Guest Post:
We’re handing the mic over to Paul Morris from Superb Digital, who’s here to talk about something that’s on a lot of agents’ minds right now. With portal fees climbing and control slipping further away, Paul lays out why building your own online presence is smart and essential.
Over to Paul!
Estate agents have long been expressing their frustration over Rightmove’s market dominance and fee increases. The sense of small to medium sized agents feeling marginalised by the platform’s pricing structure is yet again reaching boiling point, with the latest fee hike of a whopping 18% adding fuel to the fire.
“Rightmove’s latest 18 per cent price hike is outrageous. Zoopla and On The Market, as night follows day, will do the same and the thumbscrew will tighten further around the financial genitals of the agents,” as Trevor Abrahmsohn, founder of OnTheMarket, rather bluntly puts it.
Calls for change are growing louder than ever before, but there’s also a sense of resignation in the industry. Like any dominant online platform, the network effect makes it incredibly difficult for individual agencies to affect change.
This isn’t really new, of course. Estate agents across the UK have long depended on Rightmove as a primary channel for property listings but this reliance has always come with significant, often overlooked, costs that can impact the sustainability and profitability of estate agencies over the long term.
Escalating Portal Fees
Rightmove’s financial model has increasingly burdened estate agents with rising costs. Despite a relatively flat growth in its customer base, Rightmove reported a 7% increase in revenue, amounting to £389.9 million in 2024. This surge is attributed to higher charges imposed on existing clients rather than an expansion in service offerings. The average revenue per advertiser (ARPA) rose by £93 to £1,524 per month, indicating a trend of extracting more value from the current customer base.
This upward trajectory in fees has sparked concern among industry professionals. Shaun Adams, who has called for a CMA petition against Rightmove’s fee increases, criticised the company’s recent marketing campaign as a “slap in the face” to agents already paying substantial fees.
Stagnant Agency Commissions
While Rightmove’s revenues have climbed, estate agents’ commissions have not seen a corresponding increase. Industry experts highlight that agency fees have remained stagnant or even declined, despite rising property prices. This disparity places additional financial strain on agents who are simultaneously facing increased operational costs.
Diminished Control Over Listings
Relying heavily on Rightmove also means ceding control over how properties are presented and marketed. The platform’s standardised listing formats limit agents’ ability to differentiate their offerings. Furthermore, the competitive nature of the portal can lead to a race to the bottom, where properties are judged primarily on price rather than unique features or value-added services.
Risk of Market Monopolisation
Rightmove’s dominant position in the UK property portal market raises concerns about monopolistic practices. With limited alternatives, estate agents may find themselves with little negotiating power, making them susceptible to unfavorable terms and conditions imposed by the portal.
Building a Digital Presence You Own
For many estate agents, the idea of reducing reliance on property portals like Rightmove can seem like a pipedream, especially when vendor expectations and lead volumes are tied so strongly to them. But as dependency deepens and costs continue to rise, more agents are beginning to explore how they can reassert control over their marketing, their brand, and ultimately, their pipeline.
More and more are waking up to the idea that they can build a reliable digital presence that they own.
It’s something we’ve seen working in practice for estate agents, at Superb Digital.
We don’t advocate that estate agents dump Rightmove entirely. That would be unrealistic. But building a business model entirely dependent on a third party platform like Rightmove, is both risky and unreliable.
Instead, build your marketing strategy as if Rightmove didn’t exist.
This idea isn’t about switching off a vital lead source overnight. It’s about rebalancing the scales. A robust, multi-channel marketing strategy, built around platforms and assets you control, can help mitigate the risks of overreliance on any one portal.
Your Website: Getting the Foundations Right
The foundation of any owned digital strategy is your website. Unlike listings on portals, your website is a long-term asset that you own and one that can be shaped around your brand, optimised for search engines, and tailored to attract and convert your ideal clients.
Your website should be something you’re proud to send people to and it should do more than just list properties. It should showcase your knowledge, capture leads, and build your brand online.
Alongside powerful CRMs like Property Hive, your website is perfectly capable of bringing your services, industry knowledge, property listings and enquiries together in one place. And this is scalable, meaning even smaller agencies can begin with modest functionality and grow significantly over time.
Building an Audience that Know you
Portals act as middlemen. They capture attention and enquiries, but they don’t share the full picture. By contrast, estate agents with a search engine optimised website can start to build direct relationships with potential clients. They can help you capture email addresses, with which you can leverage email marketing to stay relevant and on the radar of sellers and landlords.
Your contact list is gold dust. Whether it’s people booking valuations, subscribing to alerts, or downloading area guides, that’s your audience. And it’s yours, to engage with on your terms through newsletters, campaigns, and tailored follow-ups.
Regular email communications, property updates, and tailored content can nurture leads more effectively than relying solely on a platform that controls visibility and communication flow.
Scale at Your Own Pace
A fully fledged multi-channel digital strategy may well feel out of reach for some agents. But you don’t need to do everything at once. Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all.
Start with what’s realistic for your business. That could be as simple as improving your website, launching a monthly newsletter, or posting one useful article a month. The important thing is to start and to own the channels you’re building on.
A phased approach allows agents to experiment with different content types and platforms, test what resonates with their audience, and grow momentum gradually.
Agents must also adapt to changing user behaviours. When we searched for properties using ChatGPT’s web interface recently (see image below), none of the top results were from Rightmove. They came from smaller portals and agents’ own websites. With Google’s dominance under threat from Gen AI like Chat GPT, it’s in no way certain that Rightmove’s dominance will persist.
Source: Chat GPT
As market conditions shift and digital behaviours evolve, the need to build a presence beyond third-party platforms is becoming not just a strategic advantage, but a necessity. By investing in assets you own, such as your website, online content, marketing lists and social media followings, you can start to take back control. This helps strengthen your brand and build more sustainable, direct relationships with your audience.
The journey may take time, but for those willing to start, the payoff is a business built on firmer foundations than Rightmove can offer.
Author Bio: Paul Morris is Managing Director of Bristol based Superb Digital, who help estate agents generate more instructions and grow their agencies online.
