Insight & strategy understanding how we can smooth out that process, so, from going to look at a property on Rightmove to requesting, doing the referencing and getting the keys, happens in five minutes. That is the dream for us. Essentially, by setting a huge goal, we are trying to get to a point where the process is condensed. To help with this goal, Rightmove has bought Van Mildert, a referencing and insurance provider for agents and landlords, which it rebranded to Rightmove Landlord last year. The hope is that this will streamline the referencing process, especially for people moving to the UK from overseas, as well as encouraging online bookings for viewings. There is a bit of a stigma in being a renter over owning your own home and we are trying to reduce that, Oni says. This focus comes amid a turbulent housing market after the pandemic. Lockdown in 2020, and the accompanying moratorium on house sales and purchases, resulted in demand skyrocketing, with a surge in prices once the housing market reopened later that year. This was accompanied by a stampduty holiday and many house buyers People dont have time to consider the bigger picture decided to take advantage of the tax break. The market has run hot ever since. We saw a huge swell of demand, to the point where demand really has outstripped supply, observes Oni. Normally the housing market has a seasonal trend Januarys are very busy, then it dips, demand comes back around April, it dips again, you get the August/September boom, and then it dies down towards the end of the year. We are seeing a very different picture right now. It has been good from a demand point of view, but it is the stock and supply where our customers are really struggling. The insights department at Rightmove has been tracking the fluctuations in the housing market and has three broad categories that cover its current workload. The first is thought leadership examining consumer trends and behaviour, particularly how people search for a property and when they complete their house move. This includes the happy at home index, which showcases the happiest areas of the UK, with Hexham, Northumberland, the most recent winner. Oni explains that the research teams work enabled Rightmove to anticipate the housing surge post-lockdown, at a time when there were fears about what the state of the housing market could be during a major worldwide pandemic. Because we had access to a rich database of around four million home movers, we were able to predict it would be a booming house market, as there was a pent-up demand that we were able to identify, she says. The second category of work is audience insights, working to better understand the needs of people moving home, including those who simply browse the Rightmove website without buying. A lot of the outsourced work is qualitative and companies include Behavioural Architects and Jigsaw on customer work, plus consumer work with Sparkler. The third category is brand health tracking, including a business-tobusiness tracker and a business-toconsumer tracker, run by YouGov. 32 Impact ISSUE 37 2022_pp30-33 I&S Rightmove.indd 32 28/03/2022 14:59