New Year Starts with Record Traffic and Possible Hike in ARPA for Rightmove

Having released a statement around unprecedented new years' traffic, the British market-leading property portal Rightmove has followed up with reported record traffic figures for January. The site visitation figures were up 39% and the average time on the site saw gains of 44% on those seen in the same month of 2020. These engagement figures reportedly translated to a 7% increase in sales leads and a 14% increase in rental leads for the company's agent customers.

With the stamp-duty holiday in the British property market potentially set to come to an end soon Rightmove has also seen a high percentage of sales falling through (7% higher than January 2020) and a decrease in new listings coming to market (down 21%).

The release of these traffic and lead figures comes at an excellent time for Rightmove with the Milton-Keynes based company having seen a lot of headlines in the industry press around its rival Zoopla's new vision for agents and the impending launch of new challenger Boomin.

Apart from a boost in traffic, the new year may also see a boost for Rightmove's revenue as UK agency publication The Negotiator is reporting that the firm is taking the opportunity to increase prices for agencies whose contracts are up for renewal, quoting one single-branch independent agency which was told to expect a price hike of 11%.

With the noise around the Say No To Rightmove campaign having died down of late and its share price having been stuck in a holding pattern since August, Rightmove may view a time of increased traffic and leads as the perfect time to go to its tried and tested tactic of increasing average revenue per advertiser (ARPA).