Rightmove has unveiled a double-digit rise in turnover and an operating profit margin of 76% as average revenue it receives per advertiser rose.
However, while traffic grew for the 16th consecutive year, leads were actually 7% down last year, Rightmove reported this morning.
Also reporting to the stock exchange this morning was OnTheMarket, which confirmed that Chancellors is now listing its properties with it and that it has achieved a total of 243 new branch sign-ups within the last ten days.
Rightmove said its revenue rose 11% to £243.3m in 2017. Underlying operating profit before share-based payments was up 11% to £184.4m.
Its underlying operating margin increased slightly to 75.8% (up from 75.5% in 2016).
Meanwhile, the firm’s average revenue per advertiser (ARPA) rose 10% to £922 per month, with 20,427 customers – a record, and up 2%. Of this number, 17,626 were agency offices, up slightly from 17,462 the year before.
In 2016, average revenue per advertiser was £842 per month.
Rightmove said that 45% of independent agency customers now spend over £1,000 per month, up from 36% a year ago.
As a result, revenue in the company’s agency business was the main driver of growth, up 10% year on year to £185.2m.
Its new homes arm increased sales by 16% to £39.5m.
“Other” revenue, which includes overseas, data services, commercial and third party, totalled £18.6m.
ARPA for newspapers back in 2007 was around £2,500 per month, suggesting that Rightmove still sees plenty of room to grow this figure.
Meanwhile, chief executive officer Peter Brooks-Johnson, who took over from Nick McKittrick after he retired in May 2017, hailed record customer numbers.
He said: “The UK public has once again moved with Rightmove, spending 11.7 billion minutes on Rightmove platforms in 2017.
“Our customer numbers increased to a record high of nearly 20,500, testament to our aim to provide customers with the most effective marketing exposure and the highest quality leads, as well as helping to drive efficiencies within their businesses though tools and support.”
Home movers visited the portal over 1.5bn times in 2017, an increase of over 4% on 2016. A total of 43.6m leads were generated last year, 7% down on 2016.
Rightmove acknowledged in this morning’s results that it operates in a competitive environment, but did not specifically name any competitors.
However, analyst Anthony Codling called Rightmove’s operating profit margin of 75.8% “outstanding” and said that last year OnTheMarket had not impacted on Rightmove’s “market position or market power”. Codling said Rightmove was not a cheap stock but investors appreciate it as the market leader who “rarely puts a foot wrong”.
Comments (53)
RM rape and pillage. The website is set up to steel your business sending users to there sponsors sites for mortgage, send leads for property sales and lettings to your competitors and we continue to pay them for the privilege. It’s about time we all took action and dropped them.
A whole day will be used by some agents to seek short-term one-upmanship/ market advantage. All that is required is a one hour switch off to demonstrate to RM shareholders and the industry that there is only a certain level of arrogant price increases agents will accept. I would propose 4.30 to 5.30 pm on Friday the 2nd of March. Make all properties invisible, for one hour. No more, no less.
We need to stop whinging and whining and take action. We need someone with a big voice in the industry to organize a RIGHTMOVE DARK DAY 2018 where we all remove our properties from RM for a day or a weekend. It would send a clear message that we are sick of being raped by them.
A whole day will be used by some agents to seek short-term one-upmanship/ market advantage. All that is required is a one hour switch off to demonstrate to RM shareholders and the industry that there is only a certain level of arrogant price increases agents will accept. I would propose 4.30 to 5.30 pm on Friday the 2nd of March. Make all properties invisible, for one hour. No more, no less.
This is actually brilliant… Chris Wood and his 5 followers breaking the internet this Friday. The Donald Trump of the industry strikes again!!! More chance of becoming the Vice President of NEAE than taking on Rightmove. Please don’t forget to inform your vendors about “Full Service Friday”
The only thing worse than making such a puerile post is the repeated visits you will make to this thread to see how many likes and responses you have gained. I suspect it will be zero. Have a good (empty) day.
GOSH! Is it really ‘that time of the year’ again? So soon?
Oh, yes – last year this hit the proverbial fan on 24 February.
SO… lets update the figures I’ve posted previously, and have a look at the latest winning figures and the claims from those chucking the banana skins around. Interesting that there’s not as many as usual screaming that it’s all OTM’s fault that RM are steaming ahead of the game – but the undertones are still there. More on that in a bit.
