Reallymoving, the comparison site for home movers, celebrates its 25th birthday this month after starting life as a ‘kitchen table start-up’ in 1999, when home internet was still in its infancy and movers relied on the Yellow Pages to find a solicitor or removals firm.
Still majority-owned and run by co-founders, husband and wife team Rob Houghton and Rosie Rogers, reallymoving is now used by approximately one in ten homebuyers in the UK to find verified conveyancing, surveying and removals services, comparing prices and reviews.
Over the last 25 years they have assisted over 3.6 million customers, providing leads for £2.5 billion of work for their property industry panels.
In 1999 Rob and Rosie were living in St Albans and with their second baby on the way, they needed to move urgently. Yet when they found a property they wanted to buy, they discovered how difficult it was to find reliable home move services. Their experience planted the seed for a business idea and a few weeks after their son was born, Rob resigned from his job. Alongside Rosie and a third co-founder James Barford, with £10,000 of savings he began developing an online directory for home movers.
With the internet still a relatively new concept, they commissioned a friend to build a prototype website, originally called ‘Good Move’. Initially conveyancers and surveyors were sceptical, but many were aware of the potential of the internet and were looking for a way to get involved.
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Monday morning was the site’s busiest time, as home internet was still not widespread and people would view properties at the weekend before logging on to reallymoving at work on Monday to find the services they needed. The business survived the dot com crash and later the global financial crisis, but the idea took off once home broadband became widespread – followed by smart phones – and today two thirds of the firm’s traffic is mobile.
Reallymoving continues to be based in St Albans, employing 36 people, with Rob at the helm as CEO. He said:
“When we launched reallymoving twenty-five years ago, nobody knew what a comparison site was and some people still believed the internet might not catch on. Rosie and I are incredibly proud to have steered the company to where we are today – a major player in the residential property market and the go-to comparison site for anyone moving home.”
