Rightmove's Relentless Rain

This week didn’t blow in like a storm. It settled, unavoidably, like the British rain.

Rightmove’s latest fee hikes aren’t a blip; they’re the climate. Shaun Adams at Cooper Adams flagged a 12%+ jump for 2026 - four times inflation, with nothing resembling a commensurate uplift in value. Debbie Walley at Winterbrook went further: this isn’t a grumble, it’s existential. When independents start saying “this could shut us”, Rightmove and its cheerleaders should stop pretending this is performative outrage.

And perhaps they're finally realising this truth.

Rightmove’s share price dipped once more after these interventions - it's now down 47% from its peak just six months ago. Eighteen months ago, in another lifetime, it was smugly rejecting an offer of £6.4Bn for the business saying that it didn't value the portal highly enough and the current Board would squeeze even more from the lemon. As that Board oversees another lurch downwards in value - to just £3.4Bn - 'lemons' could just as easily describe those seated around the table.

This isn’t about a bad headline cycle, though. It’s about a business model reflexively doing exactly what it’s optimised to do. When you own the toll booth, you raise the toll. Year after year after year after year. But what happens when people stop being able to afford that toll? When you've driven them to the brink, when agent costs elsewhere - wages, compliance, CRMs, photo/floorplan/EPC bundles - are already creeping north and margins are thinning?

But Rightmove relentlessly, ruthlessly continues to push these 12%-18% increases. I've had so many agents over the last few weeks sharing their stories of emails landing in their inboxes - often without the courtesy of a conversation first - from their RM reps with these shocking uplifts. Why are they pushing so hard now?

Because the machine must.

Rightmove is quietly teeing up heavier spend on tech - AI, product modernisation, infrastructure. That dents near-term margins and investors dislike dents. Across global marketplaces the same squeeze is showing: CoStar swatting at activists while funding Homes.com; Zillow tiptoeing between lawsuits and innovation; Hemnet repriced as the growth story wobbled; Auto Trader learning the hard way that “value extraction” has a ceiling before customers revolt. The era of unchecked “platform monopoly” pricing is waning - and they need to gouge as much profit from their customers before share decline becomes something more serious for their CEO.

And things are getting serious. Consumer behaviour is shifting from list-surfing to answer-seeking. Discovery is becoming conversational, intent-led, stitched by data and context. The value migrates from “I have the listings” to “I help you decide”. That requires proper tech - not feature confetti or fresh badges - but real product velocity, data architecture and AI that compresses time-to-confidence for movers and for agents.

Here’s Rightmove’s awkward bit. For years, it’s extracted extraordinary value from the industry’s attention layer: £700m+ in dividends and £1.4bn+ in buybacks since IPO. That’s £2.1bn not compounding inside product or ecosystem. Layer on the reality that larger groups negotiated softer terms while independents paid “full whack”, and the resentment now has teeth. Legal action is in train, with Jeremy Newman and others fronting a case. This is no longer venting in Facebook groups; it’s moving to the courts.

So what should agents actually do? Treat this not as a surge but as sea level. Build the raft now.

• Reduce single-platform dependency. Make 2026 the year you rebalance your mix.

• Systemise lead capture and nurture. Your CRM, not anyone else’s funnel, should be the heartbeat.

• Use AI to scale quality. Listing copy, video scripts, valuation prep packs, market explainers - all faster, better, cheaper. Deploy chat that qualifies, not chat that chirps.

If your marketing engine is “Rightmove + hope”, you’re not running a business - you’re renting one. The clever money treats these hikes as the signal to professionalise demand generation, diversify channels, and get fit for a world where decisions beat directories.

The weather has set in. Dress accordingly.

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