Ten of the UK’s top online/hybrid agents have raised nearly £250m between them since they were launched.
Nearly 40% of that figure is accounted for by Purplebricks alone.
EYE looked into the funding of 14 of the biggest names in the sector to see how much financial backing they have received since their respective launches.
While it isn’t possible to be completely accurate, every effort has been made to get as close as possible to the most likely figure.
In some cases, well-known names have been entirely self-funded, whereas others have received huge levels of backing from investors.
The list, in order of the amount of financial backing received, is as follows:
1) Purplebricks: £97m
Purplebricks raised £22m ahead of its IPO 2015, £25m at its IPO, and a further £50m through an issue of new shares in 2017.
A spokesman for Purplebricks said: “As at October 31, Purplebricks reported £64.4m and no debt, following cash reducing £6.9m in the half – which broadly matches US start-up losses. So all in all the company has raised £97m for a business which is today valued at £1.1bn.”
2) Yopa: £58.6m
Yopa won the backing of Grosvenor Hill Ventures, the investment arm of Savills, when it was just six months old, with £16m in funding. It raised £15m from investors including Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) and Grosvenor Hill Ventures in May 2017. That was followed by another £27.6m in September 2017, of which £20m was from LSL Property Services and a further £7.6m was from DMGT (the Daily Mail).
3) HouseSimple: £33m
HouseSimple, launched in 2015 by Alex and Sophie Gosling, raised £13m in a funding round led by Carphone Warehouse founder Sir Charles Dunstone and his business partner Roger Taylor via Toscafund Asset Management and Freston Ventures. That was followed in December 2017 by another £20m investment.
4) easyProperty: £27m
EasyProperty started with a £1.4m round of crowdfunding in 2014, followed by a £9.75m share placement in September 2014. A third round of funding in 2015 saw it raise another £16m from Toscafund prior to its merger with GPEA.
5) Emoov: £16m
Emoov has raised £16m over four rounds of funding, including £1.95m in 2014, £1.5m in January 2015, £2.6m in October 2015, £50,000 in December 2016 and £9m in August 2017 from venture capitalists.
6) EweMove: £9m
EweMove was self-funded by its founders until Property Franchise bought it for £15m of which £8m was upfront and £7m deferred subsequently re-negotiated to a total of £9m, which has now been fully paid up.
7) House Network: £5m
House Network, founded in 2004 by current CEO Mark Readings, grew organically and received only low levels of funding until a 2017 cash injection of £5m from private investors. It aims to break even within two years.
8) Settled: £2.4m
Settled has raised £2.4m, including around £150,000 in seed funding in November 2014, followed by £1m in July 2016 and then another £1.2m in June 2017 from venture capitalists Connect Ventures and Piton Capital.
9) Sellmyhome: £1m
Sellmyhome has raised £1m.
Director Will Clark said: “MyHomeGroup – (SellMyHome & RentMyHome) is privately owned and has grown revenues in excess of 200% year on year over the last three years.
“We are focused on building a brand known for premium customer service and benefit greatly from our natural brand recognition.
“To date we have received around £1m investment and the business has yet to receive external funding.”
10) Doorsteps.co.uk: £507,000
Akshay Ruparelia, who founded Doorsteps last year while still at school, initially raised £7,000 from family followed by £500,000 on crowdfunding platform Crowdcube last summer. The largest private investor in that round was Julian Mylchreest, a senior managing director of Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Taken together, the ten agencies above have raised £249.5m between them.
EYE contacted four further agencies.
Springbok could not be reached for comment.
Express Estate Agency claims to be self-funded but has not provided further details.
Tepilo, which is owned by Northern & Shell, would not comment on its funding and few details are publicly available.
Hatched, owned by Connells, also declined to comment.
And the total profits to date of this lot?
Thin end of squat.
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What i love is the backers think it’s an easy commodity led business where cheap wins the day. Luckily it’s not that simple and a lot harder then flogging a few phones in a price fixed retail industry or cheap flights cos daddy bought you a few planes.
