Rightmove
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Latest property news
Sales agreed, prices and time to sell increasing despite election, says Rightmove
This summer’s election campaign is having a less corrosive effect on sales levels than two years ago when David Cameron made his bid for power, Rightmove has claimed. Its monthly house price index reveals that the number of sales agreed so far this year is 2% higher than during the lead up to the 2015 general election. Rightmove also reckons that the number of days it takes to sell a property is reducing too, down from 79 days in January 2017 to 60 days in April 2017. The reduction is even sharper in London, where in January it took 71 days to sell a home, compared to 53 days in April. Stock levels are rising too, Rightmove says. The number of properties for sale per agent has risen from 52 in January to 57 in April. House prices are also rising, the portal’s index reveals, increasing during April by 1.2% or £3,626 on average, the fifth consecutive rise. All-time high “Whilst all-time high asking prices or economic and political uncertainty could be deterrents to would-be home-buyers, this month shows another strong set of figures,” says Rightmove’s spokesman and director Miles Shipside (pictured, left). “Demand is exceeding supply in many parts of the country…
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Trinity Mirror launches campaign to take on portals for agent spend
The UK’s largest regional newspaper and digital publisher Trinity Mirror says it is to “fight back” against the increasing slice of agent marketing spend being taken by Rightmove and Zoopla. Trinity Mirror has over 140 regional daily and weekly newspapers across the UK including big hitters such as the Manchester Evening News, Birmingham Mail and Bristol Post plus 80 websites. It is also publisher of the Daily and Sunday Mirror and three other national newspapers. The campaign is designed to persuade agents that Trinity Mirror’s online and print titles are the best way to ensure they are one of the ‘three’ that vendors and landlords traditionally ask to appraise their properties before deciding on which one to instruct. Campaign message Called #Be1ofthe3, the campaign message is that the major portals “don’t want agents’ brands to stand out – it’s not good for their business model – so they suppress them”. “Agents need to consider other forms of marketing to build their brand presence in the regions they operate within,” the campaign material says. Trinity Mirror, which bought rival regional publisher Local World in 2015 for £220m to make it the largest regional media company in the UK, says its titles reach…
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Parents paying £52k extra for homes in Outstanding primary school areas
Agents are used to parents quizzing them endlessly about properties for sale within the catchment areas of the best local outstanding primary schools. And now a price has been put on this fixation. Parents pay an average price premium of £52,000 to live in the successful admission area of an Outstanding Ofsted-ranked primary school, a report from Rightmove has revealed. The figure is based on the cost of moving from the catchment area of a Requires Improvement school to an Outstanding one. The portal, which partnered with school search engine FindaSchool by 192.com to produce the report, also says that to move from an area around a Good school to and Outstanding costs on average £37,000. “Previous studies have shown links between outstanding schools and house prices, however our data is the first data that is based on whether the property would have secured a place at the school,” says Dominic Blackburn from 192.com (pictured, left). Fierce competition Driving the fierce competition for places at the best school are some starting facts. Across England 86% of Outstanding state primary schools are oversubscribed and only 20% of all schools have Outstanding status and 62% are Good. The areas with the biggest premiums…
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Hybrid bridging-lender-cum-agent Nested wins £8m of new funding
As if agents needed more competition from digital start-ups, a company called Nested that offers to buy a client’s home if a buyer can’t be found has won a fresh £8 million injection of cash. Launched 14 months ago, Nested promises vendors that it will sell their homes via its own listings on Rightmove and Zoopla within 90 days or provide them with an interest-free loan to buy their next property. Nested is chasing the 40% of home movers in the UK who do not have a mortgage and therefore find it frustrating when they caught in lengthy buying chains. Hefty fee There are some catches to the deal. Nested guarantees to sell a vendor’s property, but only for 95-98% of the asking price in return for a hefty 2.5% sales fee. If the property is sold for more than the valuation range, it splits any ‘profit’ 70/30 in favour of the lender. But if the property does not sell, Nested then takes out a first-charge mortgage on the property and advances the necessary cash to enable the vendor to move home. When the property sells, the ‘bridging’ mortgage is then cleared. “There are lots of people in this situation and…
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Agent makes lone stand against landlords who advertise direct on property portals
Newcastle-under-Lyme letting agent Rocket Homes Rentals has locked horns with the two largest property portals over listings by two local student lettings companies. It says they are advertising on the big portals even thought they are landlords who only market their own properties. Hybrid agent/landlords like these are springing up across the UK at the moment to enable a single landlord, or group of landlords, to bypass letting agents entirely and advertise their properties to rent directly on the large portals. Rockett Home Rentals, which has a single branch in Newcastle-under-Lyme but covers Crewe, Stafford and Stoke on Trent and has been in business since 2003, says its two rivals are advertising on Rightmove and Zoopla. “I’ve talked to both portals and no matter how they want to dress this up, they seem happy to let these ‘agents’ list because they have paid money and that’s it, regardless of how their business works,” says director Bill Rockett (pictured, below) “The only properties they have are the ones they own – they’re not an agent for anyone and they don’t service any customers except themselves. “It worries me that in the small area around my business I’ve seen ‘agents’ like this…
