Purplebricks
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Latest property news
Online agent YOPA investigated again by advertising watchdog
Online agent YOPA has been investigated by the advertising watchdog just two weeks after being reported for potentially misleading claims on its website. This time the London-based sales and lettings agency was reported by a member of the public for a mailshot sent to them that advertised its sales service but, they claimed, wasn’t clearly marked as marketing material. After being approached by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), YOPA has now promised not to repeat the mailshot and that future advertising of this kind would be clearly marked as such in future. YOPA has been reported five times since it started two years ago including three times this year and once in 2016 and 2015 all of which have been informally resolved, although this hasn’t deterred investors – both Savills and LSL have put substantial amounts of money into the firm. Online agents Among the online agents, Emoov leads the pack for complaints to the ASA with ten referred to the watchdog so far including two serious complaints, one of which was upheld and another upheld in part, and eight informally resolved cases. Not far behind it is Purplebricks, which has had been referred to the ASA nine times including…
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Latest property news
Taking on Purplebricks? eMoov prepares huge expansion of local experts team
Online agent eMoov has announced that it is to “drastically” increase the number of local agents in the field and has hired a former senior Spicerhaart divisional executive to manage the expansion. Richard Olliffe, who before joining eMoov had spent seven years at Spicerhaart rising through the ranks, is to help the online agent implement a huge recruitment campaign to increase its presence across the UK – which currently features five ‘local experts’ covering Essex, London, the North West, West Yorkshire, Nottingham, Derby and Sheffield. The announcement accompanying Richard’s appointment says that although the high-street shop window is “obsolete” and the multiple-branch model “no longer relevant to the UK property market”, eMoov also says home sellers “still value face-to-face contact with a local expert”. “This blend of people and tech gives eMoov the edge in a rapidly changing industry and offers the consumer a proposition that combines the best of all sectors and removes the bad,” it says. Commenting on his new job, Richard (pictured, left) says that “although my role at eMoov will be similar to my time in the high-street sector, I’m looking forward to applying that knowledge and experience to a new breed of estate agency at…
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Latest property news
A Question of Property: Russell Quirk, CEO of eMoov
Are online agents like yours really gaining market share? Yes, Rightmove figures show the share of online agents has increased from 2.5% in early 2015 to 6.5% today – that’s an increase of more than 100% in two years. We have data that shows, depending on area, the propensity for people to use an online agent is increasing at a significant rate. I believe it’s all about tipping point. If you talk to business experts, they believe it’s somewhere around 12% market share. We are rapidly moving towards that. Where’s this growth coming from? Look at Countrywide and Foxtons. Their listings and revenues are dropping while the decent online operators such as Purplebricks, Yopa and ourselves are growing our share and numbers in absolute terms in a market that is down by 30%. Some say it’s all fuelled by investors’ cash Yes, it is a question of cash but it’s also about proposition and execution – I think there will be two or three winners in this market. Investors are getting fickler and I know of one online agent which is struggling to raise funding now. But it’s more about that if there are ten competitors in a new market,…
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Latest property news
Purplebricks is now “the largest estate agent in the UK by listings”
The City advisor and sole broker to Purplebricks, Zeus Capital, has claimed that the hybrid agent is now the largest estate agent in the UK by the number of listings on Rightmove. This is well ahead of recent claims by London investment firm Peel Hunt, which earlier this year said it would take another year to two years for Purplebricks to become the largest agent in the UK by market share. The new claim was made by Zeus Capital’s Research Director Robin Savage during a recorded interview with an investment website. Purplebricks says it has 16,498 properties for sale on Rightmove but won’t say how many properties it has sold since launch. Its largest competitor, Countrywide, said in its most recent trading update that it sold over 50,000 houses last year, but doesn’t reveal how many it has for sale. Not terribly happy During the interview, Robin Savage also claims that criticism of Purplebricks by agents is because the hybrid agent’s growth has come “at the cost of its competitors who are not terribly happy”. He also made several punchy predictions for Purplebricks including that Purplebricks is seven months ahead of Zeus Capital’s growth predictions for Local Property Expert recruitment.…
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Latest property news
Purplebricks CEO bats off criticisms over TrustPilot reviews
Michael Bruce has said he is proud of the company’s 27,000 TrustPilot reviews despite recent problems with its listings on the online business reviews site. This includes most recently that reviews were removed by TrustPilot after Purplebricks mistakenly invited UK customers to review on its US listing on the site. The comments are made in this morning’s Purplebricks trading update ahead of its Annual General Meeting today at the offices of its PR firm. TrustiPilot reviews The company has also been criticised for its aggressive attempts to get TrustPilot reviews of its service removed that it considers unverified or not genuine. Despite these difficulties, the company says it is on track to reach its £80m revenue target set in June within its 2016/2017 final results. And Purplebricks says its revenues for the first six months of its financial year, which began on 1st May, are already likely to be double those of the previous year and that it has increased the number of Local Property Experts from 540 to 640. This includes three LPEs in South East Kent who are all related – couple Julian and Sarah Hunt and their daughter Joanna (pictured, above), highlighted by Purplebricks. Purplebricks also says…
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How much bigger are Purplebricks’ catchment areas than high street agents?
