Yopa says it has reached profitability six months ahead of its plan and is now holding a substantial amount of cash on its balance sheet to continue its growth.
The company experienced its busiest month ever in July.
Yopa’s share of new listings on Rightmove jumped 76% year-on-year in July, from 899 new listings in July 2019 to 1,583 new listings in July 2020. The company says it had the fifth highest share of new listings for the month, behind Purplebricks, William H Brown, Connells and Hunters; outperforming all of them in terms of % growth in new listings.
Yopa’s instruction numbers in July reached 1,697 – a year-on-year increase of 129%. The end of lockdown is reflected in the montly figures: July 2019 = 742, May 2020 = 840, June 2020 = 1,266, July 2020 = 1,697.
Yopa is currently averaging 10 viewings for each property sale compared with an industry average of 19 prior to the pandemic, and saw record levels of properties selling subject to contract (SSTC) in July, up 23% on June and 77% year on year – further proof of the high demand levels across the industry.
Yopa’s mortgage partner, Scout Financial Services, also recorded steady increases between June and July with a 15% increase in mortgages written, 46% increase in written value and a 31% increase in mortgage lending. Scout was launched in October last year and the team has swelled to 21 brokers since then to meet rising demand, with plans to further double broker headcount before year end. Yopa declined to provide actual figures due to them being ‘commercially sensitive’.
Chairman Grenville Turner, commenting on the performance, said:
“We have seen growth in instruction numbers across all regions; agents in our strongholds in Scotland and the North of England boosted figures by 30% month-on-month. We have also seen rapid growth in London and the South East, with instruction numbers up 65% on June.
“We put this acceleration down to vendors’ increased willingness to embrace tech-enabled estate agencies both during and post- lockdown. The benefits of our model – including virtual valuations and viewings, contact-free mortgage appointments and fair, fixed fees helping customers save over £4,000 on average – were amplified at a time when the nation needed smart, accessible and affordable solutions to keep moving.
“The property market weathered the lockdown and rebounded beyond expectations once restrictions were eased. We are also already seeing the results of the introduction of the stamp duty holiday, with Yopa registering an all-time high of 18,500 new buyers in July – a month-on-month increase of 24%.
“As a business, Yopa has moved to profitability six months ahead of schedule. Although it is still early days and we remain in unusual market conditions, we are encouraged that we are ahead of our forecast and have built on this significantly across July. This puts us in a strong position to continue on our trajectory and further boost market share. With agent earnings +100% and average revenue per instruction +40% year-on-year, we have significant recruitment plans in place to help us build on this growth.”
Yopa’s last filed accounts were for 2018 when it showed a loss of £30,365,369. This followed losses of £18,332,269 in 2017.
Comments (9)
Having just sold my own home to someone using YOPA, I can confirm that there after sales service is……….non existent! Our buyers, who do not really understand the sales process are doing all their own chasing up of their conveyancer (who are equally awful) as YOPA are virtually uncontactable. We are having to tell the buyers what to say and do as they have NO support from YOPA.
On another note, having just agreed a sale on another property we own, we went with a commercial solicitor who we have know for years, but have never used as their price is, ahem, rather on the steep side. Imagine my surprise that having given them instruction at lunchtime, by the middle of the afternoon the draft contract was with the other side!!!!!! IT CAN BE DONE!!!!
I have been saying for a long time the system is broken and parts of it are, but there is no excuse for transactions to drag on for months if this solicitor can get things moving so quickly.
The devil’s in the detail with this type of claim. Are they talking about an EBITDA profit? This is a very different type of profit to what you and I class as a profit.
Don’t forget when Purplebricks claimed a profitable period a few years back and have not made a claim since. Some would say this is a clever PR exercise.
Expect an announcement in the next couple of months of another £10-20m raised to keep them going another year.
Accounts to be filed by 31/12/20 will only show results to 31/12/19 so it’s going to be some time before we get confirmation that this outfit has indeed reached profitability (however they define this and for what period – 1 day, 1 week, etc that profitability has been attained).
“Yopa says it has reached profitability…”
Music to Rightmove’s ears – Yopa can look forward to a big jump in portal costs !
Why? Have they got a sweetheart deal with Rightmove that you know about?
The 1600 odd Virtual Offices on RM are completely reliant on portals – RM know this and will exploit it, particularly as High St. EA are showing signs of resistance to further price hikes.
RM claim they lost 280 VO in the last 6 months – which suggests some bright spark at PB did some spreadsheet number-crunching and found a way of minimising the cost of advertising for the non-geographic business model.
Meanwhile, in Milton Keynes, another bean-counter is plotting revenge – Portal costs for the Virtual/Hybrid model are only going one way !
So it lost £50 million in two years to reach ‘profitability’. How many more millions spent on advertising, marketing, recruitment etc? What’s been their total investment to date?
They are all on Linked In patting themselves on the back for their business accumen….
Reality is if you throw enough money at it you will become profitable.
Reality is the amazon model, you loss lead for years and then people wonder why the commercial landscape, high streets etc are decimated.
At this rate Yopa , Purplebticks etc will do the same to our industry with their loss leading fees bankrolled by investors happy to wait 10 + years for a return, knowing once profitable – scale, growth etc takes hold.
Look at their Google reviews. Seems that a couple of years ago most were 4 and 5 star and it is those that is holding up their average, for now. Of more recent times they are mostly 1 and 2 star, which will soon pull the average down.
Dreadful company. Dreadful product. Dreadful Full Stop
Find it in a £1 Shop, in the Bargain Bucket!