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Sales stock at its lowest for over two years, says Rightmove index
The average number of properties for sale with each estate agent in the UK has fallen to its lowest level for at least two years, according to the latest Rightmove index published today. The portal says each agent that lists with it on average had 52 properties during February including those under offer or sold STC, down from 61 in August and two fewer than February last year although it’s at least two years since it was this low. And Rightmove data from previous months suggests the number of months that the traditional winter shortage lasts for is lengthening. Average stock During 2016 the average stock per agent sank from 66 at its peak in July to 53 in December but by March has recovered to 57, a trend which is less obvious this year. Rightmove says the shortage is largely responsible for a sharp increase in the average UK house price last month, up by 1.3%, a monthly rise that has only been exceeded once since the financial crash of 2007/8. “Since the start of the decade, the average March price rise has been 0.9%, so this month’s 1.3% uplift is an indicator of a shortage of suitable property…
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Rightmove shares slide as agents grumble
Rightmove announced full year results on Friday 24th February, reporting further success. Pre-tax profits rose from £137.1m in 2015 to £161.5m in 2016, up by almost 18 per cent. Revenues rose by 15 per cent to £220m. So why, on that day, did their shares slide down a steep hill – down 5.8 per cent to £40, wiping over £200 million off its value? Rightmove Chairman, Scott Forbes said, “Our audience, best in class platforms and significant property inventory advantage coupled with our focus on innovation at the core of our business drives our value proposition for the benefit of both our trade customers and consumers. Property data has always been at the core of what we do and we are excited about continuing to harness the power of our data to drive further transparency and efficiency in the property market, predict market opportunities and drive success for our customers and consumers.” There’s no doubt that Rightmove is doing well for its investors, so it is possible that the fall was due to the announcement of Nick McKittrick’s (pictured right) forthcoming retirement, as the national papers deduced, but could there also be growing unrest among Rightmove’s 20,121 Agency and New Homes customers? RIGHTMOVE…
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Rightmove’s CEO Nick McKittrick to retire in May
Rightmove’s CEO Nick McKittrick is to retire and leave the company at the forthcoming AGM on 9 May this year, although he will remain until June ‘to ensure a smooth transition process’. This brings an era to a close at the company, as McKittrick was one of the company’s founding executives. McKittrick worked as a technology consultant at Accenture before joining the team that began Rightmove in 2000, helping see off early rivals such as Assertahome and Propertyfinder. He was appointed to the board in 2004, made Chief Operating Officer in 2005, Finance Director in 2009 and Chief Operating Officer in 2013. The current COO, Peter Brooks-Johnson who like McKittrick is a board member, and has been in role since 2011, will take McKittrick’s job. “Nick has served Rightmove with 16 years of leadership, as remarkable for his success as with the modest way he has achieved it,” says Rightmove chairman Scott Forbes. “I speak on behalf of the Board and Rightmove employees when I say that we will miss Nick on both a personal and professional level. “We have greatly appreciated his contribution to Rightmove’s success and we wish him the very best for the future” McKittrick can afford to…
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Rightmove sends out portal juggling reminder
Rightmove has sent out a reminder to agents reiterating the 14-week rule it introduced in December last year to combat portal juggling by sales agents. The email (see right) reveals a little more about how Rightmove’s policing system works. It highlights how properties that are re-listed during the 14-week period will not change their date or be sent out in property alerts. Rightmove now has what it calls a ‘growing team’ of tech experts and new software trawling its listing for errant listings, and also recently held a meeting with leading anti-portal juggling campaigner and former Jupix boss Robert May, who has built a software suite that can spot errant agents when they ‘play’ the listings game. “When you’ve got 25,000 [listings] movements a day on a portal like Rightmove then it’s always going to be a challenge for them to see what’s going on and police it,” says Robert. He says the techniques that some surprisingly well-known names in the industry use to juggle their listings is getting ever more sophisticated, including ‘zombie listings’ when previously sold properties are re-listed as ‘SSTC’ and ‘bat out of hell’ listings where properties are listed overnight and then withdrawn in the morning.…
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Why did Northwood withdraw circular that used commonly-used Rightmove data?
Franchise network agent Northwood GB, which was acquired by rival Belvoir in June last year, has been reported to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for making an unsubstantiated claim in a circular it distributed to clients, even though the information is widely available elsewhere. Northwood had stated within it: “Did you know that between Christmas Day and 1st working day in January last year Rightmove had a 195% increase in their visits to their website”. The complainant challenged whether this claim could be substantiated and, after the ASA contacted Northwood, was told the circular had been withdrawn and the matter was resolved informally. Links to the circular on the company’s Facebook page have also been taken down. “We told them to ensure in future, they held robust substantiation information for any claims made in their advertising,” the ASA said. Northwood’s reluctance to substantiate the claim is odd, given that the ‘195% increase’ statistic has been repeated in several local newspapers including the Hampshire Chronicle, and is therefore likely to have been based on a Rightmove press release. Also, Northwood is not the only agent in the UK to have repeated the ‘195% increase in visits’ claim. Hamptons International (see left)…
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