Rightmove has received a series of positive assessments from City analysts following its well-publicised success at resisting any significant threat from the challenger portal OnTheMarket.
Estate Agent Today on Monday reported that OTM itself was surprised that 90 per cent of its 5,000 member branches had decided to stay loyal to Rightmove under the 'only one other portal' rule, with only 10 per cent staying with Zoopla.
Now this sentiment has been backed by financial analysts.
Firstly BNP Paribas has given Rightmove an 'outperform' rating on Rightmove; BNP says Rightmove remains a key pick because of its must-have status for estate agents.
This follows an announcement last week by Liberum Capital that Rightmove had won a 'buy' rating, and comments from analysts at Morgan Stanley who have raised their price target on Rightmove shares - a positive gesture to investors.
Rightmove, which last month marked its 15th anniversary as a property portal, has a market capitalisation valued at around £2.8 billion. Earlier this year it claimed its highest-ever number of page views while site visits so far in 2015 are reported to be about 10 per cent up on the same period of last year.
Meanwhile BNP Paribas says OnTheMarket, which launched some nine weeks ago, is "struggling to build meaningful engagement" amongst agents.
Comments
OTM only decided to say come off the the big property portals with the intention of RM or Z to lower their fees. At the moment both are ridiculously high, which the vendor/landlord of course pays. I think it's a great idea, don't back down yet, advertise more and then things will pick up. It's only been 9 weeks guys, Rome wasn't built in a day.
Well you've just contradicted yourself then Rob, you can't question the comment I made about Zoopla limping and then in the very next sentence say this is very quickly turning into a monopoly, its one or the other!
How exactly do you leap frog the second placed portal and attack RM One has to come before the other. The bottom line however is like it or not RM produces more for agents than Zoopla does. I want to see RM weakened or at least having to consider the competition but Zoopla was never it because they had no incentive to take the crown (for the simple reason that enough agents will pay for two portals) thats why OTM could be it because an agent led portal has different goals.
These disruptive OTH agents shld be mindful of the people who pay their bills ...the Vendors.
Ask anyone where would they want you to list their property ....It will be Rightmove then Maybe Zoopla.
Why hose their money on a portal with no traffic
When was the last time any investor made any money from a BUY rating from a city analyst. :D
Godwin's Law (look it up)
We would have signed up to OTM were it not for the one other portal "rule". People don't like restrictions being placed on them. As soon as OTM drops this rule (which will happen), their membership will increase as will Zoopla's. Only once OTM is established as a brand recognized by the public will agents start to reconsider their options and it'll be the the portals offering value which will do well. If OTM have the correct strategy, then RM will be affected in the medium term. HOLD - review in June and probably SELL
The April Fools article is much better on the other channel!
RM increases, what about the increase agents take from clients Property prices go up, so does an agents cut!
Why this obsession with 1,2 or 3 OTM were never going to threaten RM as No. 1 but have made a difference to Z.
In my view OTM are a good professional 'alternative' or 'extra' and quite suitable for some agents & their clients. Just let them get on with it and everyone get on with the day job. The market itself will decide in the end.
So many anti-OTM people on here today. It's almost as if they're scared or something.
Zoopla limping Not going by the data posted yesterday. That aside, the duopoly is very quickly turning into an all-powerful monopoly. RM must be laughing their heads off - OTM has effectively done their job for them, by reducing the influence of their biggest rival while helping to increase their own market share. Win-win.
Surely the bods at OTM would have realised that RM was by far the biggest and most powerful portal. Why didn't they go after them, not Zoopla
As I've said before, no amount of glossy adverts and press releases attacking fellow portals will help a brand become recognised. It's a natural process that sometimes takes years. As the owner of Houser said a few months ago when they launched (what's happened to them, btw), you can't hope to compete with RM and Zoopla on market share or PR, so you have to offer something different. I don't think OTM have offered anything different, and there's always the gnawing suspicion that Springett and the founding members of AM are only really in this for themselves.
Anyone actually surprised by this Most people I speak to could see this coming from a mile off.
OTM aren't even making inroads into Zoopla's No 2 position going by the research someone posted in the comments section yesterday. Maybe it they hadn't been so anti-competition and anti-online agents - a shooting yourself in the foot move if ever I saw one, although, admittedly, I am a little biased on this - then they would have made more of an impact. As it is, they look like they'll soon die out as the irrelevance many predicted they would be.
@RealAgent - you're fighting a losing battle, my friend. Face it, OTM is doomed to failure, no matter what Springett or his loyal disciples say.
Yep, it's not looking good for them at the moment. The data someone posted yesterday showed OTM are way behind Zoopla on nearly every measure, despite the one other portal rule and the multi-million pound ad/PR campaign. They've only made RM much, much stronger, which I think a few in the industry could have predicted.
Their website's good and the usability and search functionality is pretty good, but not really an upgrade on RM or Zoopla. In fact, it's a copycat. OTM were very bullish before launching, despite keeping their cards close to their chest, and they've been on the attack since they've officially launched. But it all seems to have backfired a bit.
So what do you put Rightmoves price increases over the last 5 years down to then, going to blame OTM for them as well
Instead of two people picking your pockets one of them is now limping, those of us that have joined OTM believe that together, we can at least make it a little riskier for the surviving one to try and put their hand in.
Well OTM should have said they want to become No 3, since not sure of actual figures at moment Rightmove have around 85% of the market and Zoopla 7% and the rest of World (RoW) 8% how does OTM really think they can get to No 2, another 6 months and OTM will have changes at the top and heads will roll and then it will be forgotten, just like Fish4homes and many others and will always be in the RoW category.
The bit that really sticks in my craw is this obsession with becoming number two, for goodness sake can someone please explain to me why Surely to goodness it would have been a billion times more effective, safer, cleverer to target RM. II didn't know better I'd say OTM was created by RM as part of some arcane plot to guarantee their dominance but as I say, I know better. This whole OTM train is headed for a massive derailment and when it happens it will cause unpleasant and unwanted repercussions for us all.
Well done idiots, you have just made it worse, Rightmove predicts revenue increase coming from ..... Agents! Really well done