rightmove.co.uk Takeover Bid Rumours

The property press is awash with rumours of a rightmove.co.uk takeover bid.

Both propertyowl.co.uk and Estate Agent Today have reported the takeover rumours, although rightmove.co.uk have declined to comment officially.

Estate Agent Today and propertyowl.co.uk said the mystery buyer allegedly looking at rightmove.co.uk is thought to be a high-profile American hedge fund owner, who is already a shareholder and who appears to have been building up shares and voting rights.

Last Thursday rightmove.co.uk released an interim management statement, which contained some interesting facts about the UK’s leading property portal in this difficult economic climate:

The number of advertisers on the rightmove.co.uk site at the end of October 2008 was around 17,500, down 9 percent on last year. In particular, overseas advertiser numbers were down 4 percent.

Activity on the website is similar to the same period a year ago - page impressions in October are up 4 percent on 2007 and October enquiry levels to advertisers were up 10 percent year-on-year and continue to run at 1 million per month.

But the information that really had the press talking was news of a fall in agent membership:

“Rightmove estate agency membership fell to 10,700 by the end of October, a 15 percent decline from a high point of around 12,600 a year ago. At least three out every four estate agents who have left Rightmove over the last year have either gone out of business or were removed for non-payment (which in practice is frequently a precursor to going out of business).”

According to a much debated Estate Agent Today poll earlier this year, 75 percent of agents said they would leave rightmove.co.uk when their contracts come up for renewal.

The interim management statement wasn’t all bad news. It also revealed that the number of lettings agents or agents with rental properties advertising on rightmove.co.uk increased despite a price rise of around 30%. Lettings only agents have grown to 2,900, up 25 percent on last year.

The company says:

“Rightmove’s own business is proving much more robust than other forms of property advertising in this challenging environment. Consequently, the Board continues to have confidence in meeting its expectations for the current year.”

rightmove.co.uk certainly seems to be doing everything in their power to keep leads coming through to agents. A recent story in Estate Agent Today said the company has redesigned its lead emails to agents and, after extensive testing of colour and text combinations, has discovered that using orange generates 30% more leads than other colours.

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