ADVERTISER NUMBERS:
2010: +2%; 2011: +1%; 2012: +0%; 2013: +4%; 2014: +5%; 2015 +2%; 2016: +2%; 2017: +2%
LOWEST % GROWTH SINCE 2014
REVENUE PER ADVERTISER:
2010: +23%; 2011: +17%; 2012: +19%; 2013: +15%; 2014: +13%; 2015: +10%; 2016: 11.6%; 2017: + 10%
LOWEST (JOINT) % GROWTH SINCE PRE-2010
REVENUE:
2010: +26%; 2011: +19%; 2012: +23%; 2013: +17%; 2014: +20%; 2015: +15%; 2016: +15%; 2017 + 11%
LOWEST % GROWTH SINCE PRE-2010
UNDERLYING OPERATING PROFIT:
2010: +39%; 2011: +23%; 2012: +26%; 2013: +19%; 2014: +20%; 2015: +16%; 2016: +15%: 2017: + 11%
LOWEST % GROWTH SINCE PRE-2010
UNDERLYING OPERATING MARGIN:
2010: 69.4%; 2011: 71.5%; 2012: 73.3%; 2013: 74.3%; 2014: 74.6%; 2015: 75.1%; 2016: 75.5%; 2017: + 75.8%
CONTINUES YEARLY % INCREASE DESPITE OTHER KRA DECREASES
As I have stated previously there is a marked softening in the figures reported since 2014 – which just happens to coincide with OTMs troubled birth. Its’ traumatic childhood… its constant whingeing, whining and cr@pping in its’ own pram has without doubt stopped it making any headway whatsoever on the behemoth banging out these still impressive figures – but I must disagree somewhat with Mr Codling and make my own analysis that there simply has to be a degree of impact… some small dent or dulling of the polish… that can be accredited to the jumped up little upstart that dared to become a portal.
What happens next year is to be seen. Anyone care to forecast what the results will be in 12 months time?
How about? We didn’t see that one coming!
I remind you of a conversation on EAT from many moons ago!
With a heavy estate agent’s heart I think 12 months from now Rightmove will still rule the portal roost!
OTM are still trotting out the member numbers as we have all heard before, however there is no substance to grasp. It remains the OTM Hall of Mirrors.
If rumours are confirmed, that Rightmove are going to introduce a sliding-scale discount to monthly costs, based on how long subscribers have contributed to Rightmove etc – that would be a revolution, a clear sign that Rightmove is finally rewarding its long term subscribers for their support which has secured the No 1 Portal for Rightmove.
Time will tell.
Saw my RM rep recently.
“How’s business?”, she asked.
“Down about 25% last year,” I replied. “Coincidentally the same percentage my RM fees went up”, I added.
“Have a new notebook”, she said, as she skipped quickly from the office.
Good times.
At their profitability I hope it was a macbook air or a surface 🙁
It was lined and somewhere between hard and paperback :-/
Put in a cancellation of your membership then? Why would they even try, when members complain, but then don’t do anything about it, by leaving RM. Zoopla/OTM much cheaper, one of them is actually good and has public awareness. Like some have said, the only ones giving RM this power to keep increasing so vastly is the member agents.
As with all good business models RM charge what they believe the market will stand. Fact: the vast majority of agents continue to pay. RM are not a charity, they are a service provider in an open ‘free market’ where all customers have a choice; stay or leave.
Quite simply; there are too many agents with too little stock resulting in a high RM cost per listing result. If the current listing volume levels persist, which is likely for the short to medium term then it will become an unsustainable proposition for many smaller agencies.
It is likely that some 20% of agencies are barely making a profit and whose owners would be better off shutting up shop and getting a job elsewhere.
The alternative is to proactively talk to your competitors and propose a merger of your businesses thus stripping out cost duplication on many levels and in doing so create significantly better economies of scale.
Or; continue to pay RM and the other duplicated costs and endure a modest/poor standard of living.
Just had our annual increase letter from RM – over 12% more to pay for fewer (poorer quality) leads.
Rightmove – more profits – same as it ever was.
OnTheMarket – more waffle – same as it ever was. Sadly OTM is the equivalent of The Hindenburg, swelling up with waffle before plummeting in flames of inactivity.
Spoke with an agent yesterday who offloaded a very substantial OTM Shareholder on the rebound price – how relieved they were to cash in.
OTM new members at what cost/incentive? Let’s see their annual results report when due. OTM replace the members that have walked and will walk with little or no replacement income from the new arrivals whilst all of these new arrivals remain on Rightmove no doubt. Very few of us will ever leave Rightmove, we haven’t so far.
OTM hasn’t, isn’t and won’t be a credible alternative, it’s delusional to consider that the creaking ship that is OTM will land anywhere other than the reef of failure, again!
The only way to make money for OTM, don’t spend any money on marketing. Tick! – they are already market leaders in doing nothing!
