Purplebricks has 70% of UK online market and confirms...

Purplebricks says its performance in the UK “is currently showing double-digit growth year-on-year in monthly instructions.”

In a brief UK trading update - attached to confirmation that it would be expanding into Germany - Purplebricks this morning says that “with further market share gains, in what continues to be a challenging market … Purplebricks' share of the UK online market remains above 70 per cent.”

The next formal update on Purplebricks' performance in the UK will be on November 6.

Meanwhile this morning's statement also confirmed a Sky News story that was reported on Estate Agent Today last evening, that Purplebricks would be entering a 50-50 partnership with Axel Springer - which is already a big investor in the hybrid agency - to form NewCo, a joint venture company.

NewCo will spend €25m on buying a 26 per cent stake in Homeday, a German digital estate agency which has a 50 per cent share of that country's online estate agency market.

In July, in an interview with the Press Association, Purplebricks' global chief executive Michael Bruce suggested that following his agency's acquisition of the Canadian firm DuProprio/ComFree, it was ripe for further international expansion - and Germany was considered the most likely, given the Axel Springer involvement.

Under the deal revealed by Sky, Purplebricks and Axel Springer would also have an option to buy another 28 per cent of Homeday next summer, for €20m, potentially giving NewCo a controlling stake within a year.

Sky says Homeday had revenues of about €4m in 2017, with that figure expected to double in 2018.

This morning's statement from Purplebricks says: "Launched in 2015 by founder and CEO Steffen Wicker and based in Berlin, Homeday operates a transaction-based digital real estate agency platform in Germany that helps customers to buy or sell real estate. The Homeday model has some similarities to Purplebricks, combining a technology platform with an expanding number of local agents, referred to as 'realtors', operating across 65 German residential markets including Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne. The realtors are typically sub-contractors rather than employees. The customer proposition and service level provided by Homeday are well regarded, as evidenced by a Trustpilot average score of 9.3 from over 850 reviews."

Stephen Crofts
15 October 2018 09:16 AM

Surely then (in the interest of accuracy - something of a stranger to PB) the statement in this case should be "70% of the online only market". Traditional agents are also all online, the online presence figure of all combined agents across the UK would see PB's 70% claim dwindle significantly - so the figure may be fairly accurate in one respect but has been applied to nothing more than spin.