‘Overcrowded hybrid and online agency sector will soon consolidate like portals did’

The current over-supply of online and hybrid agents will soon consolidate down from around 80 at the moment to a handful of main players, it has been claimed. Bob Scarff, the former MD of Countrywide’s Estate Agency Division and now MD of telephony technology firm Callwell, says the current position where many are jockeying for position behind Purplebricks is very similar to the mid-noughties. At that time a huge number of property portals vied to be No.2 in the market behind Rightmove. “I remember one day at Countrywide when we sat down and counted the number of places that were displaying our stock and it was nearly 100 or a similar ridiculous number,” he says. “So just like the portals, I believe the hybrids or ‘agents without branches’ as I prefer to call them will also go through a consolidation.” AllAgents.com currently lists 78 online and hybrid agencies operating in the UK and Bob says these agents will boil down to a key half a dozen including Hatched, Yopa, Purplebricks and Ewemove but who else survives through the process is up for debate. He says he can’t make up his mind about the recently enlarged Emoov and that he has…