The market dominance of property portal Rightmove looks set to come under threat after a falling out with one of the UK's biggest letting agents.
OpenRent, which works with thousands of landlords around the country to find tenants, will remove all of its listings from Rightmove when its current deal runs out at the end of this month.
The two companies had been in talks to strike a new deal but Rightmove confirmed on Tuesday morning that “conditions for OpenRent’s ongoing Rightmove membership could not be agreed”.
OpenRent is an online lettings agent that has the equivalent of 700 “branches” across the UK. OpenRent’s properties account for about 8% of all the rental homes listed on Rightmove.
Rightmove is the go-to website for house hunters in Britain and has around 750 properties across Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire listed on its portal.
Of all the hours Britons spend browsing homes online, more than 80% of their time is spent on Rightmove.
However, the market is sensitive to any sign that Rightmove’s dominant position is under threat now that OnTheMarket, a smaller property search site, has been bought by CoStar, the huge US property data group whose stated ambition is to unseat Rightmove.
But, this morning saw Rightmove announce the appointment of a new chief financial officer and executive director.
Ruaridh Hook will assume the positions from September 15, whilst the current CFO and executive director, Alison Dolan will step down on the same date.
Johan Svanstrom, chief executive officer of Rightmove said: "Ruaridh has tremendous knowledge of our business, commercial model and the market, and of course is already well known to so many team members across our organisation and outside it.
"He has worked closely alongside Alison and me in recent years, and was instrumental in developing our strategy, which we outlined last year.
"I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Ruaridh since I joined, and we look forward to delivering our strategy together with the full leadership team, and building on Rightmove's strong position and partnership model together."
FTSE 100
The UK's flagship share index, the FTSE 100, was up 35-points 8,062 shortly after opening this morning.
Brent crude oil futures were up 0.12%, trading at $76.57 a barrel.
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