Online agents have increased their market share, now representing almost 8% of all exchanges.
A new report, out this morning, says that online firms increased their market share by 13% between the first and second quarter of this year.
The TwentyCi Property and Homemover Report – cited in last week’s Purplebricks annual results and its national newspaper ads at the weekend – said that 15,986 sellers exchanged when listed with an online agent in the last quarter.
However, the number of exchanges remains tiny compared with the 192,653 by high street agents.
The report says that the growth has been driven by significant investment in advertising, and more local property experts.
There are major regional differences in online market share, but in all regions in England and Wales they have grown market share.
In Yorkshire and the Humber, online firms have grown market share, year on year, by 51.58%.
In inner London, their market share growth is 47.34%, and in Wales and the north-west it is almost the same story with market share growth at just over 45% in both regions.
In the east midlands and east of England, market share growth is around 44% and 43% respectively.
Annual market share growth stands at around 39% and 38% in the north-east and west midlands; at 33% in the south-west; at 23% in Greater London; and at some 17% in the south-east.
Today’s report does not specifically mention Purplebricks, or indeed name any agent.
Colin Bradshaw, TwentyCi’s chief customer officer, said: “The growth in market share for online agents continues unabated, with this group now representing nearly 8% of all exchanges.
“It is interesting to note that almost all of this growth has been in properties below £1m.
“Logic might dictate that a fixed-price service would be more attractive to sellers of higher-priced properties, but perhaps this group of vendors is motivated by factors other than just price.”
This morning’s report by no means confines itself to looking at online agents.
It also reports that new instructions are up 7% year on year. It also says that there is no significant price discounting on asking prices.
It does, however, find that in the second quarter of this year, exchanges were down in most regions, other than the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber, and in Scotland.
The report also says that one third of all property listings in the second quarter were for rental homes. Almost 60% of property listings in London were for rental properties.
TwentyCi claims its quarterly housing reports are based on factual data covering 99.6% of both sales and rentals.
The full report, with plenty of regional information, is available at this link:
//cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/1756789/TwentyCi%20Property%20%20Homemover%20Report%20%20Q2%202018.pdf
Comments (22)
Here’s an interesting advert from our purple friends today, clicking on the epc brings up an odd result – I think this may be a data protection issue to say the least!
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-66289015.html
Oh.
Dear.
I haven’t checked the dates surveyed/ analysed as my phone is rather busy for some reason today but TwentyCI data of market share appears to contradict Mr DelPrets’ data quoted last week (or vice versa of course)
Wonder if the ruling on your case has implications for reports like this and them being used for advertising purposes ?
It looks to me that the ASA were saying taking data from websites then crossrefrencing with Land Reg isnt good enough to substaniate a claim.
Baffled how else TwentyCI could have got there data.
I don’t think PB are using ViewMyChain – a pilot is one thing, adoption is another. In my opinion, the ViewMyChain product is flawed – all hype, no substance.
I believe TwentyCi get their intelligence by analysing portal data – which ones have gone SSTC. Nothing more sophisticated than that.
If that is the case they presumably cannot know whether the agent putting the property as SSTC on a portal listing is the actual selling agent and it is making an assumption, which may not be accurate, to report that ‘online agents account for 8% of exchanges’.
The problem with ‘research’ such as this, which fails to clearly identify its data sources, methodologies, terminologies, etc is that unless it is challenged it becomes ‘fact’ and will be used by every vested interest to promote or rubbish its particular agenda. Worse, the mainstream media will swallow it hook, line and sinker.
Twentyci are clearly attempting to make themselves a commentator on the housing market. Nothing wrong with that. However their ‘research’ should not be glibly accepted as being accurate unless or until the company gives very explicit information about how that ‘research’ has been compiled. Until it does I am taking what they say with a huge pinch of salt.
They own ViewMyChain and have some big name customers onboard (purple bricks included). With claimed 50% of chain visibility that’s where the data will be coming from (but they won’t want to tell you that I bet)
Quick question – and please jump in here, Henry P, the report is saying that near enough 210K properties exchanged ( we are still trying to work out the source data on this, as it’s not accredited in the report) but if this is the case in what is the busiest quarter of the year, then pro-rated this makes for 850K (at a push) transactions per year.
How does this compare with the figures that are bandied around of 1.1m annually?
Could someone help me out here?