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Ha just worked out why this isn’t disruption. How far would Amazon have got if there was only a 52% chance customers would receive the book they ordered…. #nutshell
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The time to worry about serious competition is when they start buying small local agencies and use the leverage of their software to close deals – though how many people move say from Cornwall to Essex… My granddaughter has a balloon which, whatever she’s done, she has failed to burst… Maybe there is a lesson there?
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i like the balloon idea. Trouble is their is no air in the estate agency balloon to pop. Its simple fake news that people think estate agents earn £1million a year for just turning up to work.
This is the one thing i hope brexit ends… cheap money flowing in from the city to subsidise killing rural businesses.
I cant see how this will happen though as it looks like brexit will just make the rich richer….well done Farage you idiot.
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Less sickly animals would have been humanly euthanised already.
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This list is a reflection now on how businesses with “potential” get started, why risk your own money when you can risk someone elses. The most embarrassing company here is Easy Property who have made zero dent on in the market, no member of the public has heard of them, and according to Zoopla have something like 96 properties on the market!
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Easy come-Easy go
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I’d be extremely interested to know how many properties have been sold using these platforms? That’s sold, not listed and then having a ‘proper/full service/traditional’ agent step in and deliver a ‘move’ for the punter that has paid up front and therefore paid again.
Remember the old saying? ‘Buy cheap – buy twice’!
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About 143,000 units sold in the past 4 years of about 320,000 listed
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Is that ‘actually’ sold Robert or ‘claimed’ they sold’? I don’t think the two are the same outside ‘Purple/agencylite world’?
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It took Jefferies 14 months to come up with a % that differed from my approximations by just 0.04% for one month’s data for one agent.
By the time all of the data manipulations for all agency types are disregarded and it is reasonably safe to use 4% of all completions as a rule of thumb for quick calculations for use in the debates on Eye
There really is no practical way of calculating accurate numbers so a close approx has to do.
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Wouldn’t it be good if the Land Registry had to state the agent who introduced the buyer?
e.g. Foxtons / KFH / Hamptons / Purple Bricks / Private sale.
That would allow absolute customer transparency……and be easy enough for the conveyencers to supply.
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Another £136m has been spent by around 160,000 vendors in the past 4 years who didn’t sell their home.
Add that to the £249m and £385m has been invested to sell about 160,000 properties. A real terms loss of about £2400 a time.
£281,000 x 1.2% less £1034…….. oh look it really does cost 1.2% to sell the average home.
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Is this another bubble that is going to burst or just simply run out of funding and momentum? Lastminute.com was worth £760m when it floated but then was sold a decade later after failing to deliver what was hoped for, for a relatively paltry £75m.
Made a few people a few quid no doubt but cost a load more people a few quid I suspect also.
Eventually nullified by the competition that emerges and evolves. Sound familiar?
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Yep made a few rich richer and cost the gov’t. Millions in taxes due to no profits, that could help nhs.
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So overall we have a ‘less service’ model, with every completed sale subsidised on average by £2,400 (investors money and fees from not sold properties)….which is more than our average fee for a Full Service model.
How can a less efficient model possibly be considered as being disruptive!!!
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The negative comments are short sighted & show a lack of commercial awareness, plenty of start up companies in their embryonic stages spend more than they make. The market is ready to be disrupted & as someone who scoffed at Purplebricks four years ago I won’t make the same mistake twice.
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The Obvious – Selling property is not as easy as people think.
The Tricksters – That’s why Online Only Companies have charged up-front.
The Losers – Onliners Only moving to No Sale No Fee, that is going to be interesting to watch. Investors should be running for those exits now.
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Also. When u buy a book on Amazon you haven’t got 3 local book shops warning you that it’s all smoke an mirrors and u may not even get your book delivered.
Tbf Iam probably the best estate agent in Britain but because I tell the truth I can’t expand. That’s the real killer for honest entrepreneurs at the moment.
