What would happen to Rightmove if it was bought?
Thought Leadership by Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR
The latest activist move against Rightmove raises a much bigger question than whether the property portal’s share price has fallen too far: what would Rightmove actually look like if somebody bought it?
US activist investor Sachem Head has built a 6 per cent stake in Rightmove, with reports suggesting it believes the company has been oversold because of fears about artificial intelligence. The Sunday Times reports that Sachem has been encouraging the company to consider debt-funded share buybacks, while the market has interpreted its position as potentially signalling that Rightmove could become a takeover target.
That possibility is particularly interesting because Rightmove is not simply another technology company.
It is one of the most powerful pieces of digital infrastructure in the UK property market.
Rightmove reported revenue of £425.1 million for 2025, up 9 per cent, with underlying operating profit of £297.7 million and a 70 per cent underlying operating margin. Agency revenue alone reached £304.7 million.
It also remains extraordinarily dominant with consumers. Rightmove says more than 80 per cent of time spent on UK property portals in 2025 was spent on its platform, while total time spent on its website and apps reached 16.8 billion minutes.
So what would a new owner actually be buying?
The answer is much bigger than a property-listing website.
The data opportunity
For years, Rightmove has been described primarily as a portal: somewhere consumers go to look at houses and somewhere agents pay to advertise them.
But the underlying asset is the enormous amount of property-market information passing through the platform.
Listings, asking prices, property types, geographical demand, agent activity, new-build supply, consumer behaviour and the relationship between properties and the professionals marketing them all create a potentially valuable data ecosystem.
A new owner could therefore view Rightmove less as a classified advertising business and more as a property intelligence company with the UK’s largest consumer audience attached to it.
That could change the strategic emphasis.
Rather than simply charging agents increasingly higher subscription prices, an owner could attempt to build a much broader property-information infrastructure around the portal.
That could include mortgages, conveyancing, valuations, insurance, utilities, moving services, property management and increasingly sophisticated AI-powered transaction services.
Rightmove is already moving in that direction. Its “Other” businesses, including Mortgages, Commercial and Rental Services, grew 11 per cent in 2025.
AI could become an opportunity rather than a threat
The irony of the current situation is that AI is simultaneously being blamed for Rightmove’s falling valuation and potentially making the company more strategically valuable.
The fear is obvious.
If consumers stop searching manually through property portals and instead ask an AI agent to find them a house, the traditional portal interface becomes less important.
But there is another interpretation.
If AI becomes the new interface for property search, the companies possessing the best underlying property data become extremely important.
An AI agent still needs to know which homes are available, what they cost, where they are, who is selling them and how they compare with alternatives.
That makes Rightmove’s underlying data potentially more valuable, not less.
The strategic question for a buyer would therefore be whether to defend the traditional portal model or accelerate Rightmove into becoming the data and transaction layer behind the next generation of property search.
The agent relationship would be critical
There would, however, be a major constraint. Rightmove’s relationship with estate agents is the foundation of its business.
The 2025 annual report shows 16,385 agency branches using the platform, with agency membership up 2 per cent and retention at 90 per cent. Agency average revenue per advertiser increased 6 per cent to £1,530. Any new owner would therefore have to tread carefully. A financial buyer could see an obvious opportunity to increase margins, cut costs and extract more cash.
But property portals are unusual businesses. Their value depends upon maintaining a delicate three-way relationship between consumers, agents and property supply. Push agents too hard and alternatives become more attractive. Damage consumer trust and traffic suffers. Reduce investment in technology and competitors or new AI interfaces can exploit the gap.
The biggest asset is ultimately the network effect.
The previous takeover attempt is revealing
This is not the first time Rightmove has found itself at the centre of takeover speculation. In 2024, Australia’s REA Group made several approaches, eventually reaching a proposal valued at approximately £6.1 billion, equivalent to 770p per Rightmove share. Rightmove rejected the proposal, saying it materially undervalued the company.
Two years later, the circumstances are different. Rightmove’s market value has fallen substantially, while the company remains highly profitable and deeply embedded in the UK housing market. The Times currently puts its value at around £3.6 billion.
That creates an intriguing situation. A company that once appeared expensive to potential buyers may now look considerably more affordable — precisely while the underlying business continues to generate substantial cash.
What would a buyer really be buying?
Ultimately, the prize would not simply be Rightmove’s website. It would be the position Rightmove occupies between Britain’s homes, estate agents and consumers. A new owner could potentially accelerate investment in AI, property data and transaction services while using Rightmove’s enormous audience to distribute those products.
It could also take the business private, giving management greater freedom to invest without the quarterly pressures of the stock market. But there is an important counterargument.
Rightmove has already demonstrated that it can generate substantial growth and extraordinary margins while remaining independent. Its 2025 results showed revenue up 9 per cent and operating profit up 12 per cent. The fascinating question, therefore, is not simply whether somebody could buy Rightmove.
It is what they would do with it once they owned it. Would they see a highly profitable property portal to be financially engineered? Or would they see something much more interesting: one of the UK’s most valuable property datasets, connected to millions of consumers and thousands of property professionals, at precisely the moment when AI is beginning to change how people search for homes?
If it is the latter, the next chapter of Rightmove could be considerably bigger than the portal that exists today.
The latest activist move against Rightmove raises a much bigger question than whether the property portal’s share price has fallen too far, what would Rightmove actually look like if somebody bought it?
US activist investor Sachem Head has built a 6 per cent stake in Rightmove, with reports suggesting it believes the company has been oversold because of fears about artificial intelligence. The Sunday Times reports that Sachem has been encouraging the company to consider debt-funded share buybacks, while the market has interpreted its position as potentially signalling that Rightmove could become a takeover target.
