Panmure Liberum has downgraded Rightmove to Hold from Buy and cut its target price to 545 pence from 585 pence, warning that 2027 is shaping up to be a difficult year for the property portal.
Analyst Sean Kealy said it is rare for both the agency and new homes segments to present a headwind to Rightmove simultaneously, but that is now the prospect facing the company.
Rightmove's stock is up around 20% since Panmure Liberum last wrote on it in July, but the broker said the housing market backdrop has materially deteriorated in that time.
Sales agreed tracked by Rightmove were down 9% in September and 8% in October, with the weakness in April and beyond more significant than the headline first-half figure of minus 6% suggests.
House prices are now falling, with both the Lloyds mortgage-financed house price index and Rightmove's own asking price index showing deterioration, particularly since July.
Mortgage rates have risen through the summer, with market expectations now pointing to the base rate increasing to 4.75% by September 2027, against expectations at the start of the year for cuts to around 3.35%.
Kealy said the shift is directly attributable to the impact of the Iran war, which began in March, on interest rate expectations.
Housebuilders are also running down work-in-progress stock at the fastest pace since the global financial crisis, creating a volume headwind that Kealy expects to persist through 2027.
Panmure Liberum is cutting its 2026 revenue growth forecast to 6% and EBIT growth to 2%, with 2027 revenue growth reduced to 5%.
That would be the third-lowest revenue growth rate Rightmove has ever reported as a public company, behind only the financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Kealy acknowledged Rightmove remains a high-quality, non-cyclical business deserving of a sector premium, and said commercial, mortgages and other faster-growing revenue lines would partially offset the core weakness.
Rightmove is also the eighth most shorted stock in the UK market, with around 25 days to cover, which Kealy said reflects the weak housing market trade rather than any company-specific concern.
