United Kingdom · rightmove.co.uk
Rightmove alerts that follow the search, not the send queue
Rightmove decides when a property is worth re-announcing. Notifio just watches your search results page every 30 seconds and tells you what changed.
One-time payment · No subscription · Runs on your own machine
Rightmove's instant alerts are good. They are also one-shot.
Credit where it is due: Rightmove lets you set Property Alerts to instantly, daily, every 3 days or every 7 days, and if you have them on daily you should change that today. The instant setting is the right one and it costs nothing.
It is worth being precise about what instantly means, though. It describes when Rightmove decides you should hear about a property, not when the email lands. Between the two sits an alert job working out whose saved searches the property matches, a bulk email system that is sending the same announcement to every one of them, and a send queue that empties at its own pace. Rightmove is optimising for every alert eventually arriving, which is a different target from your alert arriving first, and in a market where a flat collects its viewing quota in an afternoon, the difference between those two targets is the whole outcome.
The limitation is structural rather than a matter of speed. A Rightmove alert is an announcement about an event, namely a property being published, or being reduced by 2% or more, which Rightmove says will send it out in the instant alert emails. It is not a view of your search. Rightmove's own help centre carries an article for agents who want one of their properties to go back out in the property alerts, and the existence of that article tells you what you need to know: whether you hear about a property a second time is the agent's decision, mediated by Rightmove's relisting rules.
In a rental market that matters, because a large share of the flats you would actually take become available without being new. A let falls through. An agent takes a property off and puts it back. A price comes down by one percent, not two, and drops into your filter. Notifio does not care which of those happened: it compares your search results page against the last check, every 30 seconds, and if something is on it that was not there before, you get an email with a link.
The other thing worth knowing is that Notifio is not limited to portals. Letting agents frequently put stock on their own site before it syndicates to Rightmove. If you have three agents you keep checking, those are three more monitors, and they cost nothing extra.
Sources, so you can check whether Rightmove has changed this since we wrote it: Rightmove – How the Property Alerts work · Rightmove – Putting a property back out in the alerts · Rightmove – How to register for Property Alerts
Setting up a Rightmove monitor
Example search URL
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/find.html?locationIdentifier=REGION%5E87490&maxPrice=1750&minBedrooms=2&sortType=6A two-bed rental search in London up to £1,750, sorted newest first. sortType=6 is the newest-first sort, so keep it in the URL.
- 1
Build the search and set sortType to newest
Search on Rightmove as normal, then change the sort to 'Newest Listed'. The URL will pick up sortType=6. This matters more here than elsewhere: Rightmove's default sort is by price, and a page sorted by price reshuffles constantly for reasons that have nothing to do with new stock.
- 2
Copy the whole find.html URL
The locationIdentifier is an opaque region code, and everything else, from the price ceiling and bedrooms to the radius and whether to include let-agreed, hangs off it as query parameters. Copy the lot.
- 3
Decide about let-agreed
Including let-agreed properties means you get alerted when one comes back on the market, which is exactly the case portal alerts handle worst. It also means more noise. Most people who are serious about a competitive area leave them in.
- 4
Add your local agents as monitors too
Find the letting page on two or three agency sites you rate and add those URLs as separate monitors. Agents commonly publish to their own site first, and this is the part no portal alert can do for you.
What to know about monitoring Rightmove
- Does it need a login?
- None needed. Rightmove's search results are public, so Notifio can watch your search without a MyRightmove account.
- How the page loads
- Rightmove renders results client-side and is attentive to automated traffic. Notifio uses a real browser engine with randomised gaps between checks, which is why a monitor looks like a person with a tab open rather than a crawler.
- Auto-reply on this site
- Rightmove enquiries go through its own contact form to the agent. Auto-reply can complete it once you have shown it the flow, but it is in beta, and on Rightmove specifically, a short personal message tends to beat a fast generic one.
Rightmove alerts: common questions
Rightmove already has instant alerts. Why would I pay for this?
Two reasons. Instant is when Rightmove decides to tell you, after which the email still crosses an alert job, a bulk mailer and a send queue shared with everyone else who saved that search, while Notifio reads the page directly every 30 seconds and mails one person. And Rightmove only announces publications and reductions of 2% or more, so it will not tell you when a let-agreed property quietly comes back, when an agent relists, or when a smaller reduction moves a flat into your budget.
Can I monitor a letting agent's own website?
Yes, and it is one of the better reasons to use Notifio in the UK. Agents often publish to their own site before the portal feed catches up. Any page that lists properties in a browser can be a monitor.
Does this work for buying as well as renting?
It works on any Rightmove search URL, sale or rental. The app was built for the rental market, where minutes matter most, but nothing stops you pointing it at a for-sale search.
Will I get duplicate alerts if I watch Rightmove and Zoopla?
For properties listed on both, yes, the same flat will alert twice. Naming each monitor after the site it watches makes that obvious at a glance rather than confusing.
Most people watch more than one site
Notifio runs every monitor at once, so Rightmove does not have to be the only search you are watching. These are the ones people usually pair it with.
Start watching Rightmove today
One payment, a lifetime licence, and every monitor you can think of. Mac and Windows, updates included, nothing to cancel.