EweMove bucks downward hybrid trend by increasing revenue

After months of difficulties and closures for many online and hybrid estate agencies, EweMove claims to have bucked the trend.

In a trading statement from The Property Franchise Group - parent company of EweMove and several high street brands - EweMove is described as seeing its revenue grow 11 per cent in the past year.

EweMove’s performance vis-a-vis other hybrid agencies has always been difficult to judge. While independent property consultancy The Advisory publishes frequent updates on the market share of hybrids and 'pure' online agencies, it excludes EweMove because that agency has some traditional physical branches and charges similar fees to conventional companies.

The EweMove figure from TPFG came alongside a brief summary of the whole group’s trading in the first half of 2019.

Revenue for the traditional High Street brands was up three per cent in the first six months of this year compared to the same period of 2018. “This progress was driven by improvements in lettings, and has been delivered despite the reduced activity levels in the sales market” says TPFG.

The group's total revenue for the six-month period was £5.5m, of which management service fees were a record £4.6m; tenanted managed properties rose six per cent to some 56,000.

After 16 years with the business, TPFG chief executive Ian Wilson has revealed that he is to retire in 17 months time, giving notice to allow the company to find and announce a successor.

*Still with online agencies, the latest TwentyCI Property and Homemaking report, a quarterly snapshot of the market, gives online estate agencies a 7.3 per cent market share of transactions between April and June inclusive. This is a small dip on the 7.5 per cent share in the first quarter of the year.