We built Rightmove however we’ll never dismantle them.
This Daily Reality Check is from a long suffering Gold Member who remains shackled to the sinking HMS OTM.
I detest Rightmove’s bloodsucking however I equally detest OTM because they have proved to be no more than a bag of suited hangers-on stumbling in the portal dark in the hope of filling their grubby hands with loot. Rightmove at least face you whilst rifling your pockets every month.
My Rightmove rep called for a quarterly chat. He asked what I intended to do when the fee ban came into effect. I asked him what Rightmove intended to do with their charges. His exact response:
‘Nothing. We’re Rightmove’.
Sickening to read these figures. Great for investors, lousy for estate agents. A profit margin of 75.8% for a glorified shop window can never be justified. It only continues to exist because you cannot get estate agents to collectively agree they’re not getting value for money and to remove their content. A £4bn+ darling of the city that literally could disappear overnight. It needs to happen.
“If our leads are going down, why are our charges going up?”
“They just are…”
ARPA for newspapers back in 2007 was around £2,500 per month, suggesting that Rightmove still sees plenty of room to grow this figure.
In other words, are RM telling the market not to panic about them fleecing agents as there is a lot more to come yet?
Was 2007 one of the best listing and completion years?
Was 2017 one of the worst?
Agents income has never been under so much pressure before (bar wars and deep depressions), exasperated, in part, by RM itself?
Should agents add every completion fee lost to the No sale, No fee disruptors to their RM costs?
History shows that all great empires eventually fall as they become too greedy and the worker’s rebel.
Come on RM all you have to do for now is insist that all pre-paid listing agents must offer the choice of No sale, No fee to level the playing field as it would help all consumers truly understand the difference between pre-paid/deferred payment listers and proper tradition estate agents – the vast majority of your customers?
How many people paid failure fees or two agency fees in 2007?
How many 10,000s of people do now?
Is that progress?
Wooo hoo well done them (sarcasm) the average agent is contributing £700 to Rightmove’s profits each month, every month.
I was in dialogue with an agent at the weekend who is quite literally feeding profit to Rightmove before he is feeding himself. It is about time that stopped. Its like they’re a cuckoo; quite literally eating everything brought back to the nest.
This time last year over 4700 agents had registers that did not commercially justify them being on Rightmove, effectively they are franchisees of the portal.The agent at the weekend is paying 80% of their revenue to the portal and feels he has no choice other than to do so. It does not make sense.
What this gloating does is confirm; it does not cost £922/ month to run a portal, there is no justification in charging 45% of independent agencies over £1000 per month. This balance of income shows and admits independent agency is being victimised.
Someone once said to me ,if you are ever faced with a challenge do something about it yourself, put up with it or find someone who can help you do something about it. At 7:49 this morning I was confirmed live on my cloud servers. I’ve done something! I’m the bloke who can help you do something about it.
Mr Watkins did an article about Proptech firms building solutions for problems the industry doesn’t have. I’ve built a solution to a problem you do have; one of your service suppliers is making more profit out of your business than you are.
>I’ve done something! I’m the bloke who can help you do something about it.
Robert, is this actually a finished product that Agents can currently use? Could you point me to your website and a description of this product?
Or is it just another one of your “projects” where you’ve managed to knock something up quickly and given it a fancy name http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/prototype-property-sortal-launches-could-this-be-the-future/ to impress friends?
I have a business idea. Charge 100% of customers upfront, but only issue login passwords to 50% of them to save bandwidth. Quack quack.
Sorry, Cyberduck.
PB has already Quacked that idea.
Hahhaahaaa! Its telling when you have to do a double take on the profile name but you know exactly the business model being referred to.
Can’t I just make up stuff and numbers then threaten anyone who challenges me with an aggressive paralegal who’ll send out correspondance at 5:30 on a Friday?
Perhaps I could get a couple of sycophants to troll social media and industry forums to attempt to discredit anyone who doesn’t believe me?
>Perhaps I could get a couple of sycophants to troll social media
Well there’s PeeBee with his tweeting and another one who uses twitter and his blog. You don’t do a bad job at harassing trading standards yourself and god knows who else.
Devon and Cornwall Police and Action Fraud actually. Someone is (unsuccesfully) attempting to stop us from collecting the data we use to disprove false claims, breaches of CPR and BPR and power the system I provided to NTSEAT. The regional cyber crime team are attempting to find out who that is.
