Before this evening's eye-popping announcement, today I had written a blog on the ModelProp website about how the OpenRent v Rightmove rumble was a huge moment for the industry.
I wrote about being at the monthly, full team meeting of a brilliant, multi-branch independent estate agency on Tuesday – where they were celebrating OpenRent’s demise from the dominant property portal and organising for their lettings’ team to go get more landlords as a result. When private landlords – the rarest specimen in the property market eco-system – have a sudden reason to rethink their options, it’s a feeding frenzy.
The first inkling that all was not well in this long-standing – and mutually-supportive – relationship between Rightmove and OpenRent was spotted by one of the few genuine journalists patrolling the property market beat intentionally these days, Nigel Lewis of #TheNegotiator. His exclusive story, that OpenRent had removed Rightmove and its logo from its product offering last week – days before any clarification statement from either party – set in train this entire, public brinkmanship.
It was fitting, then, that Lewis also broke the extraordinary news this evening that OpenRent and Rightmove had kissed and made up.
Whoa.
So what happened, to change from Rightmove’s statement a couple of days ago that yes, we’ve lost 8% of our letting property stock by executing OpenRent but everything will be OK, to welcoming their errant ‘partner’ back in to the fold?
Bad news everyone.
OpenRent bowed to pressure.
They tried – goodness, did they try! They removed the Rightmove logo from their offering. They refused to buckle to Rightmove’s demands that they pay a substantial amount more. They did the sums, said a little prayer, and hoped that they’d get away with not having to bow before the monopolistic king.
But then they saw – the attacks didn’t just come from the agent I was with on Tuesday; OpenRent was open season for every agent that they competed with everywhere. Their clients – the landlords that saw them as a cheap way to get exposure via all of the portals – were bombarded with calls from agents offering a way back to what they themselves would describe as “the most important marketing channel there is.”
Rightmove piled on the pain, releasing a statement to the stock market emphasising that OpenRent had chosen not to renew on their terms – but, for investors, that was OK. They would continue to kill all-comers.
And so, almost inevitably, OpenRent buckled. It’s fair to say that their business model is so predicated on simple, blind distribution through portals that to lose the main one was always going to expose their product as a bit rubbish.
However, OpenRent’s capitulation to Rightmove should worry us all.
If a business that has 8% of Rightmove’s lettings’ stock won’t escape, despite a terrifying uplift in charging, what other agent can?
Watch out for OpenRent’s fees to head north pretty rapidly as it has to find ways to generate the subs it now has to pay its effective Master. That might be perceived as good by many agents – previously there was some unfair competition where this organisation's sweetheart deal meant they were able to out-compete independent, local agents – but it will take a lot of ‘won’ landlords from OpenRent to compensate for the +£500 per branch per month fee increase that Rightmove is planning between now and 2028.
It's hard to cry for OpenRent, who have been pulling the tightest landlords out of the market for a while and giving them cheap access to portals that other agents pay much more for. However, their outright humiliation at the hands of Rightmove will only serve to embolden a business that – let’s face it – doesn’t need any more reason to confidently uplift its charges in 2025.
From hereon-in, Rightmove will have relatively little fear that any individual agent can swerve its price rises. If OpenRent capitulated, then you’re going to too.
Or are you? It’s the collective narrative that’s the thing. If everyone keeps saying that Rightmove’s essential then Rightmove will remain essential. If everyone starts ensuring that a marketing mix of social, other portals, AI, hyper-local is more important then that’s going to start to carry some weight.
Make no mistake – Rightmove believes that this OpenRent capitulation proves they are too big to fail. They can do what they want. And your monthly fees have just undergone an extra percentage increase for 2025.
If you’re interested in finding a way out of this let me know in DM. This is a really critical moment. There has to be – there will be – another way.
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