I’ve only had a chance to take a cursory look at the full report, but I can’t as yet see a definition of an “online agent” or a list of named agents included within that definition for the purposes of this report.
This definition is very important as it is the basis for the whole analysis.
Even Purplebricks seem to prefer the term “hybrid” to describe themselves but I assume that they are included in the “online agent” sector for the purposes of this report.
I am absolutely not being critical of this report or the so-called “online” sector – we’re (nearly) all “online” estate agents in any event. I would just like some clarity.
It’s a great business model if you’re paid regardless, so success of sorts for PB though investors still won’t get rich on it? However the percentage of exchanges do not lie, it’s a bum deal for the paying customer!
Possibly like some of their adverts, i feel completely misled now. Last week Purplebricks claimed they had 10% market share on their own, and now the company that did their “market research” is claiming that the online mainly/call centre model only has 8% market share.
So which is it? I dispute this btw, as stated last week, this share in my opinion is far less, but either way 1% market share increase in a year with probably £50m pumped in, is hardly earth shattering
It’s 8% of exchanges Arthur, at least take some time to read the report, and bear in mind as the scale of instuctions are growing (see report) and the pipeline keeps feeding through this will be at 10% within a very short period.
Ok lets work through this. If it will be 10% in a very short period, then you are saying the Purplebricks claim is a lie?
Most house sales go from agreed sale to exchange in say around 8-10 weeks. I think we would all say it is unlikely that the market share would go up 2% during this period when over the previous 52 weeks it has only gone up 1%.
PB are there and they are competition, the other lot barely exist. I dont mind the competition, i just wish they would be straight down the line with their claims rather than claim things that perhaps arent accurate or that they arent prepared to factually clarify.
Yeah me and Dom, Dom and I, we is grammar polis innit.
This will fly like my PXOG shares soon #PXOGnoooooooowhyareyoudoingthistomecomeback!
‘Most house sales go from agreed sale to exchange in say around 8-10 weeks.’
And the average time to secure a sale is just under 8 weeks (according to rightmove), so we are looking at 5 months lead time for these exchange figures.
As with anything, different companies provide different data. As i stated last week Zoopla show Purplebricks to have a market share of much closer to 2% than anything more significant.
According to Zoopla, PB HQ feed has listed 5,406 properties in the last 30 days of these, only 151 are showing as sold STC, or under offer. If they are selling so many properties, why do you think such a huge amount are showing as available?
“It’s 8% of exchanges Arthur”
Oh, dear.
You don’t even realise why your own post damages the #Purple_Plan.
You have a good long think about it, dom-boy.
When you give up I might just draw you a picture you won’t want to see.
#DOMmisery
#DOMmisery – that feeling you get when some utter prat spouts absolute 5h!te and you don’t know where the ‘mute’ button is…
All very interesting and the actual document comes across as authoritative. BUT – it gives no specific information about the data sources used. Perhaps PIE could find out from them just how they have identified the ‘online’ agents and by what criteria they label an agent as ‘online’ – when every agent is online!
I reckon there is something more to this than meets the eye at first glance.
The description ‘online’ agent is much like Brexit….what actually does it mean 🙂
I wouldn’t get too hung up on the minutiae of these types of reports. Suffice it to say that it is the trend that shows ground is being made on the back of huge investments in old school marketing. In that I mean TV, press and radio…. goes to show those formats aren’t totally dead yet in the world of social media. The clients now have an awareness of another route to selling or letting property, the question is how many of the call centre/Uber type based employee models can continue the cash burn and also win repeat business in the future?!
Trustpilot etc works well for consumer products and holiday sales, where the transaction is made and completed quickly. Selling a house doesn’t. The snapping at the heels by agents on this forum and elsewhere have woken them up, hence why they now are trying to find the narrative to prove their effectiveness. The proximity of Axel Springer, Woodford and other investors in this space will either guarantee success or the whole thing will implode when the money invested doesn’t get the returns. Think about Bebo, Friends Reunited, My Space….
The question is whether the argument/idea of portals being agents once and for all has been fanned further. I have said this in the past about Rightmove in the mid term and the changes in ownership of Zoopla, PurpleUber and others are now proving to be an increasingly important battlegrounds. And its going global. The industry now needs a united voice and one that is pro active, not reactive. The challenge is herding lots of independents…just imagine up to 20,000 cats being herded around in a field…..I’m sure you get my point!
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