Connells is now clear No.1 following Countrywide acquisition, industry data shows
Analysis of industry data shows that Connells overall has listed 14% of properties for sale over the past six months.
Connells has listed the largest number of properties over the past six months following its purchase of Countrywide, it has been revealed, making it the No.1 agency both as a standalone brand and corporate group.
This is based on analysis of property listings by referral site GetAgent.co.uk, which says the industry giant – which prior to its acquisition of Countrywide included Connells and 24 other brands – listed 14.1% of all properties during this period.
Competitor LSL ranks second but at just 3.2% of listing activity, they remain some way off the pace set by Connells.
Spicerhaart and its umbrella brands have come third with 2.1% of listing activity followed by Savills, Leaders Romans Group and Arun Estates.
GetAgent has also looked at individual agencies rather than their parent companies and say that again Connells is top dog at 2.5% of all listings followed by another Connells-owned brand, William H Brown (2.2%).
Haart takes the next place on the podium where individual estate agency brands are concerned at 1.6% of listings followed by Savills (1.5%), Your Move (1.4%) and Arun Estates (1.4%). Hunters, Winkworth, KFH, Bairstow Eves, Chancellors, Martin & Co, Reeds Rains, Knight Frank and Foxtons also feature.
“The nation’s estate agents have really stepped up to service the huge levels of buyer demand caused by the stamp duty holiday and it seems as though Connells has been leading the charge in this respect,” says GetAgent founder and CEO Colby Short (pictured).
“Of course, it’s important to note that in addition to the big corporate brands operating within the industry, there is also an army of independents helping to shoulder the burden.”
He says the research left out Purplebricks, which holds approximately 5% of listings by its own measure, so agents could compare apples with apples and keep the focus on proper estate agents’.
“The low cost, DIY approach of the online sector is no substitute for the value of a traditional, full-service agent,” says Short.
Everyone knows my views on Purplebricks, but listing 60,000 instructions year on year in the UK makes it a huge contender, and it is the ‘general public’ making this choice – so ‘Get Agent’ who have a strap line of ‘Find the Best Estate Agent for You – see which agent will do the best job of selling your home’ is possibly in breach of this commitment.
Also does GetAgent not have a commercial model where it takes a % of the agent’s commission if it successfully puts together a prospective vendor and an agent. So a referral fee underpins their enterprise?
I stand to be corrected on this – and message me directly if you are the CEO. But – if this is the case might it be that Purplebricks did not want to pay to be included?
Again conjecture on my part – but I seem to remember back in the day some comparison website asking me for a % of a fee if they introduced me to potential vendors, and I replied I had 42% market share of sales in a two-mile radius so probably their service was not for me, as we usually were invited out on most MA’s.
If this was not GetAgent I apologise for my lack of understanding what your business model is, maybe you just provide intel for the public as a service?
But if that is the case, then as the largest lister of property in the UK under one brand – why would you miss Purplebricks off your list?
On the Get Agent website it clearly states that it uses Land Registry data to determine who is the ‘best’ agent in an area, clearly omitting 40,000 completed sales a year from one agency would skew this data set and make a mockery of this claim –
I wonder if trading standards would be happy at this situation.
Maybe a proviso needs to be added to the Get Agent site – ‘we omit to include data for Purplebricks even though they are the most dominant lister of properties in the UK or similar’.