Purplebricks The disruptor gets disrupted

Published 25th of August, 2022

This week I spoke to Iain McKenzie and Holly Hibbett from the Guild of Property Professionals about the latest developments in the housing market and how the disruptor estate agent Purplebricks is being disrupted by, rather than disrupting the housing market  

Traditional estate agent's performance strong

The latest results from the larger estate agency groups: Belvoir, Connells and LSL are strong, coming off a record stamp duty fueled housing market all are seeing growing orderbooks. All had bigger pipelines one year after the end of the £500,000 Stamp Duty Holiday 

Purplebricks performance weak

In a market where homes were selling like hotcakes, Purplebricks performance went backwards. If the fixed rate model was going to work it would have been over the last 18 months, but not so for Purplebricks. The underperformance has, in my view, led to a very strange change in strategy where they will focus on the buyer rather than the seller. In my mind, the first rule of estate agency is to focus on your customer (the seller) not the buyer. I am not sure how looking to buyers to drive the business forward will help them get the best price for their actual clients (the sellers) and if the focus is on the buyer not the seller service levels may fall and it will be harder for Purplebricks to win more instructions


Twindig take

The traditional estate agency model is working and the disruptors have failed to disrupt and seem to us to have lost their way

Housing Hailey
Twindig

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