Rightmove Raises EPS Guidance as Revenue Growth Slips Below Its Own Ambition

Rightmove has narrowed its 2026 revenue growth guidance to 6% to 7% in a trading update covering the four months to 31 October, and expects growth in 2027 to come in at a similar level. That leaves both years below the 8% to 10% a year the UK market leader set out for 2026 to 2028 when it announced its AI investment plans last November, even as it raises its earnings per share guidance. Highlights of the company's trading update include:

• 2026 revenue growth of 6% to 7%, within the previous 6% to 8% range, which was itself cut from 8% to 10% in July
• 2026 ARPA growth of £100 to £110, down from £110 to £120
• 2026 underlying operating profit growth of at least 3%, against a previous range of 3% to 5%
• 2026 underlying EPS growth upgraded to at least 7%, from at least 5%
• 2027 revenue growth similar to 2026, with ARPA growth of £100 to £110 and broadly flat Core membership
• 2027 underlying operating profit growth of 4% to 7% at a margin of at least 67%, and underlying EPS growth of at least 10%
• Estate Agency partner retention of 92% to the end of October (October 2025: 93%)
• About £125m returned to shareholders since 31 July, with a further £80m of buybacks planned before the year end

Johan Svanstrom, chief executive of Rightmove, said: "We are on track to deliver revenue and profit growth within our previous full-year guidance, and are upgrading our earnings per share guidance. Our core membership remains stable with strong partner retention levels. We continue to deliver value through all market cycles to our partners. This business resilience and the debt facility we announced at the time of our interim results have allowed us to increase shareholder distributions significantly."

The vast majority of Rightmove's revenue comes from the monthly subscriptions estate and letting agents pay to list on the portal, which it reports as Agency (£163.9m of £225.8m group revenue in the first half). Housebuilders paying to advertise new developments make up New Homes (£38.2m). The rest is in what Rightmove calls its Strategic Growth Areas, meaning commercial property, mortgages and rental services, which it expects to grow 20% to 30% in both 2026 and 2027.

The 8% to 10% figure dates from November 2025, when Rightmove said it would put an extra £12m through the P&L in 2026, plus around £6m of capitalised spend, into AI and new products, and cut its 2026 profit growth outlook to 3% to 5%. Its "investment stage" table for 2026 to 2028 set revenue growth at 8% to 10% a year, underlying operating profit growth at 3% to 10% and EPS growth at 5% to 12%, with a footnote saying these were ambitions rather than guidance. The shares fell 12% on the news. The revenue range survived the full-year results in February and the AGM update in May before New Homes forced the first cut at the half-year.

Rightmove again puts the shortfall down to New Homes, saying there were 6% fewer developments on site at 31 October than at the end of 2025 and it now expects New Homes revenue to finish the year below 2025. The company says the lower ARPA guidance "entirely reflects the dynamics in New Homes impacting developer spend", with no change to what it expects from estate agents. The UK government's Your First Home scheme for first-time buyers has cheered housebuilders, but with a launch pencilled in for the second quarter of 2027, Rightmove does not expect it to help volumes until later that year.

In the resale market, the average five-year fixed mortgage rate was 5.5% at 31 October against 5.0% at the end of June, and the Bank of England raised its base rate the day before the update. On Rightmove's own data, buyer demand fell 10% and sales agreed 9% in the period. Those conditions are behind the expectation that 2027 revenue will grow at about the same pace as this year, with Core membership broadly flat.

Next year's underlying operating profit growth of 4% to 7% sits within the 3% to 10% range Rightmove set out for 2026 to 2028, and EPS growth of at least 10% is close to the top of its 5% to 12% range. Rightmove credits product launches, productivity gains and cost discipline for the improvement in 2027, and says it has raised its productivity target for next year. This year's EPS upgrade arrives as the portal operator drops the top end of its operating profit range, so the extra earnings per share come from a smaller share count.

Rightmove has bought back £95m of stock since 31 July, partly funded by the revolving credit facility it agreed with its half-year results, and reiterated a plan to return more than £400m between 31 July 2026 and 31 July 2027. In September, the Sunday Times reported that US activist Sachem Head, which holds around 6%, was pushing the company to borrow to fund buybacks.

Rightmove added a Comparison Assistant to its Ask Rightmove conversational search in October and says consumers who used any part of the tool spent more than twice as long on site and sent more than three times as many leads as those who did not, a comparison that will partly reflect who chooses to try it. Call transcription is now included in every Estate Agency package, and the company says more than 2m calls have been transcribed since its launch in late Q3, while 14,000 agents have used its Rightmove Plus AI Assistant. Rightmove puts traffic from large language models at under 1% of the total. In May and July the ceiling it quoted was 0.5%.

The update makes no mention of the £1.5bn collective action brought by former CMA panel member Jeremy Newman, which alleges Rightmove charged agents and housebuilders excessive fees between April 2020 and April 2026. The Competition Appeal Tribunal heard the application to certify the claim on 2 and 3 November, with Rightmove arguing that businesses which spent more than £1m with it should have to opt in rather than be included automatically. No ruling has been published. In July Rightmove put the claim's exceptional costs for 2026 at £4m to £7m.

The ambition Rightmove set for 2030 in that November update is revenue growth of at least 10% a year, three to four percentage points above the pace it now expects for 2027.