Rightmove has reported record levels of traffic and leads to agents in the first six months of this year.
Meanwhile, its own value has soared to new records this week.
In only April of this year, we reported that it had cracked the £2bn valuation mark, but its market capitalisation yesterday stood at over £2.3bn.
In January, Rightmove passed a milestone when it reported serving more than one billion pages in a month for the first time.
The level of activity has been sustained since. More than 7bn pages all told were viewed on Rightmove between January 1 and June 30 – up 20% on the same period last year.
The increase in page views means Rightmove is likely to retain its position in the Top Ten busiest websites in the UK, right up there with Facebook, eBay, Google, Amazon and YouTube – and ahead of BBC News.
In the first half of this year, Rightmove also sent more than 7m inquiries to advertisers, up 18% on the same period last year. Of these, 1.5m were sent via mobile platforms, a rise of 120% on last year.
Director Miles Shipside said: “Engaged home movers continue to visit Rightmove in ever greater number and, crucially, are showing themselves to be motivated to contact agents and developers advertising on Rightmove.
“Our investments in advertising and new technologies, particularly our My Dream Home campaign and our much-loved mobile platforms, are delivering returns in the form of more business opportunities for Rightmove customers.
“With new website developments planned for the second half of the year, we hope our members can look forward to the benefits of these investments over the remainder of the year.”
Meanwhile, the City's love affair with Rightmove shows no signs of going off the boil. Rightmove last reported (in March) a profit margin of over 73%.
https://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/oldeat_news_features/Rightmove-announces-new-record-breaking-results
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Comments
@Before you go Scott
Thanks for that. We have a lot to think about.
Interestingly enough, since my last post on this thread 3 days ago, we have had two more London agents register and list with us, we have had two from Cyprus, one from Tenerife another 11 in mainland Spain, one in Greece, two in France one in Florida, two in Malta, one in Italy and even a German agent who specialises in the sale of Equestrian centres all over Europe.
Although we are spending a large percentage of our time trying to attract UK based agents to our site, those we have gained so far and who are the ones who feed directly to us or add properties manually, do tend to be those who want to actively sell instead of sitting back waiting for buyers to approach them.
It is interesting to note, from our perspective at least, that we haven't needed to keep plugging the site in Europe but are still gaining more agents every day, where as in the UK it seems to be a bit of an up hill struggle.
However the new site should be (fingers crossed) launched at the end of this week, and should see a much more user friendly system, better looking site and approximately another 25,000 listings added from all over Europe.
That said we have had some in-depth meetings over the weekend to discuss some of the ideas outlined in this thread and there should be some interesting developments in the pipeline.
This is not about what the industry needs it is about what the public need (not what the public want)
Build a system for the motivated and able purchasers and let Rightmove have all the lookers and browsers they want. If you can identify and connect with the 61,000 buyers agent will queue a mile long to sign up.
There are two trains of thought, one wants applicants to do all of the work and buy property the other wants to sell property.
Rightmove and Zoopla have the first bas covered but no-one is claiming the other. You have a choice compete or get smart.
Gentlemen,
Can I just say I was thinking about giving the EAT miss for a couple of weeks and concentrating my search for knowledge elsewhere for a while. However this site is one of 9 that I have set to open automatically on boot up. That is simply because although there is a lot of chaff to wade through there is also quite a lot of wheat.
The last 6 comments on this thread have really given me food for thought. Two schools of thought but obviously from people who have ideas about what this industry needs.
I'm leaving the office now for a radio interview in Malaga, but I can feel a weekend meeting coming on with the powers at be to discuss what I have gleaned from this thread. Yeah I have taken some s*&t but believe me I have also learned quite a bit.
Cheers
Rightmove is succesful as an entertainment media but based on their own stats compared with the total number of sales in the UK perfom at the very best 1/10th that of junk mail, so not actually what anyone could call an effective cause of sale.
Negative, honest call it what you will the reality is emulating Rightmove isn't working for anyone who tries and both of you are recommending Scott does exactly that. Great advice boys.
Answer me this, if one wants a property for £6,000,000 in Chelsea how easy is that on Rightmove?
@ Excuse me. When you have sobered up.
Think buyers don't give a **** what you want. They only care about what they want. Hence the popularity of Right Move.
Scott, I pity you if this is what you are up against. DUF.
Keep going pal, they are not all like that.