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I hadn’t realised that YOPA had raised so much.
If you think about it, £50M of the money raised for PurpleBricks is specifically for USA expansion, so just in terms of the UK, YOPA have raised more than PurpleBricks.
You’d need to look into it more to see what YOPA have done with the money raised compared to PurpleBricks.
Also you need to look at current cash positions. For PurpleBricks this was £64.4M at the end of October 2017.
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So much of this online/local & fixed fee/commission is man-made marketing rubbish. At the end of the day its about selling properties with a service customers love. Could be based in Antarctica with people on the road.
You still get travel agents on the high street, you get them online. The most successful agents over time are those that merge the high street and online market into one. That focus on service and outcome. I personally take the view no,sale,no fee is better as reality is customers don’t understand the probability risks of selling and fixed fees do encourage companies to focus on listings rather than sales, especially when repeat business in estate agency is not like repeat business in ordering cabs or food like with uber and deliveroo.
The justification of a high-street presence should be foot-fall, not necessarily the service itself being managed from there. Shop fronts are marketing billboards, where prospects can choose to engage with property experts if needed. Apple have apple-stores based on footfall, Salisbury’s have supermarkets based on footfall, you can still buy through them online. Neither are known as online supermarkets or online tech providers.
in the same way the justification of tv ads should be the same, based not on footfall but on viewership that lead to customers.
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>Apple have apple-stores based on footfall, Salisbury’s have supermarkets based on footfall, you can still buy through them online. Neither are known as online supermarkets or online tech providers.
ValueCounts31,
In the case of a visit to the Estate Agents you don’t actually get to see the property you are buying. I haven’t actually used an online supermarket for a while but when I did they always turned up with something missing (out of stock) so you paid more and ended up having to go to the shops anyway.
Some crucial differences there I think with Apple & Supermarkets.
I suppose your best example is Travel Agents. They are still on the High Street but I’m not sure many of them provide an online service.
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Ever heard of Thomas Cook?
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My general point is any business should be built around making their service attractive and attainable to as much of the market as possible. Online or Local makes no difference.
Some customers may want to walk into a high street outlet and talk to a professional. Some will want someone to visit them at home and discuss. Some may be happy liaising with someone over the phone and even some may be happy to commit to using an agent with purely online contact.
There is no reason why one organisation can’t do all the above. The justification for each must be a commercial one.
E.g. a high street presence in a certain area is worthwhile, because there is a big enough footfall of potential customers seeing it, engaging with it and ultimately converting into customers. OR this high street presence isn’t worthwhile because there is no footfall, no engagement and no conversion to customers.
E.g. we believe there is a portion of the UK market that would rather us make contact via a visit to them direct at home or conversations over the phone or online contact, of a mix of these components (all of which that require no high street presence to make possible). It makes sense for us to spend on these TV ads, or these online ads or these radio ads to educate prospects of our existence – because there is no high street presence to advertise this – and facilitate the format of our service that they may prefer.
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The difference is accountability, I loathe online only for anything important, if my Amazon package doesn’t arrive I’m put out, if my credit card is used by somebody other than myself I loathe that I am ‘ a valued customer and number 16 in the queue ‘ off shore service hubs got killed for a reason, the amount of times I’ve advised a client using a local lawyer to go and sit in their reception till it’s sorted because that focuses attention, hubs do not and will not give a rats **** and never will, nobody accountable nobody cares and everybody’s been paid already , most vendors are not sophisticated in moving and need a partner, from what I’ve seen they get none of that from pay up front
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Isn’t that what the high street agents has been doing for two decades … high street and on-line! It is the so called hybrids, which is itself not correct as they “only do on-line”. So they do less, have less presence, marketing outlets and sales.
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Yup
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Never been to Salisbury’s – what do they sell there? Bull fodder?
