Rightmove
Rightmove PLC is a British company, founded in the year 2000 by Scott Forbes (the current Chairman) and Mark McKittrick (the current Chief Executive Officer). The company operates in the real estate space, with a focus on residential and commercial properties, and is one of the foremost real estate portals and property websites in the UK (operating through the domain name rightmove.co.uk). The company has its headquarters in London, UK, and has a workforce numbering more than 469 as of 2016. According to a profile of the company, as of May 2017, the company was valued at $4.6 billion, and as of 2016, it had an operating income of £161.6 million, a revenue of £220 million, and a net income of £129.5 million.
What Kind Of Company Is Rightmove?
Rightmove is a property portal that provides services for various players in the real estate space, such as letting agents, estate agents, and developers, who all pay in order to have their properties displayed on rightmove.co.uk, the company’s website. This makes it possible for those looking for homes to find both the aesthetic of properties (in pictures and video of course), and the relevant details, on properties all across the UK.
How the site works is thus: prospective house buyers are able to find various properties, based on searches on where the property is located. The company, through ingenious means, prevent independent sellers from advertising their property without contracting the services of an agent. The company also releases a monthly house price index, which captures the prevalent trends in housing prices across the United Kingdom and Wales. The company operates across three divides: New homes, Agency, and Other.
The new homes segment provides a platform for homeowners and developers to advertise properties on their website.
The Agency segment is focused on providing a space for advertising to customers looking to let or re-sell properties.
The Other segment houses other services not related to the advertising of properties, including services such as business and information, and their automated valuation model. All these are in addition to providing advertising opportunities for overseas agents.
A History Recap and Information on Its Board
The company was launched as a joint venture between real estate chains Royal and Sun alliance, Halifax, Connells and Countrywide, with the name Rightmove.co.uk Limited. The company originally had listings for free, until it introduced the system of charging in 2002.
The company became a PLC on the 15th of March 2006 when it was first listed on the London Stock Exchange at a price of 3.35 pounds a share. Still in 2006, the company became a member of the FTSE 250.
The company introduced its mobile app in 2009 and as of this date, more than a third of their searches are performed on mobile devices. In 2011, Rightmove reached a market share of 84% of the four leading property websites in the UK (by page views), and the company’s underlying operating profit margin exceeded 70%.
The company’s board of directors has three notable names on it: Scott Forbes, Peter Brooks-Johnson, and Robyn Perris. Before he joined Rightmove, Forbes spent 15 years at Cendant Corporation, a global provider of residential property services, where he served in the capacity of Group Managing Director for a time. He was Director at the Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary, NetJets Management Ltd, until October 2009, when he left and joined Orbits Worldwide as Chairman, which he then left in September 2015.
Peter Brooks-Johnson is the Chief Executive Officer at Rightmove, and was appointed to the board on 10 January, 2011. Brooks-Johnson became the CEO of Rightmove in April 2013, and prior to that he was the company’s Managing Director, a role he had taken on since 2011. While he joined Rightmove in 2006, he served as Head of the Agency business between 2008 and 2011.
Robyn Perris is the Finance Director at Rightmove, and was appointed to the company’s board on 30 April, 2013. When Perris joined the company in 2007, she was serving in the capacity of Financial Controller, and was in charge of daily financial operations. She was handed the role of Company Secretary in April 2012, and remained in that position until July 2014
What are Rightmove Reviews like?
Judging by the feedback from reviews.io, Rightmove has a rating of 4.68 out of 5, from 7078 reviews. The review pool is rich, and this goes to validate their service pedigree. One review goes thus:
“I love Rightmove. I am a property investor and don’t know what i would do without this portal. I get emails instantly whenever a new property that matches my search requirements becomes available”.
Another states: “love rightmove and visit the site every day. Although I am not planning to sell my house for another year I love to keep an eye on the market and to see what is available. I love being able to save properties and save my searches”.
What Is the Bottom Line?
The conclusion is that Rightmove is perhaps the most popular house listings website in the UK, alongside Zoopla and Prime Location. Their rich information pool means that even if you’re not looking to sell at a given moment, there is still so much information on the current real estate landscape that anybody can benefit from, such as the monthly index on home prices.
Also, it is very important to note that even online real estate agents such as Purplebricks advertise their customers’ properties on Rightmove, so the scope of the company’s business is larger than most people think.