You need to grab some of the 5% leaders, the other 95% will catch on.
Not at all. I am talking specifically about the public. If you had a website that functioned on the wants and needs of the agent, the public would find another that was built specifically for them. Why would they ever want to use your vision of a service, when what the WANT already exists?
People don't want to have intervention from an agent for every house they view details for....one crucial job you have is to present the property in such an impressive way, at the right price, to make all suitable purchasers WANT to contact you that very day.
You have been quite a negative chap on this thread. If your underlying frustration is down to prospective buyers not giving you their time or details, you need to look much deeper than Rightmove or Scott Creasey.
...but have yoy ever bought or sold a property in your life?
Are you seriously trying to tell me that any professional in sales would rtaher have their stock considered and rejected by their buyer without any intervention or input.?
If what you say is correct why isn't the rightmove traffic resulting in record sales? I think you are confusing Buyers with people who want to waste a few hours on the internet and not get caught looking at the lingerie section.
Excuse me - BUYERS don't want or need a site to find agents...they just want relevant properties...its free to them, they don't care which agent happens to be selling the right home.
They also want search results in criteria matching layout, not in agent order.
Scott, I would wait for a good idea before rushing into any changes. For what it's worth, I think you're going in the right direction.
....if you have all finished.
How about it then Scott, time to put you money where your keyboard is at? Whenever anyone searches your site list the properties in Agent order, the Agent with the most property (no duplications) gets top spot, 2nd agent by content and so on. Instead of giving anything more than a single photo the price and a short description. Direct the enquiry to the Agent to deal with via a contact / request for more details form.
This slashes the number of spurious nosey parker enquiries and allows genuine wheat applicant to float above the Chav [SIC]
Include an Agents review section when listing Agents allowing applicants to find an Agent most likely to have suitable properties.
Create your site as the one serious buyer use to find agents and suddenly the good Agents will realise they are missing out by not listing with you. The lazy ones will keep supporting RM that way they can delegate their workload to their favourite skivvy.
I have been doing this long enough to know there is 1 rule. If it can be said, phone instead and that is all agents need, the opportunity to listen to applicants
I know your site is free so you can’t cut the cost any more but saving the server capacity of storing millions of photos of properties made over with ‘tasteful’ Dunelm décor has to be good for your profits/ reducing your losses/ breaking even.
Go find someone to have sex with, you spend far too much time on this.
What an idiot you are.
Can't you see this guy is working his arse off to get the attention of the agents who do nothing but moan about RM and how much they have to pay for bad service and unqualified leads.
OK he rants quite a bit and tries to use this forum for advertising but if you read between the lines you will probably come to the conclusion that he has a point.
I think if half of us were willing to work as hard as he is to drag business in off the streets and as willing to take as much flack as he has on here, we could tell RM to stuff it.
But comments like yours just make us all look like bloody idiots.
Well done mate.
@Dave,
Then I apologise to @excuse me, I read it wrong. But I don't feel the need to apologise to anybody else as yet.
And as for the last comment about spending too much time on here, I really can't be bothered to explain it all again.
Bye for now.
Scott that wasn't @excuse me it was me, seems a lot fed up with your posts
@Scott Creasey
Go find someone to have sex with, you spend far too much time on this.
@excuse me - And like other cheapo companies hes after a free advert on here.
And that's the end of the intelligent and constructive discussion. But you did ask and I answered.
@Excuse me Said - "Do you find a Nylon Shell suit a bit sweaty in the Spanish heat?" LOL now that was a bit below the old elasticated waist band.
"Quite obviously knowing the price means you either have one or have looked on line thus establishing yourself as the sort of chap who will buy online rather than pay a few quid more to support the local Jeweller, his staff, his premises, his high street, his town".
Actually I looked on line in response to your comment just to see if it is all crud that Argos sell, and it isn't, they supply merchandise from some very well know and respected manufacturers. I just picked one at random and added it to my comment to highlight the point that you were wrong in your assumption about not only the quality of the products but those people who shop there.
I will quite happily pay a few quid more to support the local jeweller, his staff and his premises. But when that few quid turns into 30, 40 or 50% more, that's called having a laugh and I'll buy on line instead.
@Excuse me - "What traditional Agents need from a portal is a non portal; a portal with no property detail and one which delivers applicants to the desktop of the Agent for said Agent to qualify and service them properly."
