Crunch week for Rightmove as it reveals revenue from agents

Analysts are gearing up for the full year figures to be revealed by Rightmove to its shareholders at the end of this week. 

It will make the announcement at 7am on Friday, and the business consultancy Hargreaves Lansdown is marking the cards of City observers on what to look for.

HL’s equity analyst Sophie Lund-Yates says: “Rightmove’s huge scale means it enjoys a great deal of pricing power with the estate agents that advertise properties on the site. To that end, we expect another round of increased revenue per agent.”

At the end of July last year, when Rightmove released its half year figures, the Average Revenue Per Agent was £1,163 per month, a rise of 11 per cent over the 2019 figure. 

It was actually 63 per cent up on the 2020 figure, but that was artificially low as Rightmove had offered agents discounted fees during the early part of the pandemic when the housing market was shut.

However, while this is usually a key figure by which City experts measure a property portal’s success, HL’s Sophie Lund-Yates says it tells only part of the picture for Rightmove right now.  

She continues: “The bigger question is the group’s outlook. Rising interest rates and soaring inflation could take the heat out the very buoyant property market. 

“That may have a knock-on effect for the total number of estate agents, which is already falling. 

“This isn’t the end of the world while Rightmove can pump up prices for remaining agents, but severe pressure would limit its ability to do this.”

In terms of visits to the portal, Rightmove claimed back in July that its position as “the place home-hunters turn to first” was further strengthened, with market share of time on portals at 90 per cent. 

Time on site averaged 1.7 billion minutes per month over the first half of 2021 - compared with 1.1 billion for the same periods of 2020 and 2019. 

Site visits to Rightmove of 1.4 billion during the first half year of 2021 were 54 per cent up even on 2019 figures.