Rightmove’s market capitalisation surpassed the £2bn mark this week for the first time – as the firm’s founding boss, Ed Williams, bowed out.
Williams started out with Rightmove in December 2000 as its managing director and became its CEO, before retiring this week.
The previous McKinsey & Co business consultant has been succeeded at Rightmove by Nick MicKittrick, who has been finance director and chief operating officer.
Shares in Rightmove have soared, trading close to their high of 1,945p.
Rightmove had a cold start 13 years ago and was the brainchild of then Countrywide boss Harry Hill.
Williams said: “Having the opportunity to take Rightmove from little more than an idea to what it is today has been a privilege.”
He is said to have no plans to pursue further business interests.
Comments
@paul
Hmm they should be clickable, at least they were, I'll have to have a word with the programmers to check that. Thanks for your feedback.
Any constructive advice or feed back anybody can give is much appreciated.
What exactly would agents like to see from a portal?
Hi Scott, I would advice making the image in the results 'clickable' on your site. Buyers are used to that on the major portals.
@online agent
"You took FSBO off your site why exactly?
Will intermediaries and on-line agents also be excluded from your site? if so why? "
We have been doing a lot of research as we increase the size of the site and feel that at present FSBO only constitutes about 5% of the market. I personally think this percentage is going to increase quite rapidly over the coming years, but I'm not in charge here and at the moment that 5% of the market doesn't warrant the amount of work and the security issues related to running FSBO on the same site as estate agents.
Another issue for us are the OFT guidelines etc. Keep in mind this site is totally free which means those who would normally be put off trying to scam Joe public because of registration and advertising fees etc, have nothing to lose by sticking up false adverts on free portals.
No we will not be excluding intermediaries and on-line agents, because by registering as an agent it is easier for us to track webpages, who URLs are registered to, email addresses, affiliations with regulatory bodies etc etc. Our intention is to do our utmost to protect not only ourselves but the consumer.
We have an office in Spain as well as the UK and traditionally FSBO and Agency listings have always appeared on the same site over there, it doesn't seem to be an issue in Europe but our main focus is the UK for now, although we are accepting and signing up agencies from all over the world.
Cheers
Scott Creasy,
You took FSBO off your site why exactly?
Will intermediaries and on-line agents also be excluded from your site? if so why?
@LOL XX - Oh Scotty boy you do believe yourself don't you! So funny.
You sound like a 12 year old sat in your bedroom.
Been believing in myself for nearly 50 years. Belief in yourself is what gets things done.
Everybody in our team believes what we are doing will work, and so it will.
I also believe, if you are actually an estate agent and not the 12 year old I think you are, that you will be signed up with us before you know it.
Signed up Marbella mansions, Eagle estates and Windsor consulting in Spain on Monday and McEwan Fraser Legal and Embassy estates in the UK on Tuesday.
Yes I do believe.
Oh Scotty boy you do believe yourself don't you! So funny.
@Cher
I don't think I have seen a more blatant post by someone masquerading as an agent for some time. Your website is a poor version of RM and Zoopla with no publicity therefore no public awareness and a youtube advert a child could put together.
Rightmove put their prices up simply because they can. Agents sign on with them simply because they are known. How about if there was an alternative? A free service wouldn't necessarily be viable, in most businesses you would need to cover your overheads. I've recently joined up to a new property portal "propertypropertyproperty.co.uk" who are generating me the leads I need to run my business at an excellent rate. Look them up!!
Dear Jon, he took the FSBO feature down because he bowed to lobbying pressure from Trevor Mealham. Trevor knows preventing access to the major portals by private sellers is key to protecting traditional estate agents market share.
Another article here already highlights that even agents themselves admit many of their competitors are spivs and chancers. If private sellers were able to compete on equal footing (i.e. with access to all the portals) Trevor knows most would be able to achieve results equal or better than many agents.
Thank goodness there are on line agents who can provide access to all the portals for those that want it.
Every time Rightmove is mentioned on here all you get is moaning about cost. Look at it like this way the average fee is the South East is £5,000 and around 80%of your sales originate from online portals. If your add was even £100 (whichit want) the ad is excellent value for money. Scot provides a viable alternative yet all you do is put him down. You guys should be thanking Mr Williams for all the business he's put your way not moaning.
@Scott - why did you take FSBO off you website? You can contact me at www.mtppblog.co.uk
"eh, things must be really taking off for you Scott, especially since you have the time to visit the site and write an essay twice within the space of 40 mins.
How do you cope?"
