Purplebricks boss Michael Bruce has reiterated that the firm will be profitable by its third anniversary – just five months away.
Purplebricks launched in the UK in April 2014 and made a £12m loss in its last financial year, on turnover of £18.6m.
Speaking to CityAM, Bruce said: “I think for a business that’s grown to the third biggest estate agent in the UK, in such a short space of time, by committing to be profitable by its third anniversary, I think, is a huge achievement.”
Bruce also told of how the traditional agency sector had reacted to Purplebricks.
He said: “First of all they dismiss you as having no relevance, no importance – that’s the first cycle, denial. After that they ridicule, and after that, and it took a while, but then they seek to address the scenario.”
He added: “Virtually nobody – zero – goes into a high street agent’s office, and haven’t done since Rightmove and Zoopla came into existence. They’re nothing but a high street presence, a face for their brand.”
The full interview is here
Separately, we were also intrigued to find this property in Beckenham, Kent, on Rightmove, being marketed by Purplebricks. It was placed on the market on November 20.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-45551022.html
That must have been after a couple of marketing breaks or failed sales, as the property had also been listed a couple of months ago on Rightmove on September 8 before being archived the following day.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-44209257.html
And before that, on June 7.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-41494584.html
And before that it can also be found online, on January 25 (see below) before being archived 136 days later.
We wonder how upset the vendor is at the apparent slowness of the sale?
According to the brochure, the owner is an employee or associate of an employee of Purplebricks (bottom).
Comments (64)
Not sure anyone will pick up this.
So on rightmove this afternoon a new property is listed by PB, except it’s not. It’s a property I saw 7 months ago and the owner opted to use PB and subsequently sold it, at least so I thought.
The property is back for sale, so PB lost the buyer ?
No they haven’t lost the buyer, they have had some “difficulty” with the buyer but this was resolved this morning and the sale was back on track.
So why is it back for sale on rightmove?
I phoned the owner up and asked what was up and upon telling her it was on rightmove she said she would speak to PB. 5 minutes later it’s off.
Then he is going to turn water into wine….. bored with the smoke and mirrors now. Share price will be below flotation before the third anniversary.
One comment said they should be called ‘Burple ******!’
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?s=41d0990ffe9fad245611f46687c6ec7f&t=4973625&page=2#topofpage
Interestingly, these reviews are not are good as the official reviews on trustpilot.com. I supposed they .p..y. for them.
Share price still swimming like a stone.
Where will it be by the twelve day Xmas. worth less than a partridge in a pear tree !
In my days of Agency we would often drive around doing a board count which I appreciate is a little low tech these days. However, one thing I still do a lot of these days is driving and I am covering something in the order of 40,000 miles a year in and out of local towns and cities all over the bottom half of the UK. Its hard to give up estate agency once it is in your veins so I am one of those who still notices agent boards on my travels. I’ve noticed 1000’s & 1000’s of boards on my travels, a cacophony of brands, a melody of signage and yet to date I have seen just 3 PB boards, total.
As an investor of various other enterprises I’d be out on that very basic basis alone and that is before we go looking into the cold hard facts anywhere else.
Annoyingly, as we have seen with politics recently there will always be a market appeal for those who want something different and it takes an equal and opposite force to cancel them out. (On a slight tangent but it is simple arithmetic, had we not wanted Brexit and/or Trump perhaps more of us on the other side should have been @rsed about the outcome and voted)
Me personally, I’d rather be on a no sale-no fee basis and have the equity in my property (that I haven’t physically had to earn persay) pay a qualified reputable agent to sell my home and push it through to completion rather than put my hand in my pocket up front to have my property listed and then be left pretty much to my own devices. Even as an ex-estate agent I don’t fancy navigating through a sale these days!
I am as furious as many of you that anyone can fake it till you make it, or not as the case mayPB. I mean maybe, not mayPB, allegedly.
The more pressing news is I’ve been informed yesterday, by the kids, with just 4 weeks to go, the must have toy this year is Hatchimals and they are like rocking horse shet to find… Ohhh daddy, you mean as hard to find as a PB board? said my 9 year old. Ho ho ho.
Dude with due respect (read as none) anyone that seriously believes the portals have killed high street footfall deserves some light to moderate choking. Jeez you have to figure its easy to use ‘offices’ as a pejorative when you think only old people or blue collar civvy’s still trying to figure out Netflix are the only ones who’ll take offence…
After a suggestion by Keyser Söze I had a look on Zoopla at the figures for PB
Last 30 days in filter…it came up with 2053 of which interestingly there appear to be only 40 sold!
