Property portal Rightmove (RMV) confirmed its outlook for FY26 despite weakness in the new build housing market. The group said it expects growth in its core estate agency business to offset ‘subdued’ new build rates.
On track for full year
Over the last few years, Rightmove has offered more tools to allow developers to promote their new homes on its site. These have proved popular with housebuilders and potential buyers alike, with leads increasing as a result.
However, the core of the business remains existing homes which are marketed via estate agents. Here it is seeing low growth, but crucially overall average revenue per advertiser is growing.
Revenue from strategic growth areas like commercial property, mortgages and rental services is expected to grow 20% this year. Therefore, group revenue as a whole is expected to grow by 8% to 10% for FY26.
H2 weighting
The firm also repeated its guidance of 3% to 5% growth in underlying operating profit and 5% growth in EPS. It did, however, note growth would be weighted to H2 due to weak H1 new build activity.
‘The team has executed strongly, with trading in line with expectations and guidance reaffirmed,’ commented CEO Johan Svanstrom.
Rightmove is still by far the most popular housing portal in the UK representing 80% of all viewing time according to Comscore. Moreover, over 85% of traffic is organic with very little coming from third party or AI sources.
The firm hasn’t stood still though – it has been incredibly busy upgrading its technology and launching new products. In the first four months of 2026 alone it made over 2,500 technology releases, with April marking a new monthly record.
Although the new build market is struggling, the existing home market is holding up reasonably well all things considered. The Nationwide survey shows annual selling prices up 3% in April while the Halifax survey also shows a rise.
Rightmove’s own survey shows new seller asking prices dipped by 0.9% in April due to competition for buyers. However, sales year-to-date are down just 3% on 2025 despite an 11-year high in the number of homes on the market.
It’s that last statistic which matters most because it’s the volume of houses being advertised which counts, not what price they fetch. The fact is, Rightmove remains the number one venue for agents to market properties by a long way.
Read the press release here:
https://plc.rightmove.co.uk/#results
