A Sunday Times article yesterday said that online agents shift just 48% to 58% of their listings.
In comparison, said the piece, traditional agents sell over 80% of the properties they list.
The article gave no source for the figures.
The latest research appears to have been by comparison site GetAgent which reported that around half of online agent listings had not sold after a 14 month period measured from January 2016. It looked at 500 new listings by Purplebricks, and all listings by three other online agents.
It claims that Purplebricks had completed on 57% of listings by February 2017, while Housesimple completed on 58%, Emoov on 51% and Tepilo on 48%.
Comments (23)
Wow, some pillow talk this. I’m not staying over at your house tonight.
And there are details within details, if we compare completed sales to listings, well, we’ve been instrumental in saving sales at the online lister level of a chain because they’re not interested/competent/experienced enough, because we have skin in the game up or down from them on no sale no fee, should this count as a positive in their favour?
Ladyfolk and Gentlepeeps…
I’m really struggling with this article – and what is being made of it.
Firstly I’m not a Sunday Times person (no colouring in or join-the-dots pages so it doesn’t appeal to my intellectual level) so I haven’t read the article to which Ros is referring to.
I can therefore only go off the six paragraphs above.
I see that the intimation is that non-High Street Agents complete on 55%+/- of listings, and that ‘we’ blow their heads clean off their chip-laden shoulders with 80%+
The ST article then is fatally flawed.
I have no doubt whatsoever that SOME Agents will be hitting 80%. Some might even be nudging ninety.
But those that live by the good old “Numbers Game” will still be seeing six out of ten as a cracking result – with many of their ilk aspiring to get somewhere almost near that dizzy height.
Two Agents in my patch don’t manage 40%. I can’t be unique in this respect.
I’m not saying that Mr “Pryor got it right all those moons ago in ‘that’ article posted down the other pub when Frau Renshaw was the Landlady – far from it – when he reckoned that near 60% DIDN’T sell… but I’m 117.4% certain that statistically the figures quoted by ST simply don’t compute.
BUT THE THING IS some people above seem to be fixating on current listings and apparent SSTC ration on RM/Z/wherever. These figures tell people nothing. Some Agents remove ‘Sold’ properties from the portals as soon as the MoS is printed – ridiculous if you ask me (especially for those that seem to then re-list a large proportion of their SSTCs as ‘For Sale’ again (but of course they will have their sneaky reasons for that…); other side of the coin, some Agents leave SSTCs on the portals until they are forcibly removed by the “Data Quality Police”. Longest example I’ve found so far of an Agent getting away with that particular version of murder is TWENTY SEVEN MONTHS, by the way… But mores to the point – the ratio of CURRENT SSTCs to CURRENT STOCK is irrelevant in working out what is the Agent’s ACTUAL success ratio.
So what ‘X’ or ‘Y’ have showing today on the portal isn’t relevant in the least to what the article is pointing to. In a similar vein, a certain Agent claiming in a Trading Statement to its Shareholders that their “Sales agreed” to Listings” ratio is ‘xx’% over a six-month period is Pryor-like to the extreme and borrows fact from a lending source that will demand a high return that the company simply cannot repay without borrowing more from somewhere else – and that “somewhere” will be harder again to pay back.
Lies… damn lies…
Good points as usual PeeBee….but I’m actually not particularly bothered about the ‘apparent’ SSTC numbers (for the reasons you have given).
I would love to know the actual completed sale numbers in comparison to listings by the Call Centre Lister fraternity….but that is far more involved to truly work out, and I think you said that will be coming soon anyway.
What I am interested in is the total number on rightmove and zoopla being 16,000ish according to ArthurHouse02.
What I would love to know is does this reflect a substantial drop in market share (assuming at any one time rightmove are listing a total in the region of one million properties…available and SSTC combined) or does it mean large numbers of listings are just not appearing, having possibly been removed to be put back on at some stage in a rotation manner? Are they being swopped between the two portals? Or am I way off with the total numbers on rightmove at any one time, and perhaps it is only 300,000?
Does anyone know the answers to these questions, or do they know somebody else who does?
AgentV –
“What I would love to know is does this reflect a substantial drop in market share (assuming at any one time rightmove are listing a total in the region of one million properties…available and SSTC combined)…”
See these from the Rightmove website and its monthly House Price Index:
“Rightmove has over 800,000 properties for sale throughout the UK, giving you the UK’s largest selection of new build and resale homes.”
“Rightmove.co.ukis the UK’s leading property website, displaying details of homes for sale or rent to the largest online audience. It is consistently ranked the number one property website in the UK (source: Experian Hitwise). It has circa 90% of all properties for sale and at any time displays a stock of over one million properties to buy or rent.”
SO… 800000 is 90% of 8888890 – say 890000. Bu99er it – let’s say 900000.
Online/hybrid Agents currently count for 6%+/- of the market – so no more than 58500 properties total.
PB have as many as 28954 of them, as of 17.05 today, according to their own listings figures.
‘ang on… that’s 49.49%. According to their last Trading Statement, they currently have SEVENTY-FOUR PERCENT “online market share” (even though they are not – repeat, NOT, “online” Agents, remember…).
SO… if they have 74%, then the total O/H share must be 39127.
Which also means that the magical “6% market share” claim heavily peddled around by the onlinie #fanboys recently is, therefore, pure b0110cks.
I repeat my previous statement. “Lies… damn lies…”
Funny thing, figures – seemingly innocuous things… but they don’t ‘arf bite you on the @r$£ when you fiddle with them!
Sorry – make that 15563…
Out of what is now 16066 (according to Zoopla, purplebricks HQ listings/feed) that unsold % is someway under the 48-58%
Figures according to Zoopla as of this morning
Purplebricks HQ listings 16090 – amounts not showing Sold STC “Over 10000”
Emoov National feed 1749 listings – amount not showing STC 990
Looks like the right sort of figures to me
Can you just clarify…..do you add the ‘not showing Sold STC’ to the first figure to get the total listings, or are they part of the first figure?
Sorry, i think i have worded it very badly.
So for example at the time of typing Purplebricks on their HQ feed had 16090 properties in today. of these “over 10000” (which due to the volume of properties is the closest number Zoopla can provide) were for sale/did not have a Sold STC/Under offer tag. This means that 6090 or less were showing Sold STC, so substantially less than the articles 48-58%
So basically they aint selling enough houses!
Whats even more interesting is the figure of only 16090 currently being marketed (whether sold or not). I presume you are happy your figure is correct?
I wonder how many properties are currently listed on rightmove in total (sold and for sale)?
Does anyone know?
I thought at any one time there were approximately million properties on rightmove. 16,090 is a very much smaller figure than we have been led to believe as being their market share!!!
Can you talk on twitter?
ArthurHouse02
The figure of ‘non-SSTCs’ on Zoopla at the time of pressing ‘POST COMMENT’ is 15564.
What is the SSTC figure on Zoopla?
Pretty irresponsible article with no source. The online agents figure is way too low.
Is it? What is your source to say the figure is higher?
Pillow talk – nothing else.
Right again, PeeBee. But as you’ll appreciate, I have no reason to doubt said pillow talk!
“I have no reason to doubt said pillow talk!”
I’m pretty confident that, with reports like this one coming out, you will have…
In fact – instead of waiting, suggest you read what’s in the comments below.
That’ll be a canny topic for you to have a ‘pillow-top talk’ about tonight…
Rather awkward for messrs Bruce and Quirk et al (especially their PR and legal teams in the coming week I suspect).
Link to their report here: https://www.getagent.co.uk/labs/online-agents
A report by GetAgent last year gave figures around the mark suggested in the Sunday Times article.