How important is local knowledge to vendors? It’s a question that hybrid agents such as YOPA and Purplebricks are putting under the spotlight right now as they attempt to claim ‘local experts’ with large patches. But research just out suggests that local knowledge really is very important to vendors. So how local is local? Agent comparison site GetAgent looked at national data from 14,000 branches and over a million listings to find out. On average properties listed with traditional sales agents are 3km away from the high street branch they are listed with. But it’s the stark difference in catchment area size that sticks out from the GetAGent research – Purplebricks LPEs operate within an average catchment size of 10km while traditional agents’ areas are no more than 3.8km wide. “Being local is so important,” says Matthew Cousins of Surrey-based Inspire Estate Agents. “I don’t understand how an estate agent can add value if they don’t know the area, the people and the properties. “I know I can value a property accurately in the area I cover as I am likely to have sold a property very close by.” It is also clear that Purplebricks take on twice as many…
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Latest property news
Is the Purplebricks dream over? This famous investment website thinks so
One or the UK’s most respected share tipping and investor websites has given Purplebricks a significant thumbs-down in a damming blog written by one of its experts. The Motley Fool has advised investors to ‘dump’ shares in Purplebricks after concluding that the long-running period of rising share values in the company might “finally have come to an end,” he says. Purplebricks shares have been sliding since early August, when they hit their all-time peak this year at £5.08p each, after which they have dropped to £3.64p, a reduction of 28%. Purplebricks model The website says that, because the company has yet to clear a profit and trades on a price-to-sales ratio of 21, the valuation of its shares are “still sky high” and that it is not confident that the Purplebricks business model is a good one. “Essentially, it is a website and the company cannot patent its processes. Its only discernible advantages are its size and first-mover status and I’m not all that sure they are sustainable,” says The Motley Fool’s Zach Coffell (pictured, left). He also thinks rival hybrid agents including Countrywide’s recent foray into online offerings will make it more difficult to turn a profit in the…
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Escalating Purplebricks vs allAgents spat goes global
A year ago the story about a spat between Purplebricks and the UK largest agent reviews site would have stayed a specialist concern for agents and perhaps regulators. Similar stories about the company’s multiple run-ins with the Advertising Standards Authority in the past have hardly stirred much interest overseas or even within the UK’s national press. But Purplebricks’ recent expansion in the US and Australia means its minor scrapes with UK regulators and review sites now make global headlines. The latest clash between the online agent and – this time – allAgents.co.uk has been so far reported in the Australian Financial Review, The Times, and the New York Times. among others. The story broke late yesterday after allAgents removed Purplebricks’ profile page following “repeated threats of legal action”, the review site said. The arguments started after Purplebricks noticed that approximately half of its reviews on allAgents posted by users were the lowest, one-star rating and asked the review site to remove them. Purplebricks told Reuters that “Purplebricks is proud of its reputation and the quality of the service that it delivers.” The company appears to have taken legal action against allAgents, which is based in Glasgow, and the reviews site…
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Agencies & People
Purplebricks kicks off in US with 3D viewings
Purplebricks has officially launched in the US seven months after it raised £50m from the City to fund its expansion over the pond. As announced in June, Purplebricks’ US launch has kicked off in California beginning in Los Angeles before being rolled out across the state and later other key states and cities across the US. Its American team, which is led by CEO Eric Eckardt, has also revealed its fee structure, which has been adapted to fit the US way of selling properties. Agents charge vendors a 5-6% fee to sell their home and then give up to 3% of their fee to the buying agent who successfully introduces a purchaser. Purplebricks is to instead charge vendors in the US a flat fee of $3,200 to list their homes, although they will have to pay the buying agent’s fee when the property is sold. As in the UK, vendors will be able to delay the up-front listing payment by effectively taking out a loan to fund it. But buyers who purchase their properties through Purplebricks without using a buying agent will receive a cash payment of $1,000 when they buy the property, effectively inducing purchasers to cut out buying…
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