Rightmove reveals big rise in fee income and launches...

There’s been another large rise in fee earnings for Rightmove this morning, as the portal softens the blow by announcing a free training scheme for agents.

The portal’s key measurement is Average Revenue Per Advertiser - for 2021 that was a record £1,189 per agent per month.

Relative to December 2019 (before the pandemic hit) agency ARPA is up by £120 or 12 per cent, driven primarily by product purchases, package upgrades and pricing actions.

However, membership numbers for the portal fell slightly during 2021 by one per cent: the total is now 18,969 with 16,110 being agency branches, and 2,859 being new home developments.

Time on site averaged 1.5 billion minutes per month during 2021 - this compared with 1.3 billion in 2020, and according to this morning's trading statement that it "reflecting Rightmove's trusted brand and the strong property market."

Site visits totalled 2.5 billion in 2021 - up from 2.1 billion a year earlier.

Shareholders have been told by Peter Brooks-Johnson, Rightmove's chief executive: "Our position at the heart of Britain's home-moving journeys strengthened even further in 2021, with people spending an incredible 18 billion minutes searching and researching for their new home. I'm proud of our role in helping more people than ever before find a home that meets their needs and helping our customers help sellers and landlords achieve the best price by having their properties marketed to by far the biggest home-moving audience in the UK.

"Our ambition to make home moving easier in the UK is undiminished and drives our everyday business and longer-term strategy, and I'm excited about our plans to use our industry leading platform to digitise more of the home-moving journey."

Rightmove has also announced this morning that it is launching a formal education programme with training for agents to gain an NVQ Level 3 certificate.

The free education package will come as part of the portal membership.

Rightmove has been offering informal training to agents through the Rightmove hub but today’s announcement represents its first move into formal education.

The new course, which will be regulated by Ofqual, aims to help more agents have easier access to professional training.

The syllabus for the new formal course will include training for both estate and letting agency including legislation and codes of practice, generating opportunities, delivering exceptional service and property marketing.

Following over 120 hours of free training, agents will then be able to sit an independently adjudicated exam through awarding organisation ABBE for a fee payable directly to them, to be awarded with the qualification.

The move into formal qualifications follows the recent introduction of modular training courses on GDPR with David Smith, and skills for selling and closing with Josh Phegan - Rightmove says this was taken by thousands of agents to count towards their CPD hours.

This week also sees the launch of a new modular training course covering Anti-Money Laundering with David Smith, which was the most requested topic from agents.

The course is both HMRC compliant for mandatory training and approved for CPD.

Rightmove’s head of events and education Jason Charles says: “This felt like the natural next step for our training, and it’s something that so many agents who attend our webinars have asked for.

“We want to help agents with this free training so they can get ahead of mandatory regulations that the government may bring in based on the Regulation of Property Agents report. Over the next few months we’ll be working with ABBE to finalise our syllabus and will be launching it later this year.”

Max Boyne
26 February 2022 02:52 AM

The fact that you think it takes 'experts' to deliver the 'training' is almost as stupid as thinking the 'training' is required in the first place.

There are good agents and there are crap ones. None of it has anything to do with how 'qualified' or how well 'trained' they are.