Here we go again then, Rightmove. Another year, another double-digit-plus price increase for everyone!
They're aiming to extract even more from estate agents' coffers - to an average per branch of £2,000 by 2028. What are agents going to do about it?
Well, enter Shaun Adams of Cooper Adams, rallying the troops with a petition that's already amassed over 1,300 signatures. His mission? To galvanise agents to appeal to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) against Rightmove's seemingly monopolistic pricing practices.
Now, those who've been in the property game a while will know that Rightmove's pricing policies have long been a bone of contention. The argument is straightforward: the money Rightmove (ever-increasingly) siphons from agents could be far better spent on innovation and enhancing the services agents provide to their own clients. Instead, it seems to disappear into the ether – or more accurately, into shareholder pockets – with little reinvestment into the industry itself.
Rightmove's profit margins are nothing short of staggering, sitting at around 73%. This isn't about necessity; it's about capability. They charge because they can, not because they need to. And this relentless pursuit of profit is stifling the very industry it purports to serve.
Shaun Adams' petition is a timely and much-needed challenge to Rightmove's dominance. It's a rallying cry for agents to unite and question whether Rightmove's grip on the market is fair – or even sustainable. Historically, Rightmove has justified its fees by comparing them to the cost of print advertising in the 90s. But times have changed and so has the market landscape.
Enter Agentic AI, the potential game-changer many have all been waiting for. This technology could disrupt the traditional property portal model by offering deep, tailored searches that go beyond the basic filters of Rightmove. Imagine a world where a potential buyer can ask for a three-bedroom property with a sea view, near a train station, and with a parking space, and have AI scour the entire internet to find it – including agents’ own websites – returning simple links and bypassing Rightmove altogether.
This isn't science fiction; it's happening now. And it’s the start of a definitive shift away from the notion of ‘search’ – where we scroll through an aggregated list of options from a trusted brand, like Google or Rightmove, to try and find the best one for us – to ‘discovery’, where we imagine what we really want and get AI to do the work to discover each and every type of item that we desire. The stats already show that 27% of people in the US (11% UK) are using AI instead of Google because of its speed, ease of use, accuracy, personalisation and depth of results.
I firmly believe that Agentic AI will also level the playing field for challenger portals like Zoopla, OnTheMarket, and even newcomers like Jitty. These portals will be discovered by AI 'Deep Research' services such as ChatGPT-o3 Mini, Google Gemini 2.0 Flash Experimental, xAI’s Grok 3, Perplexity's Deep Search and Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 3.7 (these guys may be great at tech but they’re terrible at naming their stuff).
The key for agents will be ensuring their websites are optimised for AI discovery.
The winds of change are blowing, and Rightmove is going to find its position less secure than it once was. Shaun Adams' petition is a step in the right direction, challenging the status quo and advocating for a fairer market.
So, hats off to him for his initiative. If you're feeling the pinch of Rightmove's pricing, consider signing the petition and joining his rightmovefeefight Facebook group. It's time to stand up and be counted. After all, a united front is the best way to ensure a brighter, more equitable future for the property industry.
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