Let's break this up then shall we. Starting with a portal. In the traditional sense a portal is one in which agents pay to advertise their portfolio's and then send their property details to that portal. A visitor then clicks on a property to receive information and the portal contacts the agent with that lead which is how the portal itself justifies its fees.
So a non portal is the opposite, you don't pay to list with them, you can add as little or as much information to each of your listings as you want, and if a potential client is actually interested in the property no matter how little information the listing contains, when they click on it they are directed straight to the listing agents website to be converted into a sale by the sales team. The portal has no contact with the client, doesn't even known who clicked on which property, and as such doesn't, because they can't, share or sell that lead to anybody else.
If that is anywhere near what you are talking about and it would be nice if that is what all agents want, then all I can say is WELCOME to Finders and Sellers register for free, because that is exactly what we are offering and exactly what I have been saying on this forum for 6 months.
@Excuse me - "Would you be prepared to limit what level of information you made available to browsers?"
YES. As I said before, there are absolutely no minimums or maximums on our site, If you want to put up one picture and say buy me, or want to add 150 pictures and offer a free car, the choice is yours. Either way anybody who clicks on the free branding attached to each listing is directed straight to that agents site and sales team.
The information in the listings on our site is uploaded by the agents who use us. Some of them believe in order to direct the clients to their site, they need a pot of honey, others believe they only need a spoonful. If you look through the site, you'll see some with no photos and some with lot's of photos but no descriptive text, it is as simple as that.
@Excuse me "Nope you are too busy trying to emulate Rightmove."
Wrong Wrong Wrong apart from being a portal, our business model is the complete opposite of Rightmove. Privately funded, no share holders, free for you to advertise, free branding, direct links back to you, no contractual or financial commitment from either you or your clients. How much more opposite can we get?
@Excuse me - "In the same way as Argos has removed hardware shops, electrical retailers, Jewellers etc from our towns the portals are having a damn good go at removing agents too."
No, that is incorrect. Only those portals that operate as estate agents are a threat to you. And they of course are not portals but online estate agents. Those of us that are happy to act as a mere " reference index of property on the market." need estate agents, because without you, we have no business. Even Rightmove know that but they seem to have a death wish as well and keep biting the hand that is feeding them.
I hope you understand that we seriously want to work with estate agents and for estate agents. Yes we want to make money but we don't intend to do it at your expense, that would be emulating Rightmove and that ain't gonna happen.
And like other cheapo companies hes after a free advert on here.
I firmly believe there will be so many portals that users will get peed off and just look round the agents windows like times past.
Lets deal with the Argo Watch thing first. Do you find a Nylon Shell suit a bit sweaty in the Spanish heat? Quite obviously knowing the price means you either have one or have looked on line thus establishing yourself as the sort of chap who will buy online rather than pay a few quid more to support the local Jeweller, his staff, his premises, his high street, his town.
Its a bit like estate Agents, FSBO and online Agents can cost undercut traditional Agents and their local knowledge and service. What traditional Agents need from a portal is a non portal; a portal with no property detail and one which delivers applicants to the desktop of the Agent for said Agent to qualify and service them properly.
In the same way as Argos has removed hardware shops, electrical retailers, Jewelers etc from our towns the portals are having a damn good go at removing agents too.
Would you be prepared to limit what level of information you made available to browsers? Nope you are too busy trying to emulate Rightmove.
I am fed up of hearing his name everywhere.
@excuse me - I would imagine the millions and millions of people who shop via Argos every day and buy what you refer to as crud, for example a Seiko Men's Kinetic Black Dial Black Strap Watch priced at £299.99, would be somewhat dismayed by your stereotyping. Actually I think the likes of Seiko and Rotary might also be a little put out that their products are also labelled as crud, but there you go.
What I will say is that I guarantee 100% you wouldn't turn those shell suit wearing, crud buying customers away if they turned out to be qualified leads.
"If you and Sohail worked together you could put something different together but at present both of you are missing the point."
It's interesting I have been active on this forum for months and I have heard the same thing said again and again, but no matter how many times I have asked, nobody has yet given me a straight answer. So I'll try again.
What is the point we (and Sohail) are missing, what exactly is it that estate agents want from a portal?