That possibility is particularly interesting because Rightmove is not simply another technology company. It is one of the most powerful pieces of digital infrastructure in the UK property market. Rightmove reported revenue of £425.1 million for 2025, up 9 per cent, with underlying operating profit of £297.7 million and a 70 per cent underlying operating margin. Agency revenue alone reached £304.7 million.
It also remains extraordinarily dominant with consumers. Rightmove says more than 80 per cent of time spent on UK property portals in 2025 was spent on its platform, while total time spent on its website and apps reached 16.8 billion minutes. So what would a new owner actually be buying? The answer is much bigger than a property-listing website.
The data opportunity
For years, Rightmove has been described primarily as a portal: somewhere consumers go to look at houses and somewhere agents pay to advertise them. But the underlying asset is the enormous amount of property-market information passing through the platform.
Listings, asking prices, property types, geographical demand, agent activity, new-build supply, consumer behaviour and the relationship between properties and the professionals marketing them all create a potentially valuable data ecosystem.
A new owner could therefore view Rightmove less as a classified advertising business and more as a property intelligence company with the UK’s largest consumer audience attached to it. That could change the strategic emphasis. Rather than simply charging agents increasingly higher subscription prices, an owner could attempt to build a much broader property-information infrastructure around the portal.
That could include mortgages, conveyancing, valuations, insurance, utilities, moving services, property management and increasingly sophisticated AI-powered transaction services. Rightmove is already moving in that direction. Its “Other” businesses, including Mortgages, Commercial and Rental Services, grew 11 per cent in 2025.
AI could become an opportunity rather than a threat
The irony of the current situation is that AI is simultaneously being blamed for Rightmove’s falling valuation and potentially making the company more strategically valuable. The fear is obvious.
If consumers stop searching manually through property portals and instead ask an AI agent to find them a house, the traditional portal interface becomes less important. But there is another interpretation. If AI becomes the new interface for property search, the companies possessing the best underlying property data become extremely important.
An AI agent still needs to know which homes are available, what they cost, where they are, who is selling them and how they compare with alternatives. That makes Rightmove’s underlying data potentially more valuable, not less.
The strategic question for a buyer would therefore be whether to defend the traditional portal model or accelerate Rightmove into becoming the data and transaction layer behind the next generation of property search.
The agent relationship would be critical
There would, however, be a major constraint. Rightmove’s relationship with estate agents is the foundation of its business. The 2025 annual report shows 16,385 agency branches using the platform, with agency membership up 2 per cent and retention at 90 per cent. Agency average revenue per advertiser increased 6 per cent to £1,530.
Any new owner would therefore have to tread carefully. A financial buyer could see an obvious opportunity to increase margins, cut costs and extract more cash. But property portals are unusual businesses. Their value depends upon maintaining a delicate three-way relationship between consumers, agents and property supply.
Push agents too hard and alternatives become more attractive. Damage consumer trust and traffic suffers. Reduce investment in technology and competitors or new AI interfaces can exploit the gap. The biggest asset is ultimately the network effect.
This is why OpenRent has been targeted, it is the same playbook that will be used by any acquirer of Rightmove, being the biggest until now, private company in the rental listing sector (Rightmove of course is a different animal being listed on the LSE). The announcement of that OpenRent deal in August 2026 is telling, note the phrase OpenRent’s ‘next phase of growth and innovation‘ – clearly the business model will pivot moving forward.
‘OpenRent, the UK’s leading property rental platform, is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with CVC, one of the world’s largest investment firms. Funds under the management of CVC are making a majority investment in OpenRent, with founders Adam Hyslop and Darius Bradbury remaining significant shareholders and continuing to lead the company. The partnership backs OpenRent’s next phase of growth and innovation as it continues to transform how millions of landlords and tenants rent homes in the UK.’
The previous takeover attempt is revealing
This is not the first time Rightmove has found itself at the centre of takeover speculation. In 2024, Australia’s REA Group made several approaches, eventually reaching a proposal valued at approximately £6.1 billion, equivalent to 770p per Rightmove share. Rightmove rejected the proposal, saying it materially undervalued the company.
Two years later, the circumstances are different. Rightmove’s market value has fallen substantially, while the company remains highly profitable and deeply embedded in the UK housing market. The Times currently puts its value at around £3.6 billion. That creates an intriguing situation.
A company that once appeared expensive to potential buyers may now look considerably more affordable — precisely while the underlying business continues to generate substantial cash.
What would a buyer really be buying?
Ultimately, the prize would not simply be Rightmove’s website. It would be the position Rightmove occupies between Britain’s homes, estate agents and consumers. A new owner could potentially accelerate investment in AI, property data and transaction services while using Rightmove’s enormous audience to distribute those products. It could also take the business private, giving management greater freedom to invest without the quarterly pressures of the stock market.
But there is an important counterargument. Rightmove has already demonstrated that it can generate substantial growth and extraordinary margins while remaining independent. Its 2025 results showed revenue up 9 per cent and operating profit up 12 per cent. The fascinating question, therefore, is not simply whether somebody could buy Rightmove. It is what they would do with it once they owned it.
Would they see a highly profitable property portal to be financially engineered? Or would they see something much more interesting: one of the UK’s most valuable property datasets, connected to millions of consumers and thousands of property professionals, at precisely the moment when AI is beginning to change how people search for homes? If it is the latter, the next chapter of Rightmove could be considerably bigger than the portal that exists today.
What I see more than anything is that AI’s invisible hand is no both upending and at the same time giving some brave investors the vision that businesses can both become ‘human’ leaner with smaller sales forces.
With a change to the business model, Rightmove being trusted b2c brand could become the single full property transaction platform, washing away the national cottage industry of how agents and conveyancers and lenders actually transact residential property business for the last 50 years.
Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR