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World of difference between marketing and selling, PB have proved adept at marketing themselves but I’m struggling to think of anything innovative otherwise, booking viewings at 11.00pm for 10.00am the next morning? Whoopy Doo, can just picture that vendor loving that ‘ special service’
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Even that is not innovative, been around for years. To be fair PB were the first to bring it to the public’s attention. Many agents now have this tech.
PB is a fantastic company at marketing themselves as you point out. They are not fantastic value for sellers. 50% of their customers loose over a £1000 a question mark hangs over the 50% that do sell, have they got the very best price?
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smile please, the only people who lose their fee are those who go on to sell with another agent and in that case they may very well have received a discount for switching. So it is misleading to say that 50% lose their fee but i suppose you know that.
Of course, on average, even using your incorrect figure of 50%, PurpleBricks are better value than an Estate Agent who charges a commission in the region of 1.2%. For those that have more valuable properties the value is even greater.
I’m not going to debate this, I just thought I’d post for purposes of balance 🙂
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cyberduck46… so, where in the PB Small/Legal Print does it say that? “if we fail to sell your property and you switch to a real Estate Agent you will receive a partial refund of the up-front fee that you originally paid”.
I also think it’s time that the Purplebricks Ads/Marketing came with a Wealth Warning…
“WARNING, You have a 50% chance that we will sell your home. However, you have paid us 100% up-front!”
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You will not debate it as you know you will lose. You do this time and again. you try and shout somebody down. They come back and show your points are invalid and you run away.
How long should they give PB to sell their property? – If we do not sell a property within 12 weeks (3 months) sellers get upset. We are no sale no fee.
So how do you think a seller feels parting with £900 up front or £1250 differed and they are still not sold after 10 months? – So yes it is reasonable they change agent and they lose the (on average) £1000
Surely after say 6 months the agent has shown they are not the right agent to sell the property.
And lets be honest the only selling they do is listing it on RM.
PB booking system also does not let you book a valuation unless you disclose how much you think your property is worth. You have a commission only individual then going round to the property knowing what the seller wants. Is it unreasonable to think they maybe add on a few thousand to win the instruction? – They are then locked into a contract which they must pay even if the price was inflated by the agent.
As for the fee saving possibly in the South East and London but try Newcastle, average house price is below £200,000 in some areas, Agents will drop below 1% If You go with PB with a board, a viewing assistant etc you are paying close to 2k.
You are right on one point its only 49% that lose their money not 50%
I am sure you will not debate as you point out but as you like balance so much i thought best to post.
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What figure should he be using? 44.36% as it is now or the total number of sstc properties divided by the number that are for sale to give 79.72% a number close to the latest CEOs’ claims of 78%
Perhaps there is some magic system whereby a company can suddenly exchange contracts on a greater percentage of properties than it’s had under offer, sale agreed, sold subject to contract or sold by another agent. It should be noted changing the status backwards and forwards from For Sale to Under Offer doesn’t actually make the number of properties sold any higher
You can’t claim it’s incorrect if you don’t know what it is yourself?
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Robert,
To show smile please is wrong we’d have to get him to clarify where he gets his figure of 50% from when he states “50% of their customers loose over a £1000”
Let’s assume it’s from November 2016 and he’s using Jefferies’ research.
Here’s a property listed in November 2016 http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-63341666.html where the owner clearly hasn’t lost a £1000 as they are still marketing with PurpleBricks.
If smile please wasn’t hiding behind an alias he’d be required to validate his claim. Good job he isn’t because both you and I know he couldn’t.
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It is indeed the Jefferies report as this is indeed the only verified research available. Strange that PB do not list the “Success” themselves.
What my name has to do with it i do not know, does the figure change with my name?
FYI Robert May knows who i am.
* A property listed in November 2016 still for sale, is that the sign of a good agent?
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>A property listed in November 2016 still for sale, is that the sign of a good agent?
It is proof that you are misleading people when you claim “50% of their customers loose over a £1000”.
You have admitted to using Jefferies numbers and you’ve twisted what they reported to state that everybody who hasn’t sold yet has lost over £1000. This is misleading.
