Why we acquired home.co.uk

On 4 November 2025, we announced that Homemove had acquired home.co.uk. This is the thinking behind that decision.

What we saw in the market

The UK property portal market has been dominated by the same two or three names for the better part of twenty years. For most of that time, "list on the portals" has meant one thing practically: pay Rightmove. The pricing has reflected that monopoly position, and estate agents have paid it, because there was no credible alternative. We wrote more about that structural gap in the case for a challenger portal.

We think that is changing, and we think home.co.uk is how we help change it.

What home.co.uk brought to the table

Home.co.uk was founded in 1995. That is thirty years of data, thirty years of trust from the independent end of the property market, and thirty years of building something that was never owned by an estate agency conglomerate or a private equity firm with an exit strategy. We go into that history in more detail in home.co.uk is 30 years old: here is what comes next.

The original founders, Ben Horton and Doug Shephard, built a site known for honest data and independence. We wanted to build on that reputation, not replace it.

The name stays. The independence stays. What changes is the team behind it, the technology underneath it, and the ambition.

What we brought to home.co.uk

Homemove was founded in 2022 with a simple observation: buying or renting a home involves a dozen different services, the portal search, the survey, the conveyancer, the mortgage broker, the removals firm, the broadband check, and they are all scattered across different companies with no coordination between them.

We have spent three years building the connected layer: a platform that does not just list the property but handles what comes after you find one. Surveys, conveyancing, removals, mortgages, broadband. We also built AI tools, starting with the surveyor report writer (Otto) and the property valuation council, because the data available in UK property is rich and largely unused.

Home.co.uk gives us the front door. The platform we have built is what happens once you walk through it. Today that front door carries 1,249,531 live listings across the UK, sale and rental combined, including 45,623 new-build listings, everything from a 3-bed house in Fringford, Oxfordshire at £350,000 to a 1-bed flat on Henry Street, Manchester at £195,000.

What we are not doing

We are not taking home.co.uk upmarket and charging estate agents more. The listing stays free, and we explain why in why listings on Home are free for estate agents.

We are not trying to replicate what Rightmove does. We are building something different: a portal that earns its keep by being useful to buyers, renters, sellers and agents, not by being the only show in town.

The people

Ben Horton and Doug Shephard are staying on as strategic advisers. Their knowledge of the data and the market is something we want in the room, not left at the door.

This post was originally published on 4 November 2025 to accompany the acquisition announcement.