Rightmove more than doubled sales in its mortgage unit to £4.7m last year, as the property portal continues to see the department as a “strategic growth area”.
The unit introduced over £24bn of potential lending to its partners, the firm said in its annual statement.
The digital division allows consumers to obtain “an almost instant” mortgage in principle through the portal from its lender partner. Or, customers can speak to one of its agent’s preferred brokers.
Last year was also the first full year of its Lead to Keys rental service. This is a digital end-to-end product for lettings agents, landlords and renters, that moves to rental agreements in five digitised steps.
The service launched at the end of 2023 with 31 agents, and has grown to over 500 agents by the end of last year.
During the year it added tenancy manager and enquiry manager features, to source and qualify potential tenants.
The group identifies commercial property, mortgages and rental services as its three strategic growth areas, which together contributed £23 to sales last year.
However, these remain a small part of the portal’s business as pre-tax profit slipped 1% to £258.4m, even as “estate agency partners upgraded their packages, increased their use of digital products and renewed contracts.”
Group sales rose 7% to £389.9m from a year ago.
The firm’s total membership rose by 1% to 19,047, while average revenue per advertiser rose £93 to £1,524 per month.
The minutes spent on its website rose 6% to a total of 16.4 billion minutes over the year compared to 12 months ago.
The firm said the Bank of England’s 0.25% cut to the base rate to 4.5% in February, “is beginning to feed through to lower lending rates for homemovers and industry participants”.
The business expects to boost group sales by between 8% to 10% in 2025.
Wealth Club manager of the quality shares portfolio Charlie Huggins said: “These are solid results from Rightmove, underlining the resilience of its business model.
“Despite the uncertain housing market, 2024 results were in line with expectations and the outlook is confident, with growth set to strengthen in 2025.”
Rightmove pointed out that it was the fourth-busiest UK-based digital platform last year, behind the BBC, digital publisher Reach, and the government’s own website, Gov.uk.
