Rightmove share price falls amid row over fees

One of the country’s largest lettings agents is to stop advertising on Rightmove amid a dispute over how much the property search website charges.
OpenRent, which works with thousands of landlords around the country to find tenants, will remove all of its listings from Rightmove when its current deal runs out at the end of this month. It has already removed any mention of Rightmove from its marketing materials.
The two companies had been in talks to strike a new deal but Rightmove confirmed on Tuesday morning that “conditions for OpenRent’s ongoing Rightmove membership could not be agreed”.
OpenRent is an online lettings agent that has the equivalent of 700 “branches” across the UK. OpenRent’s properties account for about 8 per cent of all the rental homes listed on Rightmove.
Because of its size, it is understood that OpenRent was able to negotiate cheaper rates with Rightmove in the past, which frustrated smaller customers.
Rightmove warned that the loss of OpenRent meant that its overall membership numbers would decline by about 3 per cent this year compared with last, having told shareholders only recently that numbers would increase by about 2 per cent.
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Despite the hit from OpenRent’s termination, Rightmove still expects to grow its revenue by between 7 per cent and 9 per cent this year and deliver a profit margin of 70 per cent — both of which are in line with previous guidance.
The FTSE 100 company added that its average revenue per advertiser would increase by between £90 and £100 per month this year compared with 2023, having previously said that it would be able to increase monthly prices by £85 at best. The increase reflects the fact that OpenRent, and lettings agents generally, pay less than estate agents and developers.
Even with that reassurance, Rightmove shares were down 23¾p, or 4.3 per cent, to 524¼p at Tuesday’s close.
Rightmove is the go-to website for house hunters in Britain. Of all the hours Britons spend browsing homes online, more than 80 per cent of their time is spent on Rightmove.
However, the market is sensitive to any sign that Rightmove’s dominant position is under threat now that OnTheMarket, a smaller property search site, has been bought by CoStar, the huge US property data group whose stated ambition is to unseat Rightmove. OpenRent does not currently advertise on OnTheMarket but uses Zoopla and PrimeLocation.
Sean Kealy, a consumer analyst at Panmure Liberum, said that OpenRent’s decision not to renew its Rightmove contract was “disappointing” but suggested that it was “unlikely to indicate a broader competition-related weakening in the pricing environment for Rightmove”.
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Instead, he thinks the fact that the lettings market remains so busy means that there is less need for agents to rely on Rightmove, given that tenants, desperately looking for somewhere to rent, are likely to visit all platforms, even the cheaper ones.