Rightmove Posts Record Numbers for FY21 as Buoyant Market Aids Bounce Back

The market-leading British property portal company Rightmove has this morning released a report on its yearly performance showing that the company has rebounded from a pandemic-hit 2020 and has surpassed the performance of 2019. Highlights of Rightmove's activity for the year ended December 31st 2021 include:

• Revenue up 5% on 2019 at £304.9m
• Operating profit of £231m, also up 5% on 2019's figures
• Average revenue per agent (ARPA) up 9% on 2019 at £1,189
• Traffic up 15% on 202o at 18.3 billion average minutes per month spent on portal site

Peter Brooks-Johnson, Chief Executive Officer, said: "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's revenue and ARPA increase was driven by "successful pricing actions" as well as vendor lead products (up 113% on 2019) as agents increasingly prioritise winning instructions. Particularly encouraging for Rightmove will be the pickup in the second half of the year of the ARPA for its lucrative New Homes segment which grew nearly 40% and broke £1,400 for the first time.

Fuelling the whole thing though is a very strong housing market which in 2021 saw more transactions than in any year since 2007. The 1.47 million transactions in the UK in 2021 represented a 26% increase on 2019's figure with house prices up 14% over the same period.

In terms of outgoings, Rightmove's operational costs have increased by £6 million since 2019 to £76.3 million with £4 million of that increase a result of product development - an area that some agents have traditionally criticised the portal for neglecting.

The company's non-financial metrics were also in good shape throughout 2021 as well with the company's investor presentation highlighting the following:

• 27% increase in lead volumes sent to agents in 2021 (65.3 million)
• Traffic up 15% on 202o at 18.3 billion average minutes per month spent on portal site
• ARPA up 52% on 2020 and 9% on 2019
• Agent numbers were down 1% though the decrease was attributable to a drop in new homes agencies where demand is so high that agents are not having to even list properties.

Free formal training for agent customers

Announced alongside the company's results for 2021 was an upgrade of the portal's training program for its agent clients. Until now the company has offered informal, one-off training on subjects such as anti-money laundering, legal compliance and closing through its Rightmove Hub scheme.

Starting in 2022 however, Rightmove will offer agents more formal training backed by the government's qualifications body with a syllabus including legislation and codes of practice, generating opportunities, delivering exceptional service and property marketing.

Rightmove’s head of events and education Jason Charles said of the increased offering: "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".

Focus on mortgages and upselling in 2022

The company's disclosure showed that its customer and sales teams were having success in moving agents on from the cheaper listings packages and, crucially, that two-thirds of the agents that commit to spending on one of the portals specialist products typically upgrade to a higher listings package as afterwards. This dynamic is crucial to Rightmove's success going forward with the company stating that:

"Demonstrating the value of products to Essential [lower spend listings package] customers is the largest multi-year opportunity in the current product ladder."

Rightmove also plans to up its game when it comes to mortgages in 2022 with the portal saying it will be able to give consumers personalised, lender backed mortgages in principle on its platform by the middle of the year.