I’ve given them a list of suspects
Just had a look at your product http://rummage4.it/ as linked to in your advert on PIE http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/prototype-property-sortal-launches-could-this-be-the-future/
All it does is put quotes around and concatenate strings from input values and invoke a search on upto 8 web sites or a specified one. It would take about half a day, perhaps a bit longer to knock up with the right development environment.
The type of project you’d give to a 14 year old as homeowork.
> I’ve done something! I’m the bloke who can help you do something about it.
How is that the solution for Agents? If you are selling that as a product that’s taken two and a half years to develop then you are conning people.
Err that isn’t it. All you are doing is demonstrating your envy and what an unpleasant, disfunctional character you are.
Well you didn’t say it wasn’t the same product in your advertisment when I posted it and the dates tie up.
So you have another project aimed at helping people but you are not advertising it other than a mention in the comments section on PIE? Seems a strange way to help people, normally you’d expect a company website.
It’s very hard keeping up with your “products”. Looking back to a year ago there was one you described as “I have built a system that will provide homeowner an incorruptible guide on who sells what and where, what prices the achieve and how. Levelling the playingfield allows cheap agents to be cheap but more importantly allows good agents to be good and receive fair reward for being better.”
See http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/countrywide-still-uks-largest-agent-by-inventory-but-only-just-as-purplebricks-leading-agent-by-sales-agreed/
Where can I access that one? Or is that a secret too?
Of course there was a project to help produce a report on PurpleBricks and I specifically recall you saying several times it wasn’t about one company. Here’s an example where you say “As I said in my reply to you this is not about any particulare agent”.
See here http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/countrywide-still-uks-largest-agent-by-inventory-but-only-just-as-purplebricks-leading-agent-by-sales-agreed/
I think it turned out pretty much how I expected and it was about a particular agent.
Got to go out now and will be back late afternoon. Not sure if I’ll be checking back or not.
You’re running off as you always do.
I think you’ll find none of the stuff I’ve developed and spoken about won’t be in the fnal version.
Remember I’m funding this, paying wages, buying servers and building this from nothing. All you’re doing is embarrassing yourself. I can post as me yet you have to hide your identity. All you’ve got on me is out of time and context quotes of me documenting the development of my project.
You must be hugely proud of yourself.
I think it turned out pretty much how I expected and it was about a particular agent.
Quelle suprise!
Still waiting for the CWD and LSL figures from Mr May.
Also another venture CyberDuck is utility affiliate marketing to tenants, so add that to the other 5 or 6 projects.
Tag team trolling!
The exercise was about working out who isn’t getting on my system.
Some firms can’t actually afford to be on my system even though it is fair to all.
It is prohibitively expensive for listing reps who claim to cover the country yet as I’ve been demonstrating elsewhere don’t. The system is stupidly cheap for #local agents but as soon as someone reckons to cover 4500 sq miles and 121 activity centres suddenly their claims work against them; that’s 121 subscriptions to pay.
I’m fairly certain the some wouldn’t want to be on my system it actually highlights how woeful their performance is and has been and how they game their listings on other sites.
We are properly GDPR compliant, it was designed that way in 2015 when I was campaigning aagainst data harvesting by service supplier who now have a problem.
As for Rummage4.utilities do you have any comprehension how big that already is? The fact it provides cost postive property advertising is probably something you shouldn’t be knocking. The agents we’re signing up all quite like the concept of #small data rewarding them not their software provider.
I have to say I’m loving this. Every single troll gives me the opportunity to take advantage to giving another benefit of my system to agents who are being targeted by financially unviable distruption.
While you’re are busy reminding me of stuff, let me remind you you haven’t done your maths homework, the bit that proves 880 sstc:1000 for sale isn’t 88%
You forgot pompous in there Robert.
Actually it isn’t finished I don’t have estate agents’ data on there yet but that can start today
Can you see it? no.
Is it something I’ve knocked up to impress my friends, yes! Does it? yes!
Thanks for referencing how long I’ve been knocking this up I started in February 2015 and it’s taken 3 years to get this far, so hardly something that’s been knocked up quickly. Is it a fancy name? nah its ronseal, it does exactly what it say on the tin, it sorts it all out!
Will it work, who knows? will agent’s like it? I hope so. If it all goes **** up I’ll get respect for trying and that’s enough for me. I have enough achievment and money to see me to my grave and I’m content with that.
You carry on being nasty, it doesn’t worry me, I had you sussed from your very first contact. I have an agent’s sixth sense for when to make the tea and leave the other negs to deal with people like you.
I’m gobsmacked, I didn’t actually think it was the same project. Blow me down with a feather 🙂
The “Sortal” was soft launched in May 2015, so it’s available then isn’t it?
