Purplebricks has hit its first purple patch after it was revealed today that group revenues for the financial year are likely to be 5% lower than its target of £98 million.

In a statement released this morning, the company says a difficult few weeks during late February and early March are to blame for the drop in performance, although Purplebricks says overall group cashflow is on track to be double that of last year’s, helped by good performances from its US and Australian operations.

It blames the slowdown on “macro issues” within the economy – presumably the ongoing Brexit jitters – plus the ‘Beast from the East’ storm and the fact that 10% of its LPEs were withdrawn from the market for a training course during late February and early March.

These factors drove down sales instructions by 17% during the first three weeks of this month year-on-year, Purplebricks reveals.

New instructions

“While Purplebricks has experienced strong growth in its UK division to date and it continues to build market share in both the total estate agency market and hybrid estate agency sector in the UK, it has experienced lower than expected levels of new instructions for the Company during the period,” its trading update says.

“However, the Company is now beginning to see the expected spring market activity building even though the backdrop of relative market softness persists. “During the last 10 days Purplebricks has achieved record levels of instructions which translate to a monthly run rate of nearly 7,000 instructions.”

The company also says it has increased its UK market share within the hybrid/online market, from 74% in December to 76.1% this month.

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