Rightmove is benefiting from a greater average spend by agents, the site has reported, and changes to 2013 pricing ‘are progressing according to plan’.
In an interim management statement covering the period July 1 to November 8, the site said agents’ discretionary spend on its advertising products is up by over 45%.
It said the last four months have continued to show healthy growth in revenue and earnings and strong cash generation, as Rightmove leveraged more out of its members. Membership itself has barely grown.
Estate agency and lettings membership at the end of October stood at 15,412, a 2% increase from the start of the year. Overall, the number of advertisers on Rightmove at the end of October stood at 18,526, up 1% since the start of the year.
The interim statement said activity on Rightmove has been strong with page impressions up nearly 20% compared to the same period in 2011.
The latest iPhone, iPad and Android apps had proved particularly popular, with searches across mobile platforms up over 100% in the period.
The board said it is confident of meeting expectations this year and expects to achieve ‘further organic growth in 2013 on the assumption that housing market conditions continue to be challenging but do not substantially worsen’.
An interim dividend of 9p per share is paid to shareholders today.
See also next story.
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Comments
(formerly N&C)
@ Wardy
I've had my email today from my Rightmove Rep and he's confirmed that by stripping my additions back each office goes up by £120 + VAT for core sales!
I'm sticking to my game plan overall and getting rid of brand plus etc.... Not sure what the other agents locally will say about it but i've got market share and i'm not leaving the website! I'm looking forward to saving just shy of £4,000 over the next 12 months.
Just a question - anyone that had (up until the next price increase) been paying £395 for core membership you must have been spending heavily on branding etc like me?
wondered when some numptie was going to bang on about Zoopla.
I have to agree that ZOOPLA has given more leads then RM. We all promoted RM, well the competition did and I gave in and joined. I believe it's a rip off and I have recently and very happily told them where to go. If only ZOOPlA had a best price guide just like RM, it would be so popular with agents. Zoopla is great for results but their comparables for similar properties isn't that good. C'mon ZOOPLA get the finger out.
Well done rightmove, send my divi!
it really is time to cut the fees come on Rightmove look after your customers without us you will have nothing
@ N&C VERY GOOD POINT I'd rather have another body in the office, hitting the phones and doing it the good old way!
That is exactly what we have done we have halved oor newspaper spend in May and hired another tram member producing good results.
@ Marketeer.
Going off your last post you need to change your name.
We signed up to TDPG prior to the completion of the Zoopla switchover more by luck than judgment. I hadn't timed it specifically but thought we'd try primelocation and findaproperty - both in my opinion were pants, however we automatically got on to Zoopla.
I've got 2 offices and Zoopla costs about £345 + vat from memory, whereas my current monthly spend with Rightmove is £1600 ish! I've seen a few posts wishing us good luck on trimming our costs back to basic plus brand plus. What are people paying for that? I know they have this whole 'spend this much and we'll give you 50% off pitch' makes me worry brand plus will probably end up costing £300 a month on its own! My logos nice but its not that precious! I'd rather have another body in the office, hitting the phones and doing it the good old way!
I am not disputing the need for Agents to advertise; making applicants aware of properties that have slipped through the basic function of Agency (matching known applicants to properties and attract unknown applicants to enquire and register) but I do consider that most agencies could be more analytical about how they determine and spend their marketing budget.
Advertising because the competition do is an argument that only makes sense if one understands the turnover and profits of the competitors, something one rarely has access to.
Tomcat - how do you plan to brand your business and make people aware of your services? No matter how good a portal is it won't do that job for you.
You need to remember you have two markets to consider - buyers & sellers. Portals satisfy buyers (which in turn satisfies your seller) but how do you plan to attract new sellers?
Got to agree with Blue and Tomcat. Estate Agents are businesses and businesses need to advertise.
In the scheme of things portals have got the traffic pretty much sown up and the cost of accessing that traffic is reasonable (compared to the alternative).
To use Blue's example, try telling a vendor you are withdrawing his home from Rightmove because it will cost you 50 quid to be there when you are charging him £3k.