Jefferies reported that 51.9% had sold within a given time. That’s not the same thing as saying 48.1% have lost over £1000.
There are people still marketing with PurpleBricks, people on a marketing break, people who have completed but the property isn’t yet registered at the Land Registry and there are people who have sold STC that need to be added to the 51.9% figure (assuming the approximation is anywhere near accurate in the first place).
For a better idea of who has lost money take a look at https://www.getagent.co.uk/labs/online-agents. You will see they split listed properties into 4 categories. The only ones you could claim have lost any money are the ones in the yellow part of the graphs who are ones who have listed with another agent, which in the case of PurpleBricks is about 10% of their customers.
If you provided your name, smile please, members of the public would be able to complain to Advertising Standards as you are clearly misleading people and cannot substantiate your claims.
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Cyberduck46
Any vendor who hasn’t achieved a sale with Purple Bricks in 10 months are going to want to increase their chances of a sale regardless of cost. (Cost of; upfront fee / lost dreams / their sanity / a fear of ones ability to make intelligent decisions etc)
Staying with PB purely because they have a vested monetary interest at this stage is the ONLY compelling reason to do so. You say that redemption is promised to them by PB at the low price of the surrender of their critical faculties and stay with a service that has so far failed, till they are sold. In reality, vendors have to either forfeit and walk or sign up with another agent on a multi agency agreement.
Therefore, Purple Bricks attempt to free vendors from such a terrible fee situation appears to have done the opposite for 100% of vendors for 50% of the time.
Interestingly, the same odds as getting a USB connection in the right way up in the dark.
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Room101,
See http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-63341666.html
I have researched several samples of listings from PurpleBricks and can confirm that properties still continue to complete after the 10 month period and also after the 1 year period.
I looked at one sample from 30th March 2016 and when I first checked on 3/4/17 16 of the 24 were sold (completed) and registered at the Land Registry. When I checked back again on 3/2/18 21 of the 24 were sold and registered in the Land Registry (20 in my opinion by PurpleBricks).
In fact just checking again, I can see that the completion date of ones that went on to completion that I didn’t detect on my first check actually completed prior to my check so one of the issues is the delay from completion to registration. For example one of them completed on 21/2/17 and another on 31/3/17.
Feel free to check out the sample:
27 Riggall Court, Rochester ME2 1EB
14 Quayside Way, Gloucester GL2 5EX
178 Lichfield Road, Shire Oak WS9
1 Rochester Road, Batley WF17 9BS
62 Hervey Park Road, London E17 6LJ
Ferniegair Avenue, Helensburgh G84 8HB
59 Aintree Close, Telford TF1 6UZ
58 Cemetery Road, Aberdare CF44 8HT
13 Style Close, Parkwood, Rainham ME8 9LS
36 Coleshill Road, Atherstone CV9 1BW
6 Clarke Court, Dinnington S25 2UX
Penny Black, Pond Approach, High Wycombe HP15
6 Bowman Lane, Leeds LS10 1HF
59 Maud Street, Rochdale OL12 0EL
16 Druridge Avenue, Morpeth NE65 9SJ
18a Woodbank Avenue, Darwen BB3 1JJ
6 Gainsborough Road, Bristol BS31
122 Browning Road, Plymouth PL2 3AR
Apple Tree Cottage, Brundish Road, Wilby IP21
11 Grange Road, Dacre Banks HG3
77 Dovedale Road, Leicester LE4 8NA
16 Ingleton Mews, Barnsley S71 1NR
9 Moors Lane, Oswestry SY10 7BQ
67 Fairlight Road, Hastings TN35 5EJ
I’m sorry but I doubt I have time to come back and reply again. Other things to do. Do your own research. Beware listening to people with a vested interest. For the record. I am not a shareholder in PurpleBricks but have been in the past and retain an interest.
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Are these all sales completed by PB Cyberduck (your list I mean)?
It’s a real pity you don’t have information on a much bigger sample…..say about 200.
I think that would carry more weight.
BSOS23PC
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They are properties that were listed on 30th March 2016.
I have data on over 200 properties listed at different times but it’s time consuming checking back to see if the status has changed since my original analysis.
I reckon another one of the 24 above has completed since my last check (36 Coleshill Road, Atherstone CV9 1BW). So that would make it 21 from 24.
I understand Estate Agents have more information from Rightmove so perhaps you could check my findings?
Also the flat at LS10 1HF might have been sold but because I don’t have a flat number I can’t be sure whether it’s one of the ones listed on http://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/LS10-1HF.html I am informed that Estate Agents can check flat numbers.
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What point are you trying to make?
Estate agency isn’t about selling a property ‘eventually’ it’s about selling a property in a time frame that suits the vendor and takes into consideration what, if anything, they’re hoping to buy.
Selling 10 -20% below listing price 10 +months later than expected creates both stress and uncertainty. If you’re now advocating ‘bear with us, it will go eventually, can’t say when but we’re doing our best” you’re describing a listing service not estate agency. It’s unreasonable to compare the cost of a listing service with estate agency.
The value of 10 months market shift is about 5.72%, that’s average worth around £16,000
I’m not sure making a strap-line “save thousands to lose loads more thousands” is a case worth proving
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>Estate agency isn’t about selling a property ‘eventually’ it’s about selling a property in a time frame that suits the vendor and takes into consideration what, if anything, they’re hoping to buy.
Exactly. Things you can’t determine by looking at data.
The point I am making is that Smile Please is misleading people when he claims “50% of their customers loose over a £1000”
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It depends which data you look at. Spoon feed a listing rep with rubbish and that is where the problems begin. If it’s the same rubbish as been fed to the vendor that is where passive intermediary listing services and full obligation estate agency interface.
If you had been trading up rather than down your experience would have been very different indeed as it is the methodology of your sale that meant you got a price you got a sale but you didn’t achieve a demand driven competitive sale, your sale was purely reactionary. For that service you could have paid £99 rather than what you did.
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Cyberduck46
Send me your whole list of properties that you think PB have completed the sales on (whatever the dates)….either on here or email to in@agentv.co.uk and I will have a look.
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I’ll email them to you tomorrow.
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Cyberduck46
I will take your swerve of the point as agreement of the point. Those who don’t sell in good time with PB are hit with a lifetime, imaginary sole agency contract on the basis that it would be money down the drain if they walk away from PB.
According to you, “…the wrong type of customer is being drawn to PurpleBricks.”
I disagree. PB has attracted the types of customers that suit the PB model. Elsewhere those who can see through the charade are heeding your own advice, “Beware listening to people with a vested interest”
Your remarks are marketing gold should your “retained interest” be that you are a Purple Bricks LPE.
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No, you can’t assume agreement. I won’t speculate as to what a lister with PB was thinking when they listed their property. For me, it’s the ideal way to market a property if you don’t trust traditional agents.
As for “Any vendor who hasn’t achieved a sale with Purple Bricks in 10 months are going to want to increase their chances of a sale regardless of cost.”.
That has been shown to be wrong.
>Your remarks are marketing gold should your “retained interest” be that you are a Purple Bricks LPE.
No, not one of them either. Ask Robert May, Chris Wood & PeeBee. They all know who I am.
Is there anybody I can ask in regard to your true identity?
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If you research all of their posts on EYE over 4 years you will find enough clues to work it out, I did!!!
The beauty of writing a system that makes advanced, site specific, veracious search simple is it’s possible to have apparent Rainman recall.
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Or just use some of the Google advanced search features which is all you are doing and adding some “sales speak” (being polite) to make it sound as though it’s clever.
What do you mean “their posts” and what are you working out?
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There is no sales speak, I have always been honest it’s advanced internet searching but I made that available to people who didn’t know advance search existed or how to do it.
