Purplebricks will publish its full year results for the year ended 30 April 2021 tomorrow.
The company said it had made a good start to 2021 supported by a buoyant housing market when it recently announced a trading update for the year to 30 April 2021.
The UK tech-led estate agency business said total instructions increased by 12% year-on-year to 60,238, up from 53,680 a year earlier, with instructions in the second half performing ahead of market expectations.
The company says that it claimed a total of £1m under the government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme initiative having furloughed a number of customer-facing employees. But due the firm’s strong trading into the second half, and the strength of its balance sheet, the Board has made the decision to pay back all furlough monies received.
Overall, the company expects to report full year Adjusted EBITDA in line with current market expectations. This reflects the increase in instructions in the second half and operating cost control more than offsetting the additional £1m of furlough funds repaid.
Purplebricks said its balance sheet remained strong with cash at 30 April 2021 of £74m, down slightly from £75.8m at the end of October 2020.
Vic Darvey, CEO, said: “We have made good progress on executing our strategic initiatives, including advancing the review of our pricing strategy in spite of the pandemic. We look forward to providing more detail on these new initiatives at our full year results in July.”
He added: “As lockdown restrictions continue to ease across the UK, we remain confident of continuing our strong trading performance into the new financial year.”
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“We have made good progress on executing our strategic initiatives, including advancing the review of our pricing strategy in spite of the pandemic. We look forward to providing more detail on these new initiatives at our full year results in July.”
So they will be rolling out their trialed “Gold Service” package across the board. Hope it’s given a new name, as there seems nothing golden about it – same old;same old offering but on a NSNF basis (excepting there is a £399 up-front and non-refundable “advertising fee”) with basic conveyancing fee lumped in, all at a figure that makes a lot of local high street Agents look cheap. It came to a total of £4499 in ‘London’ region, so other areas are looking at coming in at around £3300 I would reckon, again with a quid’s change from £400 of it being paid up front and regardless of whether you get a sniff of a ‘sale’ or not.
Doing the maths, PB are banking on a 40ish% success rate. Vendors are essentially getting their current £999/1499 package plus £300/400 viewings add-on, plus legals – say £600/£800. So the whole shebang should currently set their customers £1899, or £2699 within the M25 or whatever the latest definition is of ‘London & surrounds’ is.
But of course they would now get £399 of that regardless – 100% of the time. Only the balance – which would be £1500 and £2300, are up in the air and dependent upon a result.
But… if the infamous “77% of listings sell” was true, why do they need to charge an additional £2900 (+93.3%) /£4100 (+78%) for a “NoSale:No Fee” (except the fees stated) option?
Surely… they aren’t trying to make more money? Surely not?
They can’t be – that would go against everything they have ever claimed as their USP. Fairer… cheaper… transparent…
…all the MDT (hope that’s an acceptable acronym for the ‘Posting Guidelines Policethey’).
God bless them everyone – I only come for the comments … not to much beef this evening obviously pre-match nerves.
What they will not mention the the massive exodus of staff, only the rare few are making money.
Average neg last 12 months would have been taking home 3k per month, the exceptional ones close to 5k
Most LPE’s will be lucky with 2k
Although i think its a con the self employed model is much more attractive keep 25%, 50% or more of a 5k fee is better than a £200 listing fee.
What this suggests to me is that Purplebricks are having to live within their means. No more blanket TV advertising. With that amount of money at the bank they are not going to disappear anytime soon, but what history is beginning to demonstrate, (as it has many times before) estate agency is a cottage industry, with very low barriers to entry meaning it is very difficult for large companies to dominate the market. They will be here for the long term I suspect, but pressure is being applied to now make a profit. It is up to all of the independents out there to work out how they differentiate themselves from online corporates and profit into the future.
Only reason results will be strong is due to the massive cost savings they have made when they made dozens of people redundant and haven’t replaced the people who quit in the last year. Judging from LinkedIn alone I’d estimate about 70% of HQ workers during my time there no longer work for PB
The reality is that instructions have been trending downwards ever since the arrival of Vic in 2019 This current financial year falling even further as inventory has shrunk
They fail to mention that UK instructions in FY 2018 were 64.376 and 69.892 in FY 2019
Glass ceiling already reached a far cry form the Hardmans report when launched on stock market of 100k instructions by FY 2020
Lettings today just 197 ,a busted flush .
That is the legacy of former Head of Lettings ,Richard Jacques who jumped ship also in 2019 his new venture Investerge very quiet in its news feed after an exciting launch as a Pan European real estate investment brokerage!