There are no free lunches.
Do you really think portals are expensive? We have just done some analysis for our 3 branches of our spend on Rightmove, Zoopla, local papers and direct mailings. We were surprised by the results. Local papers were the most expensive by far, Rightmove was less than half the cost per enquiry and Zoopla was even less still. The result is that we are pulling out of all local papers and moving some more of our spend from Rightmove to Zoopla. I see a lot of moaning on here but I do wonder why - every business I know of in any sector needs to spend money on marketing and portals are by far the cheapest for of marketing in our sector - by a long way - do your own analysis. So why all the moaning ?
Zoopla, Rightmove etc. etc. It doesn't matter, whoever is the market leader will charge an extortionate fee because they can.
There's absolutely nothing you can do about it, jumping from one monster (rightmove) to another (Zoopla) will just make it twice as expensive because now you have to advertise on both.
It beggars belief that so many idiots are leaving Rightmove to go to Zoopla. Thank you for doubling our costs you pillocks.
Over the last 2 months we have asked vendors and applicants which Property portal they have looked at recently here is the result.....
Rightmove 25%
Zoopla 71%
Others 4%
Speaks for itself really, I encourage other agents to ask the questions too.
Good to see Biffa the Zoopla rep here
As said on the other other thread PMSL
Anyway great job Rightmove - keep the train rolling and the profits up and sink Zoopla and there shareholders Countrywide, Connells etc along with the monkey agents out there.
Just wondering why EAT haven't posted the articles regarding the Zoopla rate increases you have received - protecting your own pocket I assume
Since my involvement with Radar Homes the one question I keep getting asked is my thoughts on Rightmove fees.
“Economies of scale” naturally mean that the small agent with a single office has less to bargain with than a multi office firm, not ‘fair’ but it is one of the fundamentals of economics. If one understands that principle it becomes very easy to see why and how the Radar Homes project is of assistance to Agents”
The only way to get Rightmoves costs the same to all agents would be to get the OFT involved, this wolul be the way forward.
@ Wardy
If I were to be more realistic ie average price £200k, average time on market 30 weeks. The cost of each property being on Rightmove would actually be less than the cost of the Epc.
Not forgetting an average fee probably being more than 1%.
We pay £400 pm to Rightmove, sales + lettings in London and we pay:
£200 pm to Zoopla & Their lot.
Zoopla outperforms RM. It's a shame, that some of the 'bod's in the City aren't getting the picture about RM's customer base. I'd love to see their shares crash.
Boss-retiring. More like getting off the band wagon, while the going is good.
Most agents I speak to tell me that Zoopla is now producing more leads than RM...
Most agents would love to dump RM...
Time for most agents to grow some balls and just do it!
...Then, educate your vendors that RM is NOT the be all and end all...if we all did this then vendors would get the message - just like they did when we were all 'selling' RM to them!
Come on everyone, let's do this, for ourselves and for our wallets/purses!
@ Wardy.
I'm not, I'm being overly generous.
@ blue
Average time on the market 52 WEEKS!!!!!!!!!!!
Selling property....you're doing it wrong!
From the posts below £395 pm fees to Rightmove seems typical.
Average 60 listings = £1:52pw per listing.
Average time on market say 52 weeks = £79 cost per prop.
Average property price £175k, average fee say 1% = £1,750 fee per prop.
Hmmm !
Couldn't agree with you more there Ray.
So many agents brand their windows, letterheads, papers, and the latest one and I cant quite believe how many agents used this wasthe OPEN/CLOSED sign with the QR reader taking you to RM website.
As as agent you could make your own sign with a QR reader to your own website for a few quid. Is it laziness or just being a bit thick?
In my view, the point about Propertylive is that it will NEVER stand a chance of being successful until it is promoted by the agents themselves - just as they made RM successful - by advertising it on EVERYTHING, widows, boards, details, letterheads, newspaper ads, etc. That is how the public became aware in the first place. As the revenues poured in RM has since just built on that with its own ads etc. It may be late but if the NFoPP really encouraged its members (instead of continuously trying to flog them more ‘courses’ etc. etc.) and also gave some incentives for non members to trial the use the site, it could be worth a go? It is free!