You want to find out who smile please is so you can attempt to troll or discredit him or her. They have posted enough clues for you to work out who they are.
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I can’t be bothered checking all his posts but one that did what his name requests i.e. made me smile, and which I had already bookmarked is where he claims “If Neil Woodford makes a “Profit” on this investment I will be more than surprised.”.
This was when he invested £7m for a 30% stake. Current value over £350M
http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/fund-manager-neil-woodford-buys-7m-stake-purplebricks/
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Thanks Cyberduck46, once again clearing it up for us mere mortals.
1) Purple Bricks take money upfront to list property and they take it upfront from disillusioned home owners who dont trust estate agents. I guess Purple Bricks LPEs are cleansed of your untrustworthiness by renaming them “experienced agents”.
2) Vendors who havent sold after 10 months have no interest in increasing their chances of a sale and it would be wrong to assume that they do. Said no vendor ever.
Who am I?
Who I am is complicated, what I am is a little easier.
Google it. Its a rather apt quote from a film, “Teddy: What we will not tolerate is… getting nothing for our money: no information, no protection… no assurances. You understand, Little Johnny?”
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But they’re not even a fantastic company at marketing themselves, they use brewsters millions to employ companies that are built to do that job and sink or swim in their own industry, I’m sure the purple bricks account is the star of India, leeches the whole lot of ’em
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I took great delight helping one of my staff buy a house which Purplebricks were marketing. That’s the great thing for buyers, Purplebricks have got their money from the seller so the actual sale of the client’s property is meaningless to them! Anyway, I advised we go in well below the asking price (Offers Over in Scotland generally means you pay in excess of the Offers Over price ), with the clear thought that Purplebricks would urge their client to accept the offer. Sure enough, Purplebricks were back on the phone to accept the offer quicker than it takes Kirstie & Phil to submit a daft offer.
In my experience, if you want to buy cheap, buy through Purplebricks. If you want to sell your home for the best price use a full service High Street Estate Agent who who charges for success – No Sale, No Fee…. it’s a No Brainer.
My latest Purplebricks versus High Street Estate Agent Advert, thinking of their latest offerings…..
TV Ad opens with 2 people standing there…..
one dressed head to toe in purple with a purple pointy hat on
slowly the purple person lifts their arms up, flips the pointy purple hat up which is hinged to the rear
the purple person then turns and asks the other person to give him a hand
slowly they lift the purple brain out and dump it in the purple bin
the pointy hat is then flipped back down
and the purple person says “Well I wasn’t using it!”
….and the words come up
“Use your Brain, use a High Street Estate Agent to Sell Your Home!”.
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>Sure enough, Purplebricks were back on the phone to accept the offer
So you made an offer on the phone?
And the offer was accepted by PurpleBricks when they phoned back?
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CD46 whichever which way we phrase or interpret this conversation online, and for any casual viewer of this site without skin in the game , in the real world PB are woeful for those of us trying to get people moved, truly woeful, just as those of us who do this daily used to shudder initially when the lawyer was cpl but they’re still here and I’m sure PB will endure and we’ll endure them too, but as someone not bothered about share price, H2, small print or analysts I can assure you that barring individual bright spots with their LPE’s overall they are rubbish structurally in helping people move, the hub model is impersonal and unhelpful because anything more costs and cost effects the bottom line which is all that matters in a hub
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Cyberduck – the problem being my member of staff made an offer well below the asking price which PB didn’t bother to negotiate? Let me state that again for you “didn’t bother to negotiate!”. It’s the principle point of a real Estate Agent, to act in their client’s best interests! PB were lazy, not motivated, couldn’t be *rsed because they have already been paid? …..they clearly didn’t give a t*ss.
The result reads like this….
Buyer Won, Seller Lost, Purplebricks failed.
I negotiated just short of £10,000 more for a client of mine today in Scotland. The buyer offered just short of £10,000 below the Fixed Price which my Seller would have bitten their hand off for! …….however, the gritty old estate agent did their job and delivered the best price for their client, £9,950 more! For clarity, I’m NOT motivated by the small matter of £150 more in my Fee, merely the fact that I DO my Job!
