Michael Bruce
-
Purplebricks brand is ‘better recognised than Rightmove’
Company makes claim within latest Annual Report as it reveals 56% increase in instructions but substantial losses in US and Oz.
Read More » -
Latest property news
Revealed: Why Purplebricks went for such an early IPO
Find out why the Bruce brothers decided to take Purplebricks to the stock market after just 20 months of trading in the UK market.
Read More » -
Latest property news
Purplebricks lands in Canada after buying local counterpart DuProprio for £29.3 million
UK, Australia and US hybrid agency Purplebricks now has a foothold in Canada after buying local counterpart DuProprio.
Read More » -
Latest property news
Purplebricks USA gambles on expansion into Las Vegas and Phoenix
Hybrid agency Purplebricks USA has set up shop in two more cities within America including Phoenix, Arizona and Las Vegas.
Read More » -
Latest property news
Purplebricks finance chief departs just three months after £1m payday
Senior IT industry accountant Matthew Farrow has joined cloud storage firm four years after joining the hybrid agency.
Read More » -
Latest property news
Purplebricks signals imminent move into Europe with extra £125m from German publisher
German publisher and property portal owner Axel Springer has invested £125 million in Purplebricks for 11.5% of its share capital, it has been announced, subject to a board meeting likely to rubber-stamp the deal next month. The surprise move by the €7 billion publisher of Europe’s largest tabloid newspaper Bild is to help fund a faster roll-out of the hybrid agency in the US, to prepare for entry into new markets and to improve its IT systems. Berlin-based Axel Springer’s investment, which echoes the Daily Mail’s involvement with Zoopla, is being led by its classified advertising chief Andreas Wiele, who joins the Purplebricks’ board as a non-exec director. But the investment also adds to Axel Springer’s existing property portal portfolio – it operates several leading European versions of Rightmove including SeLoger, Immowelt and Immoweb. European expansion? And like many UK publishers who have invested in digital media in the past, the move is designed to offset the huge migration by many agents from traditional publishing to online, and suggests an imminent move by the hybrid agent into European markets such as Germany and France. “Under the leadership of its founder Michael Bruce, Purplebricks has created a highly innovative digital real…
Read More » -
Purplebricks launches in New York, expands Los Angeles operation
Purplebricks has announced to the London Stock Exchange that it is to launch in New York in Spring this year, the second area it has targeted since establishing its US arm last year. CEO Michael Bruce has also revealed that the company has this month also expanded its existing Los Angeles operation, moving into neighbouring San Diego, Sacramento and Fresno. The company says it is targeting the New York area because it has some of the fattest ‘standard’ commission rates in the US at 7%, a high average sale value of $561,000 and a very busy market – transaction rates are double that anywhere else in the States. Michael Bruce (pictured, left), who recently stepped down as UK CEO to grapple with the company’s global expansion, says: “It is a sign of confidence in the potential of the US business that we are today announcing our expansion to cover both the East and West coast, with our planned entry into the New York market. “With higher than average rates of commission and transaction volumes, New York was the natural first move on the East Coast for Purplebricks. Referring to US CEO Eric Eckardt’s (pictured, right) previous form in the New York property market including…
Read More » -
Michael Bruce steps aside to let former Countrywide exec run Purplebricks UK operation
Former Countrywide divisional manager Lee Wainright has been made CEO of Purplebricks’ UK operation as the pressures of running a global empire bear down on the company’s founder and previous CEO Michael Bruce (pictured, right). Lee has been the company’s operational chief since March last year and before that enjoyed a long career at Countrywide, which he joined as a school leaver and during a 26-year stint there rose to be a Divisional Managing Director, a post he held for 12 years. During his short tenure at Purplebricks Lee (pictured, left) has overseen the growth of its operational and customer service teams, a key plank in its attempt to persuade vendors and landlords that it is a ‘proper estate agent’ as the current ‘wedding’ TV advert proclaims. This has included Lee’s direct involvement in training up some 300 Local Property Experts, the launch of its new ‘concierge’ style customer support service based in Derbyshire, and the launch of both a Post Sales Support and Conveyancing Sales team. As well as promoting Lee to CEO, Purplebricks has recruited a former British Gas call centre professional, Sophie Fox (pictured, below), to run the Purplebricks telephone lines. “We are very fortunate to have…
Read More » -
Purplebricks revenues in UK more than double
Purplebricks has revealed its interim results for the past six months ending October 31st which include UK revenue up by 118% to £39.9 million and a doubling of its Local Property Expert team to 650. Its overseas operations in Australia and the US are doing well too including revenue of £6.8 million in Oz and “solid progress” in the US where it now has 40 ‘local real estate experts’. But it’s most successful market remains the UK where Purplebricks has increased average revenue per instruction by 14% to £1,138. The UK operation also now claims to have 74% of the hybrid online agency market, with the next largest behind it, Emoov, a minnow by comparison. Online reviews One item sticks out in the results – Purplebricks’ reliance on its controversial listing with Trustpilot, on which it highlights a ‘five-star’ rating in all three markets. No mention is made of its recently-reinstated listings on allAgents. Purplebricks says that once the results are finalised it expects to report revenues of £84 million and £12 million in Australia. “We continue to win UK market share from traditional operators in what is a challenging market and consolidate our leading position with competing digital and…
Read More » -
Latest property news
Purplebricks TV ads ARE misleading, says advertising watchdog
The long-running complaint by the Charter for Independent Estate Agents (CIELA) to the Advertising Standards Authority that Purplebricks TV ads are misleading has been upheld. Two ‘commisery’ adverts aired in March this year – one featuring a man screaming into a cupboard and another a woman falling into cake – were reported to the ASA by CIELA because, the now ‘on ice’ members organisation claimed, the adverts were misleading. It said the comparison in the ads between Purplebricks’ flat fee and traditional agents’ commission structure were not accurate and therefore misleading. The ASA has upheld this complaint – a valedictory win for CIELA only two weeks after it was announced it had not attracted enough members to go to full launch. Within its judgement published today, the ASA says that although it “acknowledged” the difference between flat fees and commission payments, it says flat fees are relatively new in the property market and that, because people move home infrequently, they wouldn’t be familiar with how a flat-fee worked, or that it is different from a commission. “We considered that it was not sufficiently clear in the ads that the fee payable to Purplebricks was not conditional on the sale of…
Read More »
