Rightmove app will tell you what your house price will be in the future
03-01-2015
Property website Rightmove is set to launch a new app to model home improvements
Rightmove posts 19pc rise in turnover at its full year results and breaks its own record for monthly traffic in January. Photo: Alamy
By Anna White, Property correspondent
Rightmove, the UK's largest property search website, is set to launch a new app that will help householders discover what their house will be worth in five years' time.
The company is awaiting approval from Apple for the new app, which will be launched in March and will give people a 15pc estimated valuation range of their property and a look at future values.
More than 100m people visited the Rightmove site in January, a record month for the property portal.
The company reported that it made an average of £684 per month from each estate agent branch that uses the service, an increase of 13pc on a year earlier. This raised its total turnover 19pc to £167m.
Traffic was up 10pc year on year, the company's management said at its full year results, with operating profits up 20pc to £124.6m.
Rightmove has also seen the number of estate agents advertising on its site hit new highs despite the launch of a rival, OnTheMarket.
The challenger aims to shake the dominance of Rightmove, and its rival Zoopla, by only allowing its members to advertise on one other portal, and forcing those estate agents who have signed up to drop one of the two major sites.
There are a record 19,304 agents on the Rightmove site, up 5pc since December 2013, Rightmove said, and the number of agents has remained “unchanged” since OntheMarket launched.
The company said that “nearly every agent in the UK had chosen to remain on Rightmove”.
By contrast, Zoopla has lost 11pc of the estate agents who advertise on its website, it said this month.
Nick McKittrick, the chief executive of Rightmove, insisted there is room for both the property portals and estate agents in response to whether the power of the portals will reduce the need for the traditional high street estate agents.
"This is a two-sided network and we must serve consumers and customers as well. Such a network effect can lead to an incredible business model."
Despite the cooling housing market in the second half of the year Rightmove had its busiest ever January and last Sunday was its busiest ever day.
"The market is taking a breath," said Mr McKittrick, chief executive of Rightmove. "But in terms of transaction levels we are still some 15 to 20pc off the peak, so there is some way to go."
Rightmove analyst Miles Shipside said the shortage of stock is propping prices up and that cooling is good for the long term health of the housing market.
"There is a nice dynamic for agents as rental demand is increasing," he added.
However, despite its increasing consumer popularity the share price has only increased by 2pc this year.
"Rightmove is ‘confident’ on 2015 given strong customer numbers, traffic and ARPA growth. Importantly, few agents seem to have left for OnTheMarket since its January launch (February customer numbers unchanged from year-end position) in contrast to Zoopla, which suffered significant churn. We rate Rightmove as operators but valuation looks high given potential house market slowdown affecting its customer base," said an analyst at Investec.