LOL
Because that is what I am paid to do, I am the marketing director and am sitting next to an junior marketing assistant, between us we have six 19" flat screens on our desk, at the moment I have this site, twitter, facebook, wordpress, linkedin, pinterest, three email accounts, SQL, press this, netvibe for all my rss blog feeds, Landord Zone, Moneyfacts and tweetdeck open on my system (google them if you don't know what I am talking about), I spend 9 hours a day 5 days a week writing blogs and jumping between forums, article submission sites, SEO sites and advertising sites to glean as much information I can and optimise our site to it's fullest potential.
Unfortunately I won't be able to visit EAT again for a few days as on Monday as I fly into Gibraltar to give a presentation to a number of agents there and then I travel to our Malaga office to set up interviews for a new Spanish based web developer, the job description if you fancy a new job is posted on our blog, but then you probably aren't interested
And that my friend whoever you are and the fact that my boss insists on it, is why I am able to respond to your pointless remarks.
Oh! and also in my younger days I was in the military for 6 years and trained extensively in communications, which has left me with the handy ability of being able to type 80 words a minute using all my fingers and without looking at the keyboard.
It took 64 seconds to type that and yes I also have a digital clock open on my screen, unfortunately that was 64 seconds wasted, so I had best get on.
Enjoy the rest of your day.
Yeh, things must be really taking off for you Scott, especially since you have the time to visit the site and write an essay twice within the space of 40 mins.
How do you cope?
@shun them
First of all I am happy to put my name to any posts I add anywhere on the web but I don't know if you are an agent, a bricklayer or a housewife.
As for free advertising I think that is the way your read it and not the way it was intended, in fact we have already been in contact with Angels Media who if you don't know are the advertising agency which provides the banner marketing and paid press releases for the EAT website, these are the people we are negotiating advertising with.
I have to say it is the kind of attitude you have expressed here I am talking about and it is this attitude we believe which will keep a lot of agents in the UK paying through their noses for a service they keep complaining they are not happy with. To be honest I find it very frustrating.
As for being a 2 bit organisation, well I would suggest that you haven't even looked at the site and I don't just mean just the front end. The back end is where the meat of any site is and we are very proud of the fact that we are able to offer many more features than most portals do even though we are still developing the system to make it even more user friendly.
But anyway thanks for the constructive criticism
Lets all make a rule to not deal with any cheap business that trys to get a free advert posting on here? Poor show and they all seems to be 2 bit organisations perhaps for that very reason?
@BiffaBeau,
The market is starting to change you are correct, I've been plugging our free service for months but a number of people on this site have said "yeah right heard it all before".
Sometimes it feels like we are banging our heads against the wall with the UK agents. Offer an agent anywhere else in the world a free service and they register and load properties the same day, offer the same service to our own people in the UK and they um and ah and twiddle their thumbs with an 'I will if you will attitude'.
But guess what, having said that, we now have just over 4,600 agents in the UK and abroad advertising over 300,000 properties for free.
Yesterday 10 estate agents in Malaysia signed up, two of those listed properties within 45 mins of activating their accounts and this morning we have discovered 4 from New Zealand have registered over night.
We are in negotiations with a large portal in Dubai who are actually configuring their system for our custom built data feed.
Our Spanish office is just about to formalise an agreement with infocasa, xml2u and Kyero three of the biggest agency portals in Spain which will add another 2,500 agents and over 35,000 Spanish properties and we haven't even started on America yet.
Our blog alone is receiving on average 1,000 hits a day and we've had labour, conservative and libdem MP's who have submitted guest posts along side estate agents and other property professionals from around the world.
You may also be interested to learn that as a result of discussions with Trevor Mealham and the INEA, we have removed the FSBO feature from our site and that we now have 9 RM account managers following (spying on) us on Twitter.
Things are looking good and going from strength to strength.
Help us to compete with RM, it won't cost you a penny but could save you thousand.
Good Riddence
Mind you, what kind of B*****d will replace him.
Guess, he knew RM's domination days are numbered. The market is changing.
That brightened up my Friday morning Paul :)
"He is said to have no plans to pursue further business interests."
Of course not, big fat golden hand shake laughing all the way to the bank. What's the odds he doesn't have an interest only mortgage?
Oh! and @Paul don't worry, RM will be adding another £100 per month before you know it. They've got to, to cover the admin costs of changing bosses.
I think RM should add another £100 a month to our memberships to help Ed with his day to day expenses, it wont feel right for him not fleecing us on a monthly basis. I heard also he chose the premium pension package. When he goes to the post office his pension book is highlighted and has 3 photos of himself with a lovely red sticker....and that sticker is changeable.
All that said, have a happy retirement Ed, you did well.