Record traffic for property website Rightmove
Record numbers of people have been using Rightmove's website, suggesting it has benefited from the current uncertainty in the property market.
House nous: Rightmove accounts for 83% of all pages viewed on the four main property websites
Page viewings during July to September were 16% higher than in the same period of 2009, which had itself been a strong period for site traffic.
August was its second busiest month ever, with record numbers of people viewing the site on two days during the month, while visitors have remained high during September following its recent advertising campaign.
The increase comes despite the fact that property transactions are currently running at around half their usual level, with many commentators warning that the housing market could be heading for a double dip.
But Rightmove said it had benefited from the current 'wait and see' approach being adopted by buyers, as people who were nervous about taking the plunge spent longer researching properties online in a bid to gauge what was happening in the market.
It has also been boosted by a rise in the number of people selling their homes, saying potential sellers often viewed its site for several months before putting their home on the market to see how quickly properties in their area were selling and how much their home was worth.
The group has also benefited from a steady increase in market share, and now accounts for 83% of all pages viewed on the four main property websites.
The number of estate agents and letting agents advertising on the site was 5% higher than at the beginning of the year, reaching 14,850 by the end of September, with all of the growth coming from estate agents.
There was slightly slower growth in the total number of advertisers on the site, which includes house builders and overseas firms, with this rising by 2.5% to 18,100.
But the group said there were further increases to the average revenue per advertiser, as it felt the full benefit of the raised membership fees it introduced between January and May.
There was also greater take up of its advertising products, as estate agents looked to have some of their properties displayed more prominently on the site in a bid to combat the current oversupply of homes on the market.
Overall, the group said it had continued to see 'healthy growth' in revenue and earnings during the four months to the end of October, with strong cash generation. At the end of September it had £31.3m of net cash.
Rightmove said it was confident of meeting expectations for the current year, while it should achieve 'significant' organic growth in 2011, assuming housing market conditions remain challenging but do not get substantially worse.
It is paying an interim dividend of 5p per share, up 2p from last year.
Since the end of August, it has also bought back 470,000 shares at a cost of £3.1m.
The group said it planned to continue to return cash to shareholders through share buy backs.
Analysts at Numis said: 'Rightmove has released a solid interim management statement confirming that the last four months have 'continued to show healthy growth in revenue and earnings' and that 'changes to pricing are progressing according to plan'.
'We are maintaining forecasts, although see scope for material upgrades once there is greater visibility over price rises in early 2011.'
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