If you remove the 30 day filter there appears to be 9,324 with 9,157 still available….so only 167 sold…less than 2%…….that surely must be some kind of record….most agents round by us have sold to full stock ratios of around 50% ( so say 100 properties listed, 50 sold, 50 available).
Anybody know what is going on? Have I made a complete boo boo on something…you surely cannot have less than 2% of your marketed stock sold?
Also got ‘Price reduced as 3927’ over 42% …..who reduces their prices on 42% of their stock….how is that good salesmanship…buyers shifting from ‘chasing the property’ to knowing they are being chased!
I’d like to put forward some completely hypothetical scenarios for discussion, if I may. Nothing whatsoever to do with the second part of the above article, of course – just personal research.
HOW WOULD it look if ‘PeeBee & Co’ listed the same property three… four… NINE… times, within a period of twelve or so months?
Would I look like a brilliant lister?
Would I look successful? A big hitter?
WHAT IF an incredibly high proportion of those “listings” through ‘PeeBee & Co’ were to be marked “Under Offer”… “SSTC”?
Would I then look like a brilliant salesman?
WHAT IF a similarly high proportion of those ‘PeeBee & Co’ “sales” were to appear to cancel and the “listing” reappear as available for sale once again?
Would I look like a victim of the claims by some that 33% of sales fail to proceed to completion?
Would I look like a star performer when the “listing” once again displays the little green triangle in the corner?
Would it be seen as ‘unlucky’… ‘against the rub of the cloth’.. or whatever expression you care to insert… for the cycle to commence again?
And WHAT IF, as a result of a Legal requirement of our industry (one that I know the correct terminology for and would obviously use that terminology and not one which looks close – but no cigar) to disclose any interest I or any of my staff have in a “listing” (or even several “listings”), it appeared that one or more of those completely hypothetical situations (multiple-time “listings”/”sales”/”fall-throughs”) that I have dreamt up above appeared to anyone with a watchful eye over my activity – cos there are some proper suspicious sorts out there, you knows… – as if I was deliberately “listing” what could be potential “ghost listings”?
Would I look like the game was finally up and someone had shot my Achilles heel clean out with a silver bullet?
Your responses would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.
Hypothetically speaking….
If you were to be doing the above and you were gaining the properties from the public and receiving investment by way of numbers produced i would say you were on a very thin line legally and possibly even crossed it.
if this was not hypothetical, and the portals allowed this to happen would they be breaking the law?
I’m so glad I asked for your input, smile please – otherwise I could have landed myself in deep doo-doo if I’d have been underhand enough to resort to such despicable tactics.
Unless, of course, other people have a different take on my hypothetical scenarios – in which case I would welcome their input…
Hypothetically drop the ee’s from your name and trade exactly the same as the other PB. Billshuttery seems to work….
… apparently anyway.
It’s been my name for centuries – I’m too much of a traditionalist to change now.
Or haven’t you noticed? ;o)
You really need to copy this exceptional idea and post it again tomorrow…earlier on in the morning on a new story…so that more people get to see and read it. It would be a great shame for them no to.
Company Check – website
thanks
I wonder why Mr Michael Bruce’s, brother resigned as a Director of Purple Bricks back in Nov 2015, when according to Michael, big times are to come. Maybe he’s more realistic to his older brothers claims, having been bought up together.
is this definitely the case? is there an article anywhere on it?
I assume he is taking about profitability without including his annual £13 million marketing spend? This always baffles me with start-ups.
I expected an article like this to appear prior to their 6 month results being published in a few weeks.
Their Share Price has been on a steady decline for some time now along with their instruction levels. Yet, their LPE numbers have never been so high (366 LPEs on my last count on their ‘Meet Our Local Property Experts Page).
In my opinion they are desperate for a good news article to stabilise their Share Price and reassure investors.
It will be interesting to see how they put a positive spin in December with their month results. My guess is they will divert attention away from their current poor performance by announcing they are launching their own Conveyancing/ Mortgage Brokers or moving into another horizontal market. It’s the only way I can see ‘growth’ for them right now.
Look more closely at his words; Is Mr Bruce referring to profit for the year (unlikely) or turning the profit/loss corner and becoming profitable on a month by month basis looking forward and ignoring the trading losses of the previous eleven months?
The City is only interested in trends and their effect on the share price.
If the profit/loss trend is about to move into positive territory then they will be very happy and will maintain their support for PB. The opposite might mean some management changes. Look at Countrywide as an example.
I have to say I am surprised there doesn’t seem to have been any effort given to checking the numbers. Where on earth does 4% of the market come from?
Roughly 2,000,000 properties are listed each year, 4% of that would be 80,000 listings, over twice what Mr Bruce said he needed in a previous article to be making a profit (36,000)
If he is list 222% of what he reckons is needed for profit, why isn’t he making a profit? where is the money going.
