Purplebricks dominates as online agents grow market share

Online and hybrid agents have rapidly increased their market share over the past year, research claims.

Analysis of new Zoopla, Rightmove and Home.co.uk listings show the market share of online and hybrid agents reached 18% for the first time between January and April 2022.

The research, by online agent and property platform 99Home, found the market share for this cohort has increased from 12% in April 2021 to 18% in the same month of this year.

Purplebricks remains ahead of other online and hybrid agents with 21,752 listings in April 2022, up 9.71% from the start of the year.

However, Strike and 99Home have experienced the largest growth, with listings up 32% and 46.78% respectively between January and April 2022.

Vijay Vashistha, chief executive of 99Home, highlighted that online and hybrid agents market share has now more than doubled since 2019.

He told Estate Agent Today: “There is a need for high street agents and they will remain in the market.

“But they are losing this battle. 

“Online/hybrid agents share has increased from around 7% in 2019 versus around 18% in early 2022.”

He suggested that the market share figure could increase further due to changing consumer behaviour, customer service, IT literacy and the attractiveness of a fixed fee structure.

The research is outlined in the table below.

The figures are slightly different when it comes to exchanges.

Data from property analytics company TwentyCi for the first quarter of the year showed that the market share of hybrid/online agents for exchanges stood at 7%, representing a small increase quarter on quarter but still significantly down from the high of 8% in 2020.