If you can actually tell me what it is, we'll do it.
but that is a rubbish anaolgy, for those that wear shell suits and want to buy a variety of crud Argos is great. Portals have to cater for requirements as diverse as there are applicant.
You have to believe what you are doing is correct, you have to have Neil Clough grade blinkers and fortunately for you your vision for the time being is acceptable to a % of Agents. Sadly though there are folk who can see the problem with what you are doing and try as they might because of your fervour you will not see it. If you and Sohail worked tohether you could put something different together but at present both of you are missing the point.
@Excuse me said - "Portals are the modern day version of the Catalogue book, great to thumb through but with no real tie up to actual sales."
This could well be true, but just like the Argos's of this world isn't it great for manufacturers to be able to advertise their merchandise and branding in one place where the public can find them easily?
And no matter which way you look at it, these days whether they tie up to actual sales or not, the public would rather look in one place for all their Christmas pressies than slog up and down the high street in the rain.
No doubt what I say next will get me slagged off but hey!
Taking into account what I and @Excuse me said here and all the other posts I have read on this forum during the last six months or so. I see the only way forward is in the shape of one big portal, where the public can thumb through to their hearts content and link directly to the agents website or email address for further information, I think that would be classed as a qualified lead.
So there's the public taken care of, but what is in it for you.
Well the best thing would be for that portal to be totally free for registered agents to use. No advertising fees, no fees for branding, no paying for leads and no listing limits.
What this would mean is that even if all agents believe the same as @excuse me when he said.
"you will not convince me that any portal has any other value than as a reference index of property on the market."
Even if you believe that, if you are not paying for your properties to be listed as part of that reference index, then you are in a win win situation. Every lead that comes to you via that free reference index of properties, that you then convert into a sale, is money in your pocket.
But if you never get a lead, whether qualified or not, then you have still not lost a penny. At the same time of course those time-wasters using the portal to dream of where they would like to live, while flicking back and forth between the free porn channels, will still be exposed to your branding without you having to lift a finger or part with a dime.
Does such a portal exist? Yeah and so far it has half a million properties listed by over four and a half thousand agents from around the world, some are uploading manually some are send the portal their feeds, either way they don't pay.
And before you all say, it can't work, it won't work, free doesn't cut it, I won't support it etc etc.
How do you know unless you try.
As far as I can see, you your listings and your branding can never have enough exposure and if you can increase that exposure for free, then it's a no brainer.
Let the slagging commence.
@ Excuse me
We are both right, you and I. Your concern is the size of the market, my concern is the size of my share of the market.
for saying you have no idea about business and are now simply making noise.
This story is about record traffic on Rightmove, you have said that the leads from Rightmove are qualified, they are not.
You have said that it is Estate Agents fault for not converting record traffic into record sales. It is not the people viewing property on Rightmove are day dreamers and time waster, just like the new TV advert admits. Portals are the modern day version of the Catalogue book, great to thumb through but with now real tie up to actual sales. In the same way as young boys would spend hours looking at the lingerie and flick over to the fishing gear when their mum appeared Rightmove is simply an Alt Tab away from Youtube, Rotten or Porn
I am saying that it is a business principal's duty to record KPI's and assess marketing spend effectiveness. Because there is no correlation between internet traffic and property sales stories like this are meaningless shullbit for the consumption of gullible investors and advertisers.
Rightmove is an means of advertising property but is now worth more as an entertainment media than a property portal.
Yack on all you like but until there is a figure showing how hits, page views and time on site relate to property sales you will not convince me that any portal has any other value than as a reference index of property on the market.
@ Excuse me
What you get out of the portals depends on what you put on the portals, and, how you treat the enquiries that come back.
If you value your properties accurately and have SOLD your accurate valuation to your vendors, you will have appropriately priced stock.
If you then list them well (difference between a shelf stacker and a merchandiser) you will receive more enquiries and you can qualify them to the standard that you find appropriate yourself.
If however you throw any old tat, priced at whatever the vendor tells you on there, then you will be on here complaining that the portals are expensive and don't work.
They provide a shop window on busy street, what you put in your window is down to you.
And no, I don't work for any portals.
"Their job is to feed you qualified leads and that is exactly what they are doing in increasing numbers"
"Qualified leads" they are not qualified leads! Do you have any idea what the word Qualify means? I am registered with Rightmove and have been from about day 4. There has been no attempt to qualify any of the 60 or so test accounts I have which cover specific property types in specific town or areas.