Nick, I agree as we are currently getting more leads from Zoopla in comparison to Rightmove.
But, it maybe working out cheaper now, but don't think for a minute then when the time is right Zoopla won't be pulling the trigger and hiking their prices upto rightmove levels.
Everyone will be up in arms again that another monster has been created, a monster that all agents help create.
Basic fee to rightmove is £395.00.
Zoopla provides 10x more leads, we are convincing landlords that we don’t need rightmove and once that’s done, wham bam thank you mam! Here comes a £400 monthly saving, to reinvest!
‘On the fence’ the small calendar is cool, but at £400 a month I want a gold encrusted calendar that you can actually see.
We would also happily pay a monthly fee to help get PropertyLive in the big league.
Our Rightmove REP has told us that we are going to have to pay a listing fee per 50 properties. The reason is we only have on office and other agents in the area have several and it is not fair for them to pay per office (even though they all have around 120 properties per branch. This of course was not what we were told when we set up the business. I have told them no chance but we will see. I am sure this would be against competition law. Also Zoopla, they are a joke they are charging us their fee and Find a property's fee even though one website no longer exists.
Its about time we used this forum to really sort out the varying prices of these two portals. We pay £349 plus VAT to Zoopla ( inc DPG) per month for a single office. Has anyone actually had a lead from Propertylive? NAEA/ARLA would do their organisations much more good if they spent time and money promoting their portal and really backing their membership. We would gladly pay a monthly fee for Propertylive if they made it a site that seriously took on the other two.
Try cancelling your additional products and see what happens to your core membership rates.
Many may not agree, but apart from an agents 'logo' all other 'add ons' would seem to be a waste of an agents time and money.
Quite honestly, when scrolling down some sites, I find red stickers, more colouring etc. etc. gets in the way of selecting what is interesting or not!
When searching for a property do not most people look for ........
1. Area 2. Price 3. Type. 4. Pictures & possibly floor plan.
With that information one can decide whether or not to enquire further about a particular property?
P.S. It is difficult to understand why ALL NAEA & ARLA members do not extensively advertise their own free Propertylive site (as they do RM) and use it in addition?
The only reason vendors want RM is because we did such a great job promoting it. Likewise we can also re-educate our vendors about Zoopla.
The king is dead so there really is no excuse, stop playing the victim when you don't have to, just leave.
Reading all these comments suggest some form of group masochistic mentality thats really disturbing, more so because you could all self medicate and JUST LEAVE.
Remember, as more agents leave RM the ones that get left behind will pay more to make up the shortfall so all together now, just......
I pay a guy £20 to walk up and down Oxford Street with our board, costs a bit more if you want him to dump the 'GOLF SALE' bit though.
Excellent idea @marko.
We left rightmove some years ago and never looked back.
We pay Zoopla £250 plus VAT per month, for our single office.
We do everything we can to promote Propertylive, and apart from ourselves, NO ONE ELSE!
2 things
1stly those of you that have said you are going to cut your Rightmove spend.....try it, speak to them and you will find it is NOT POSSIBLE.
2ndly. Why dont all the contributing agents agree to list here what rates they are paying and even have a site where we can scan our contracts so we can all see if we have got the best rate.
Our zoopla is £250+vat per office per month
Our RM is £395+vat per office per month(includes our motif and 3 prem listings)
To nand c. Interested that you have just gone to Zoopla.What rate did they offer you as mine has just gone up a massive 50% and I've cancelled with them as a result...The way I look at it is there is now only 2 main portals....we only need to be on with 1 so am going to switch to whoever offers the best deal at any time.
No reason why other agents can't do this as well.
I too told Rightmove that no, I had NOT expected a price increase this year, due to both the economic climate AND solid Zoopla competition. Also said I was sick of being 'supersized up' like they were trying to sell me a whopper treble burger with extra fat globs.
The sales-girl had clearly been receiving a lot of similar feedback.
