Rightmove’s sales and profits defy challenging UK property market

Rightmove made higher profits and turnover last year despite a major slowdown affecting the UK property market.

Britain’s largest property listings website reported its revenue grew 10 per cent to £364.3 million in 2023 thanks to price increases and increased demand for its digital packages and products.

Advertisers spent an average of £1,431 a month on the London-based company’s platform, a 9 per cent increase on the previous year.

While margins were hit by higher payroll, overhead and technology costs, Rightmove’s operating profits still expanded 7 per cent to £258m.

The FTSE 100 firm’s performance was achieved against a more challenging backdrop for the property sector, as continued Bank of England interest rate increases and cost of living pressures discouraged home buying.

Mortgage rates declined slightly in early 2023 before rising through the spring and summer due to worse-than-expected inflation and then falling again during the latter part of the year.

However, they remained well above lockdown-era levels; The average two-year fixed rate peaked at 6.86 percent in July, after having been 2.34 percent in December 2021, according to financial information provider Moneyfacts.

As a result, one million properties were purchased in the UK last year, up from 1.2 million in 2022, Land Registry data shows.

Rightmove said the average time it took sellers to find buyers increased from 37 to 59 days, while customers spent 15.4 billion minutes browsing its platform against 16.3 billion the previous year, although it was still 27 percent more than pre-pandemic levels.

Johan Svanstrom, its chief executive, said: ‘In a year of economic uncertainty, consumers continued to trust Rightmove as the go-to place to help them make their decision.

‘Customers were able to choose from an expanded and more sophisticated set of products to continue driving business results in a changing market environment.

In 2024, Rightmove expects its revenue to rise by between 7 and 9 per cent, although it warned that customer numbers are likely to “fall slightly” due to economic uncertainty.

Sophie Lund-Yates, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: ‘Rightmove is the ultimate lesson in pricing power.

“Regardless of what’s happening in the overall market, whether it’s up or down, today’s real estate agents can’t afford not to advertise on the site.”

Rightmove’s results come as Nationwide figures showed house prices rose 1.2 per cent year-on-year to £260,420 in February, the first positive annual rise in 13 months.

Right Movement Actions They were down 1.4 percent at 558.8 pence just after midday on Friday and have fallen about 30 percent since the end of 2021.