“The system is attracting global interest and almost unheard-of levels: 65% of people who see Rummage 4 are coming back to use it again and one user has used the system to search the internet over 1,000 times in ten days. America, Canada, Europe and Asia all feature in the list of repeat users.”
It must surely be available if users all over the world are accessing it.
Please provide a link so I can take a look.
Best you stick to Google, you know all about Google but can’t find a url?
I hope Robert does not mind me chiming in (if i over step Robert i apologise).
I have seen first hand what Robert has developed. The sortal you have seen is only a very small part of what Robert has developed, and to be honest the least impressive part.
I am sure Robert will not mind me saying, he is not a salesperson. He has ideas and sees things differently to others which is his strength.
Robert has kept what he has developed under wraps as it is not yet ready to launch, unlike other providers he is not promising the world.
I can say from what i have seen, when it launches and agents take to it (yes that is the hard part) it can change how people search for property not only in the UK but worldwide.
He is also not looking to squeeze every last penny out of this project. He is giving it away to the agents. He is not motivated by the financial gain.
Everything he has done along with others you mention is to level an unfair playing field. If CW, LSL make bogus statements i am sure he will also look to pull them up on them. He has a small but very focused team of about half a dozen that have very little ego just a “Particular set of skills” between them they have created a wonderful product.
I would encourage Robert to invest in a figurehead for the launch as getting over in words what it does is very difficult, but the demos will leave you speechless.
I do fail to see where the hostility towards Rober and others come from. All they do is point out issues that all members of the public and the industry should be aware of. They are providing a service for free. Is that not to be applauded?
This Indy agent is looking forward to seeing it, adopted wait and see with OTM and sort of glad I did and sort of think that that mindset was part of the problem. Maybe it’s time to pile in this time
Hear hear. What he said.
ducky and dom-boy
Sorry, to break it to you – but when Smile Please posts something like this, there could be no better recognition of the strides Mr May has made… and is making… toward the betterment of our industry.
Not sure what you’ll think you can even hope to achieve here from now on. But it ain’t gonna be much of anything.
I’m frankly amazed that you’ve been dumb enough to stick around and desperately clutch at whatever straw-dust you can find amongst the mountain of chaff you have tried to fashion into something of substance.
Actually – come to think of it, I’d like to give you credit for what you have achieved. Not that you will want it…
I genuinely think that, totally against your intended goal, your toxic input to these discussions has helped bring together those that really can and will make a difference in how our industry will be shaped in future.
I know that this is far from music to your ears – or of those that your #fanboy antics are supposed to be helping to disrupt – but it cannot be clearer in my mind’s EYE that this is exactly what is happening.
Thanks, guys. We will take strength knowing how much it pains you and your Purple chums.
COMMENT OF THE WEEK!
Robert “Walter Mitty” May at it again!
Because I’ve documented the whole story do you really think your attempt at an insult holds water?
Bear in mind you’re the one hiding behind an alias and I’m the one posting openly and subject to ongoing scrutiny and a due diligence process that’s monitoring everything I do or say, my guess is I have less to hide than you do!
‘Ang7779’? That’s a new one on me! It sounds like a ‘bot.
Could this be the Back-Up Troll unit, hurriedly rolled out pre Beta-Testing to plug the void caused by the catastrophic failure of the previous range of woefully underpowered and technically ineffective units known as ‘ducky’ and ‘dom-boy’?
Increase in fees to RM = increased fee to vendors selling.
Decrease in market volume, increase in agents operating = fees not going up
Good morning my fellow lemmings or should it be Rightmove’s play things.
We should congratulate ourselves as we created the one thing that’s predicable in the industry!!
Never a truer word posted!
RM profits go up, service to agents goes down..
I am not a fan of their dominance, but I have to disagree about the service going down.
I’ll expand a little…
Less leads. No idea why this is, but we get less email and telephone leads than we used to. Having chatted to other local agents about this, they have also experienced the same.
Less Quality. A vast proportion of email leads in particular are rubbish. incorrect or absent phone numbers, incorrect email addresses, what contact we do make people dont reply. It has made me wonder if a decent proportion of these enquiries are produced by some sort of bot. Not necessarily saying this is Rightmove doing this, but it feels that someone is.
Less Care. Rightmove constantly talk about purchasers as being the most important factor to them. In my opinion they don’t show enough empathy that estate agents are the customer, the ones paying the bills, and they should show more awareness of how we feel.
Lack of fairness. The crack down of data quality is completely unbalanced between high street agents and those who shall not be mentioned. Portal juggling is rife with certain companies, and Rightmoves lack of willingness to tackle this is astonishing.