I do grudgingly pay extra to get my brand on, not happy at that. Not happy at the increase on the base product either, but the phone app might be good. Premium listings red stickers are for numpties.
What's that I hear?
Is that the pips squeaking?
I keep hearing from vendors that "you agents are all the same - after all you are all on rightmove..."
Zoopla/ FAP/ PrimeLo are the same too.
I have spent a fortune on the add-ons and they made absolutely zero difference to my valuation calls, which is what I was targeting.
The "Premium Listing" thing strokes a vendor's ego rather than delivering more viewings.
BTW Zoopla seems to be thrashing Rightmove in my inbox.
RM will continue to turn over agents until they take a stand, then if the majority move to the Zoopla group in time they too will fleece their members!
There is an alternative...............
Trust is everything in the profession, if our clients trust us they are happy to use us again and recommend. Become a member of the NAEA or ARLA and not only do you have the accreditation of being a regulated agent but you also get PropertyLive.co.uk for FREE.
Become qualified, pay a small subscription and upload all your properties for nothing.
If this happened both RM & Zoopla would have to seriously think about their prices.
We pay the basic fees for rightmove
No branding/adverts/nothing extra our market share has grown recently against the muppet agents near us who pay rightmove treble what we pay to wipe their own behinds.
for some strange reason, i've tried many of the add on rightmove flog, my advice - DON'T BOTHER, has not made a scrap of difference, complete waste of money. I'd rather spend the money on the local paper!
Rightmove quickly need to start looking after their customers as Zoopla gets me far more leads for far far less pcm. If rightmove do not become more cost effective the days of the 9p dividends are numbered.
I often get critical comments on this site but I assume all will agree with the floowing.
The world's most arrogant company strikes again. At a time when its clients are struggling to survive in the most difficult trading conditions most of them have ever seen, and some will not survive it, Right Move is screwing them and crowing about it.
Actually if you can have anti press releases on a company that above isn't a bad work in progress.
Sadly it is true. No wonder the boss can retire at 50 nice work if you can get it.
Rightmove you are a disgrace. Stop sending me notepads, pens, keyrings, calendars, stickers for my window, etc. Stop offering me services I don't want.
I want my properties listed on your site promptly, nothing more, nothing less, and I don't want to be paying a King's ransom for it.
Sort it out.
There seems to be a clear discrepancy with what agents are paying rightmove!!! Some high and some low.
They are right that they are getting more out of agents because the agents have not choice!!!. i am in a discussion with rightmove as i have found out what other agents are paying and it is less than i am which doesn’t seem fair or legal!!. Surely rightmove should be helping the agents and not squeezing every last penny from them to satisfy their shareholders.
Hopefully Zoopla PG will become a credible alternative to rightmove and then they will have to listen to the agents. What do we want with a free personalized calendar or glossy statistics that can be manipulated to make them look as though they are better than Zoopla PG.
Maybe its time the agents revolted against rightmove, and then they would have to listen!!
I think RM are great value, just look at the 2013 calender they have sent out to soften the blow of the recent increase and lets not forget the ' Blue Book' they also sent out, all fantastic aids for my wonky desk.
Great job RM, keep up the good work but can you use a lubricant next time please.
We slashed our rightmove addons at the start of the year saving us 700 per branch per month. Went to basic package plus brand plus. Made zero difference to our business, oh apart from being more profitable!
We left RM 6 months ago and never looked back. We were sick of them having us by the balls and the ridiculous price tag. I woulndt go back to them as zoopla PG is getting us all the exposure we need to do deals. Zooplas recent merger hasn't.been easy though we as went a month without all our properties. There has to be a credible alternative to both...
Agree totally with 'on the fence' - I was rightmove thru and thru but having pledged a 3 month trial to Zoopla, I'm impressed. It's on my list of jobs to cut my Rightmove spend, think brand plus is all I really need - I'll let my vendors pay for premium listings.
the add ons seem to make no difference, we are actually finding leads are dropping and more are coming from zoopla its time RM stopped bragging about £ and started looking after its clients!!! a small calender is simply not enough!!!