Big Red you are so obviously one of those that works for the Rightmove machine, and given the level of belligerent arrogance in your post; blaming Estate Agent for failing to convert all the portal activity into sales, you could well be Miles Shipside himself. 'Big Red' is a most apt moniker; it perfectly describes the level of embarrassment you ought to be feeling.
There is no correlation between the level of traffic on Rightmove and property sales which is exactly what this press release accidentally confirmed. Proctor and Gamble can run as many Tampax adverts as they like during the World Cup final it does not mean the multiple million worldwide audience who view those adverts suddenly have a need for the product.
It is blatantly obvious that as accessing the internet becomes easier traffic level and page views will increase, looking at the internet simply helps fill the waking hours, off the back of that Rightmove is one of the more innocent things one can look at so it is little wonder that traffic has increased however although quantified it certainly does not mean it is qualified.
We are finding that Internet leads are down, still a good place to browse but am certainly finding the really serious buyers are going back to the old school and visiting us in office.
Loads of wonga you are paying them. But hey they are the market leaders, simple as that.
However you've got to take into account that the number of visits per day, is also affected year in year out by how easy it is to visit in the first place.
No longer does the average user need to wait until he or she gets home from work or the shops, in order to log on using a dial up modem on a bulky beige computer.
Today you can log on using free wifi and browse with a laptop or tablet while having a coffee waiting for your train.
You can surf while eating your turf at lunch time on your phone.
And sitting on the loo you can click on the app, browse properties then send the link to all your mates around the world so they can visit too, and all that before you realise there is no toilet roll left.
Ease of access = more visits = more records broken = more press releases = more wonga you pay for the privilege.
Market leaders for a reason, well done RM.
@ Does this mean.
Rightmoves job is not to sell houses, your job is to sell houses.
Their job is to feed you qualified leads and that is exactly what they are doing in increasing numbers.
If you then fluff those leads it is you that looks the Charlie.
If time on site, page views blah, blah, blah, is at an all time high are Agents now selling faster than at anytime in the past 12 years?
I think that Mr Shipside has had another factually correct press release sent out in his name but another one that makes him look like a bit of a Charlie. Effectively without a rise number of agreed sales to record levels this story confirms there is no direct correlation between bored bints and commuters butching through the internet with the number of property sales.
Which of you lucky agents is seeing a share of 120,000 sales per month; the volume of sales at the market peak?
I can see for Miles (what Miles can't see for himself)
VOICE.
Its not the service we complain about but the cost and how in costs have increased year on, year on year during the toughest market places.
I do not want any new ideas - they will only charge us more money.
The website is good but not the cost. Sadly no one has managed not even Zoopla to get close. This is the problem, Rightmove have us by the short and curly's.
It is not whining, just stating facts and what most ordinary agents feel. A 73% profit margin is over the top in most peoples eyes????
If landlords and vendors flooded social media with whining about estate/letting agents overcharging for a job that is now mostly done by Rightmove (marketing of property and finding of buyer/renter leads), what would agents say?
Rightmove obviously delivers what agents want, otherwise they (agents) would exclusively use other portals (like Zoopla and Needaproperty), or be bold and try and source their own leads.
I personally think Rightmove is not innovative, but the cost to each agency is less than a single additional member of staff. Most agents pay more for administrative help, than they do to Rightmove.
It will be interesting to see some actual suggestions of improvements to service, rather than whining about fees.
A 73% profit margin, wow if only.
Agents have made them all powerful and now we are paying for it.
The site was about property and now it is about new ways of charging us for things that we don't need but makes them even higher profits. NO WONDER THE CITY LOVES THEM.
PL add 34% activity????? We have never used them and we are at the top of the click through charts.
15% increase for our subscription next year. THANK YOU RIGHTMOVE............
Well said school report.
We left last year and our enquiries have gone up from other sites and increased seo to our own site.
Who needs big portals
In other words agents are logging in more OR looking at properties to see who has one the instructions.
Increasing leads increasing traffic - yet you want them to reduce prices? Short sighted behaviour. Profitable agents who charge proper fees won't mind paying RM fees because they are worth it. Otherwise why would agents stay? Sour grapes. Man up.
A price increase on the way then!
great news RM. Now...................reduce your monthly costs and learn to stop being so arrogant with your customers.....Must try harder .