Purplebricks hits back at analyst’s report that it only sells half of listed properties.

Purplebricks has rebuffed a report issued yesterday by City investment analyst Jefferies which claimed that the company only sold approximately half of all the properties it lists for sale, and advised investors to sell their shares in the company. The Jefferies report, while praising the rapid rise of Purplebricks, criticised the company for not revealing how many houses it really sells and that, sellers who were not successful using their service had already paid up-front for the service. Analysts at Jefferies also wondered what would happen if the “model stumbled” when consumers realised the service they pay for isn’t a guaranteed sale. The revelation prompted a steep decline in the company’s shares yesterday, which dropped in price by 7.5% on the AIM stock exchange during brisk trading. Single month Purplebricks says the data used by Jefferies to make the claims was based on just a single month’s trading and “does not include properties that have completed but have yet to be uploaded to the Land Registry,” the company says in a statement this morning. It also says its full-year trading remains in line with expectations. The hybrid agent also says the data used did not include properties that had exchanged,…