ModelProp Founder Launches "Rightmove Resistance Tour"

ModelProp founder and U.K. property portal veteran Mal McCallion is launching a national roadshow aimed at helping estate agents reduce their reliance on Rightmove, driven by Agentic AI.

Branded the “Rightmove Resistance Tour,” the 60-day campaign kicks off on May 26 and will take McCallion across the country to meet agents face-to-face.

McCallion, who played a role in launching PrimeLocation and served as Zoopla’s first sales director, now heads ModelProp, a proptech company offering AI-driven solutions including virtual staging, automated listings, and customer service tools. The firm’s message is clear: agents no longer need to rely solely on dominant portals to execute digital strategies.

In a LinkedIn post, McCallion wrote that the tour is aimed at estate and letting agents who understand that no single player should dictate the direction of an industry.

"AI has arrived and it’s giving a one-off, time-limited opportunity to set you free from decades of dominant portal control."

"We’re bringing plans, product and proof – plus, most importantly, a new kind of partnership model that puts agents back in control of their digital destiny."

The campaign is the latest move by the industry to push back against Rightmove’s market power, from the Say No To Rightmove protests of 2020–21, February's call by East Sussex agent Shaun Adams for the Competition and Markets Authority to investigate alleged market abuse, and March's boycott launched by Wiggywam.

The tour will run through July, with 90-minute sessions scheduled to take place within 45 minutes of most agents’ offices across the U.K.

McCallion told Online Marketplaces:

"How capable are monopolistic portals like Rightmove of integrating a top quality AI offering? £300m profit a year suggests they are better placed than anyone else to do exactly that. So why haven't they?

"It's been 30 months since the 'ChatGPT Moment', when we first saw what Generative AI can do. All of the monopolistic players have more brains and cash than anyone else looking at this stuff—so they don't need me to tell them what to do, as they absolutely know already.

"They should be opening up their data to AI, revamping their sites, being really nice to the suppliers of that data (the agents) and knuckling down for a few years of lower revenues and significantly lower profits.

"If they're not going to do that—and, spoiler alert, they won't—then every challenger portal should be doing it instead, immediately."