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Purplebricks will struggle to make headway in New York

Lonres chairman also claims Purplebricks is only making progress in lower value sectors of market both in the UK and US.

Nigel Lewis

Hybrid estate agency Purplebricks will struggle to make headway in its key US market of New York, it has been claimed.

These comments come William Carrington (pictured, above) the chairman of prime London property data and listings firm Lonres.

He says that New York is a different property market to the UK and highlights the huge cost to Purplebricks of gaining access to its potential riches, as highlighted in the company’s most recent financials.

Each listing in New York is costing Purplebricks $21,482 or £16,784, compared to just £312.50p in the UK.

Significant inroads

“I do not see them making any significant inroads into New York City which is a closed market with realtors who are embedded,” he says.

Carrington compares New York with London’s prime central neighbourhoods where Lonres says Purplebricks has just 1% of the market, 7% less than the national share claimed by TwentyCI’s recent research.

It’s recent report also confirmed that all of Purplebricks’ growth in the UK has come from the sub-£1m property market.

“Logic might dictate that a fixed-price service would be more attractive to sellers of higher-priced properties, but perhaps this group of vendors is motivated by factors other than just price,” says TwentyCI’s Customer Officer Colin Bradshaw.

Purplebricks launched in New York in April this year, three months ahead of its original schedule in a bid to catch the city’s Spring market, giving it access to 31 counties, 7.4 million households and 20 million people.

Purplebricks remains coy about the number of Local Property Experts working on its behalf in the US, but research reveals approximately 30 in Los Angeles, 20 in the Tri State Area around New York and 12 based out of Phoenix, Arizona.

August 14, 2018

One comment

  1. Some agencies set the bar so low, it’s hardly worth picking up the phone. These agencies will attract those vendors that are willing to accept this mediocrity as long as the service isn’t totally broken.

    Vendors that don’t bother to ask questions and instead rely on the pr. machine and the fake reviews sites in order to save them the bother of thinking for themselves.

    One has to question whether the original business model was to create an estate agency, or simply as a vehicle to attract investment.

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