Agencies & People
News covering the businesses, activities, people and personalities in estate agency and letting agency and wider residential property industry.
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Purplebricks is now “the largest estate agent in the UK by listings”
The City advisor and sole broker to Purplebricks, Zeus Capital, has claimed that the hybrid agent is now the largest estate agent in the UK by the number of listings on Rightmove. This is well ahead of recent claims by London investment firm Peel Hunt, which earlier this year said it would take another year to two years for Purplebricks to become the largest agent in the UK by market share. The new claim was made by Zeus Capital’s Research Director Robin Savage during a recorded interview with an investment website. Purplebricks says it has 16,498 properties for sale on Rightmove but won’t say how many properties it has sold since launch. Its largest competitor, Countrywide, said in its most recent trading update that it sold over 50,000 houses last year, but doesn’t reveal how many it has for sale. Not terribly happy During the interview, Robin Savage also claims that criticism of Purplebricks by agents is because the hybrid agent’s growth has come “at the cost of its competitors who are not terribly happy”. He also made several punchy predictions for Purplebricks including that Purplebricks is seven months ahead of Zeus Capital’s growth predictions for Local Property Expert recruitment.…
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Pattinson sells all lots!
A company that holds property auctions in the Midlands is selling its houses so fast that it had to cancel the last live auction because it had already sold all of the lots.
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Purplebricks CEO bats off criticisms over TrustPilot reviews
Michael Bruce has said he is proud of the company’s 27,000 TrustPilot reviews despite recent problems with its listings on the online business reviews site. This includes most recently that reviews were removed by TrustPilot after Purplebricks mistakenly invited UK customers to review on its US listing on the site. The comments are made in this morning’s Purplebricks trading update ahead of its Annual General Meeting today at the offices of its PR firm. TrustiPilot reviews The company has also been criticised for its aggressive attempts to get TrustPilot reviews of its service removed that it considers unverified or not genuine. Despite these difficulties, the company says it is on track to reach its £80m revenue target set in June within its 2016/2017 final results. And Purplebricks says its revenues for the first six months of its financial year, which began on 1st May, are already likely to be double those of the previous year and that it has increased the number of Local Property Experts from 540 to 640. This includes three LPEs in South East Kent who are all related – couple Julian and Sarah Hunt and their daughter Joanna (pictured, above), highlighted by Purplebricks. Purplebricks also says…
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Cheffins acquires Dodson Jones
Multi-disciplinary property and auctioneering business, Cheffins, has acquired Dodson Jones, the Cambridge-based commercial property consultancy.
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William H Brown Acquisitions
William H Brown, part of Sequence UK, has acquired two agency businesses, Barnfields in Enfield and Cory & Co in Harwich.
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Belvoir says ‘little agents’ video attracted two million people via social media
Belvoir, the UK’s largest high street property franchise, says its recent #littleagents video campaign attracted an extra two million visits to its social media accounts. The four-minute video, which was watched 1,900 times on YouTube, featured three young children conducting viewings of properties, and included one hilarious scene where the two bespectacled boys (pictured, right) insist ‘kitchen/diner’ is spelt ‘kitchen/dinner’ on their hand-drawn floorplans. The campaign kicked off in March. Belvoir has launched a follow-up YouTube video following the success of #littleagents, but this time featuring grown-ups, called #MovingMemories. New video Rather than go for comedy, Belvoir this time attempts to pull the heart strings of viewers with a two-minute video of short interviews with home people about how they felt about moving up, down and along the property ladder. This includes a two loved-up and recently-engaged young couples buying their first homes (pictured, left), a mum and dad with two children moving out of a flat into a house and an elderly down-sizing couple. All of them talk about what they most like about their new homes, and – particularly the two first time buying couples – how jealous their friends are. The video is in support of a…
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Nick Dunning Associates acquires Stirling Ackroyd
Nick Dunning Associates has expanded its footprint in Central London and the city fringes with the acquisition of six-branch agency Stirling Ackroyd.
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Three agents investigated after being reported over misleading claims
Claims made in three different estate agents’ leaflets and circulars distributed in Scotland, Sheffield and Somerset have been challenged by members of the public for being misleading and reported to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). After being approached by the watchdog the agents have promised not to repeat the claims made in the leaflets, which included competitor comparisons, inaccurate information about a portal listing and claims about ‘prices achieved’. Happy Sales & Lettings, which is based in Sheffield, distributed a leaflet that listed a number of competitors’ sold and unsold properties in a table format. One of the competitors, local firm Crucible Sales & Lettings, challenged whether the information in the leaflet was both misleading and the information verifiable. Happy Sales & Lettings said the leaflet was no longer being distributed, and promised to ensure future competitor comparison information was clearly signposted in future ads. Lewis Gray was reported to the ASA because the company claimed in a circular that it listed properties on Zoopla when it did not, and has now removed references to the portal in its print and online material. And Scottish RE/MAX franchisee John Slaven had his circular challenged after a member of the public spotted…
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Auction revenues up!
David Sandeman, auction guru at Essential Information Group (EIG) reports that 144 auctions were held, with 3657 Lots Offered and 2774 Lots Sold (commercial and residential) in July - 24 fewer than last year...
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Competition watchdog reveals more details of Burnham agent cartel
The government’s competition watchdog has made the unusual move of publishing more details of its recent investigation into price-fixing in the seaside town of Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset. In March this year the Competition and Markets Authority fined a group of agents in the town a total of nearly £380,000 after its investigation uncovered that they had held a meeting at which they agreed to fix their minimum commission rates at 1.5%. But the CMA believes that, because this is the second time it has caught agents undertaking such anti-competitive behaviour in recent years, it’s concerned that agents still don’t realise how serious such conduct is – or its consequences. The earlier case involved an association of estate agent in Hampshire who in May 2015 were revealed to have colluded with a local newspaper over the publishing of fees and discounts in adverts. Burnham cartel To highlight this, the CMA has published details of how the Burnham cartel was set up, discussed and what was said at the clandestine meeting. The agents involved were Gary Berryman Estates Ltd, Abbot and Frost Limited, Greenslade Taylor Hunt and West Coast Property Services (UK). The CMA says the anti-competitive activity kicked off in 2014…
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