Online agents will change the sector in 2016 claims THAT online agent

eMoov founder and managing director Russell Quirk has taken to print to explain why he believes 2016 will be the year of the online estate agent.

Writing in the opinion column of City AM, a London-based business newspaper, Quirk says that until now the property industry was one of the last remaining industry to be disrupted by the internet.

“With the exception of Rightmove and Zoopla, technology has not up until now not challenged or disrupted the property industry status quo” he says. 

“In 2015 we’ve seen our first acquisition of an online agent by a traditional business [Hatched by Connells] although whether or not that was a wise move for that particular target remains to be seen. But increasingly we are starting to see more interest from incumbents, who have realised they must be do something to move towards the online space, but quite frankly they haven’t a clue what that is at present” explains Quirk.

He says the icing on the cake for the onliners has been the IPO of Purplebricks with what he admits is a “chunky valuation” of £240m. 

Expect more in 2016, he tells readers. 

“It will be a year that sees hundreds of millions of pounds more ploughed into UK property tech and we will see some very interesting mergers and acquisitions as a result, and who knows, maybe even another IPO or two.”