evening said: “There are various ways on Rightmove for prospective sellers to research agents to invite out to value their home, such as our find an agent page which lists all of our agent customers and our local valuation page where sellers are given a selection of agents to choose from, based on those who have purchased this product.
“We carried out extensive research and testing to make sure this page works for our agent customers and is understood by prospective sellers using it.”
Comments (9)
Welsh High Street Agent I agree , its false and misleading entity and should have sponsored or advertisers when you click through .
Luke,
If you’re reaching out to the competition authorities, why not address the elephant in the room?
Rightmove is de facto a monopoly, and should be regulated as such. They bully agencies, increase fees as they wish regardless of inflation or added value, and force good decent businesses to sponsor their investors’ greed.
Why use Rightmove just bin them it’s easy one month notice bye bye!
RMEXIT
As a consumer looking to buy and sell a property in a specific area, I’ve seen this Rightmove service but was not aware until I read this article that only firms that paid Rightmove were recommended by them and not, as Rightmove claim, because the firms are local and expert (they might offer those criteria too but the key criteria seems to be the agent has paid Rightmove to be recommended). I think the right place to complain about this alleged misleading advertising and marketing is the Advertising Standards Authority, and not the CMA. I have therefore submitted a complaint to the ASA today.
I agree, it’s a false and misleading entity and should have “sponsored” or “Advertisers” when you click through. But that would involve rightmove being honest about something.
I had an argument with rightmove over this, it’s, as ever an utter sham. Agents that are promoted in my area, are miles away and known to be useless.
Nowhere on the valuation page does Rightmove inform the consumer as to the paid-for dimension. Their explanation is bluster. Well done Luke Bennett for calling this out.
I’m sure this will be top of the CMA’s agenda this morning…
“Agent complains to competition watchdog saying Rightmove’s valuation link is ‘misleading’’
I feel you brother… I’m sure many of us can’t believe how much Rightmove is still worth!