Substitute Purplebricks for me and I’m pretty safe in assuming, having already pocketed their Fee, they would have recommended that the Vendor doesn’t lose the offer, instead loses £9,950! ….to be equally fair that would most likely apply to most upfront fee Listers!
Anyway, Purplebricks is summed up thus, in my humble opinion
“Purplebricks – 50% chance for 100% cost!”. In contrast I charge a fee when I actually deliver the 100% result!
Time to slumber now in my Offline World. Zzzzzzzzzzzz
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I hold the opinion that choice is king and punters are entitled to that choice.
Whether or not you like the pay anyway approach it does provide choice.
Based on my experience recently with a couple of traditional agents I can see why some punters see the risk v reward as worth it.
Example:
I registered to view two houses last week with a multi branch independent in the midlands. They did not ask if I had a house to sell or not, why I was moving or when I wanted to be moved, simply booked them in.
The agent met us to show us around and while looking at the second one I asked him about another property they had on in the village. He denied they had one on that road, I pointed out they had a board outside it which then jogged his memory. He couldn’t tell me anything about it only offer me a viewing if I wanted to.
This was all on Saturday and I have not heard from the agent to follow up and provide their vendor with any feedback or attempt to close me for a viewing on the other property.
I have been in the industry for 15 years and have seen an embarrassing dilution of good effective estate agency in that time so is it any wonder that some members of the public question what they are getting for their 1% + Vat or more.
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Sadly ARC your experience is no surprise to anyone who has been in the business a while. There are some dreadful agents out there. And there are some excellent ones too.
I agree about giving punters a choice. But unless those punters are made aware of the benefits and risks of their choices they cannot make an informed decision.
You can take your own appendix out if you want but usually it’s a better choice to have a qualified and competent surgeon do it for you.
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I have a member of staff like that bud, she’s got to learn somehow and hopefully she’ll make it but if not good luck with whatever she does elsewhere, difference is we’ll prune where necessary because we’re not sucking on a golden teat
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At the end of the day, the no sale still pay meddlers are offering a service (or not) to those that may have tried to sell privately in the local newspaper 10 to 20 years ago.
There were always 40 pages of agents and 2 pages of private sellers in my area, and that equation is still the same today with on-liners taking only 5% of the market even after spending zillions.
The real game changer will be auto-conveyancing, when that happens we are all dead in the water I am afraid, until then, let them splash the cash, seemingly they are not getting very far (except up our noses).
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Good luck with the auto conveyancing that can herd cats 🙂
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It may well be a long time coming.
However, building societies now do desk top valuations.
Straight forward on-line conveyancing with indemnity policies to cover the process might be the first step. Who knows.
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….you certainly dont !
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They came out of the box marketed as a new breed of race horse, the bookies ranked them to be an odds on favourite while they were still yearlings and no track performance! The reality, they are all old nags dressed up to look like a new breed, running the same mile with a handicap of limited performance that they have tried to hide. The promoters are happy taking the money while the syndicates get nothing in return and the jockey keeps flogging away to just reach the finish line. Meanwhile in the grand stand, the punters blindly hoping their horse will one day come in, keep gambling on their horse, often to fall at the first fence. ALL the old nags have come last and their only strategy is to try and nobble the other runners with “we can win on the cheap” costing nearly £250m.
Dress it up as much as they like, the new breed are a mammoth fail. Shame they don’t try and run with their own money and just like the mammoth …. will become extinct, after they have trampled everyone!
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What everyone of them fails to understand big time is that client service takes dedication, care and time. You simply cannot do all of that for less money than a day rate for a plumber to swop your central heating boiler.
On top of all that, a lower fee is more than negated by a higher sale price attained by the dedication, care and time an independent Full Service agent will spend!!!
BSOS23PC
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