Why Estate Agents Need to Stop Relying on Rightmove

Estate agents have long treated Rightmove as an essential channel for reaching buyers and sellers online. Its dominance in the UK property market has made it a default choice for visibility—but this convenience comes at a growing cost. With annual fee hikes and little in the way of flexibility or customisation, agents are increasingly questioning whether continued dependence on Rightmove is financially sustainable or strategically wise.

Paul Smith, CEO of Spicerhaart, has warned that estate agents’ reliance on Rightmove and Zoopla is putting their businesses at risk. “As agents, our reliance on Rightmove and Zoopla carries significant risk to our businesses, livelihoods and our entire industry so it is essential that we take a stand now,” he said, arguing that portals have become so dominant that they now dictate the terms of engagement. “We are all guilty of handing over the responsibility for our web leads, traffic and our inventory to the portals, and as a result we have created the duopoly which exists today.”

As these platforms prioritise their own revenue growth, agents face the uncomfortable reality of paying more for diminishing returns.

A Growing Risk for Estate Agents

Rightmove has maintained an unshakable grip on the UK property market for over a decade. With millions of visitors each month, it remains the country’s most visited property website—a gateway for serious home seekers. At face value, this mass exposure seems like a major win for estate agents.

But this visibility comes with strings attached. Rightmove’s dominant position means that many estate can quickly lose control of how they market their properties or generate leads. Instead, they’re funnelled through a third-party platform that dictates the terms, the format, and increasingly, the cost of that online visibility.

As more agencies find themselves locked into this ecosystem, the risk isn’t just financial—it’s strategic. Relying on a single external platform for a core business function leaves agents with little leverage and even less flexibility.

The Cost of Staying Visible

Rightmove has become so embedded in the UK property market that it’s often described as the “Google” of property search. Its dominance is such that agents who leave the platform risk becoming invisible to buyers and sellers. This imbalance of power has given Rightmove near-total pricing freedom—and the results speak for themselves.

Fees have risen year after year, with many estate agents now paying thousands of pounds per month just to maintain a presence. In 2024 Rightmove’s average revenue per advertiser (ARPA) stood at £1,524. The company reported agency revenue of £280m, up 7% on 2023. Underlying operating profit stoof at £273.9m, which is up 4% on the year before.

All this demonstrates that the portal itself is thriving—but are estate agents seeing the same return on their investment? The industry consensus suggests not.

An estate agent who recently quit Rightmove told Estate Agent Today that leaving the platform was a financial relief, claiming that the return on investment no longer justified the rising costs. “We were paying a fortune just to be part of the system, but our lead quality wasn’t improving,” they said. Instead, their agency redirected marketing funds into their own lead generation strategy, focusing on organic SEO and targeted Google Ads, with no drop in enquiries.

This highlights the fundamental issue—as Rightmove’s profits grow, estate agents are seeing diminishing returns. Agents are not just paying for visibility, they are paying to remain relevant, locked into a system where non-participation feels like a commercial risk. It’s a high-cost cycle of dependency, with little room for negotiation and even less long-term reward.

When the Platform Becomes the Brand

Beyond the financial strain, heavy reliance on property portals weakens an agent’s individual brand identity. The vast majority of buyers don’t see listings as belonging to specific agencies—they see them as Rightmove listings or Zoopla listings.This is a short termist view, which leaves many perfectly good high street estate agencies exposed and overly reliant on a totally unaccountable third party platform.

For potential clients, the agent behind the listing becomes secondary to the platform itself. Buyers and sellers interact with Rightmove first, with estate agents often treated as interchangeable service providers rather than trusted professionals with unique expertise. This is a fundamental issue for any agency looking to grow their reputation and establish a loyal client base.

The estate agent’s role is effectively being reduced to a supplier of stock, with Rightmove acting as the gatekeepers to the market. Agents pay high fees for exposure, yet receive no meaningful data ownership, no long-term brand recognition, and no ability to control the customer experience.

This level of dependency is dangerous. If a business model relies too heavily on a third party to generate leads, that business is at the mercy of that third party’s decisions. As one agent put it in the video above: “We’re paying to appear on someone else’s stage, in someone else’s show.”

What Happens When Rightmove Moves the Goalposts?

Agents have already faced sharp Rightmove price increases over recent years—but what happens when the costs rise again? Or when algorithmic changes suddenly push paying agencies to the top of results, leaving smaller players with limited visibility?

This isn’t speculation—it’s already happening. Rightmove’s premium listing tiers allow agents to pay for extra prominence. As competition intensifies, this model risks becoming pay-to-play, where budget, not quality, determines who gets seen.

We’ve seen this movie before. Just as Amazon has steadily raised fees for third-party sellers, Rightmove holds the same power to control visibility and hike costs without losing market share. For smaller or independent agencies, that’s a dangerous place to be.

This is why estate agents need to diversify their lead generation strategies sooner rather than later. By relying too much on Rightmove and Zoopla, agencies hand over control of their future to external platforms.

Why Estate Agents Need to Own Their Digital Presence

When agents rely too heavily on Rightmove to deliver traffic, leads, and visibility, they’re not just outsourcing marketing—they’re giving up ownership. Rightmove controls the user journey, the platform experience, and even the cost of appearing relevant. Agents, in contrast, are left paying rent on an audience they’ll never truly own.

A modern digital strategy reverses that dynamic. The foundation is a well-optimised website—built to rank in local search results, convert visitors into leads, and showcase the agency’s brand on its own terms. Add to this a smart mix of SEO, paid search, email marketing, and content, and estate agents can begin to generate inbound leads without relying on third-party platforms.

The benefits are deeper than just lower lead costs. Agents who build their own marketing infrastructure gain full control of their data, their audience, and their brand voice. These are long-term assets—ones that grow in value over time and build real equity in the business.

This frustration with Rightmove isn’t new. But it does feel like real change is afoot and awareness being generated by independent estate agents up and down the country. As Kristjan Byfield of Base Property Specialists warned in his open letter to Rightmove after leaving the platform in 2020, “The issues and reasons for our departure [from Rightmove] are not new and are far from unique – these sentiments have been echoed in articles, comments and social media for months if not years by agents up and down the country. For whatever reason, you have refused to listen – if there are larger repercussions, you only have yourselves to blame..”

That doesn’t mean agents should abandon Rightmove overnight. But they must build a digital strategy that works as if Rightmove didn’t exist—one that treats portal traffic as supplementary, not foundational.

The question estate agents now face is simple: Will you control your own pipeline—or continue paying someone else to control it for you?

Are you thinking of reducing your reliance on Rightmove to grow your estate agency online? We work with many independent estate agencies, helping them get their websites optimised and create a digital presence that they own. Book a call today and let’s have a chat.