If there were an actual numbers sweepstake for listings I would be quite keen to bagsy a number between 28,000 and 31,000 for the year, giving a turnover of about £29.8m and £33.48m
“Where on earth does 4% of the market come from?”
Same place, I would suggest, that his now infamously absurd “88% of …ahem… listings sell within ten months” statistic came from, Robert.
David Niven in his heyday couldn’t pluck stuff out of thin air as theatrically… as quickly… or as downright brazenly… as Mr Bruce has developed the ‘talent’ for.
“Virtually nobody – zero – goes into a high street agent’s office, and haven’t done since Rightmove and Zoopla came into existence.”
Ludicrous, uninformed and highly misleading statement.
How would he have the slightest scraping of a Scooby what footfall the average (if there was such a thing…) Agency branch has?
Michael is an entrepreneurial business person who has extensive experience of running businesses employing hundreds of people within a diverse range of services and sectors. He is a qualified Solicitor who has run and sold his own law firms and in later years has been Chief Executive and Chairman of an Estate Agency Group.
None of which was actually selling a property himself? If that is the case then as a qualified solicitor he should be more than well aware of misrepresentation. Where do we start ….. he doesn’t look anything like the actors on the TV and has the track record they speal? He hasn’t offered the consumer anything new other than “cheap is best fee”, apparently a lot of people complain of PB service and standards. This is nothing more than money making for the Bruce Brothers. The face value of this business is that it is poorly managed and supervised with all the fiasco of LPE’s and portal juggling wwhich is recognised as dishonest behaviour. Is this guy delusional? …………….
He added: “Virtually nobody – zero – goes into a high street agent’s office, and haven’t done since Rightmove and Zoopla came into existence. They’re nothing but a high street presence, a face for their brand.” Has to be statement of the century!!!!!!!!!!!!! and this is a man who was chairman of an estate agency group … what a joke.
An estate agency group that went into administration, before having a management buyout and then being sold, if I remember correctly;
http://www.nottinghampost.com/jobs-saved-estate-agents/story-12226243-detail/story.html
Back at the height of the market 2006/7
We had a well established brand in our town, Been around for years, Massive market share, continued to invest in the business. well respected local agents worked for them.
They took the business decision to make sure they won every instruction they went out to, no matter the price no matter the fee.
Their instruction rate went through the roof.
They were by far and away market leaders on stock.
We started hearing rumblings that the agent was driving round to solicitors the day properties completed to pick up cheques to bank. we then heard stories of members of staff not being paid on time…
Guess what, at the height of a very good market the agent collapsed.
Instructions are not the answer. PB will find out when certain investigations are over it will not be as easy to gain their instructions. Going into a tighter market service will be the most important factor. Not just a route to get a property exposed on Rightmove.
Oh – And did my patch learn from the mistakes of this once “Great agent”? – NO. i see a number of my competitors who were around at the time making the same mistakes now ….
Excellently put….it will be the most adaptable, not the cheapest, that survive the difficult periods ahead.
I’d like to see a P60/Accounts showing one of the local property experts £75-100k salaries, then it might have some credibility (bar the massive VC debt)
All I see is lots of jobs advertised on LinkedIn!
I would like to talk to a highly successful PBLE (did I spell that right?), about their experience of the role and how much they truly earn. Wonder if any of them read the best industry forum full of information and views? If so…..how about a comment?
missed a P!
3rd biggest estate agency how?
Maybe an agent needs to be profitable before it starts sounding off about its success.
He certainly has some neck old Brucey Boy
“Agents spend most of their time chasing the next deal, so what we’ve done is take them away from that environment. We can produce those opportunities, plus advertising, marketing and a brand. They can then concentrate on the customer – and that’s proved to be really successful.”
LOL. Polar opposite It means they have taken the moolah can now leave the customer to play on the site solo whilst they concentrate on hooking a new fish,
Even Better !!This one takes the biscuit and the cup of tea
It was a dawning moment for me,” he says, “for the first time I wanted to build a business and a brand for all the right reasons – it was about delivering for the customer. As an entrepreneur you often concentrate on yourself – what’s important for you – but at some stage it dawns on you that perhaps you’re not the most important person after all.”
This is from someone who has trousered tens of millions before they have even turned a penny profit
I wonder if he actually believes that himself? In my experience most projects like this are brought about by people wishing to make as much money for themselves as possible. So it’s ‘stack high,sell cheaply’ and make a little slice for yourself as often possible…the more slices you get…the more money.
Now what if you did build something that was designed from the ground up to deliver the Very best result for the Vendor….the Very best sale price in a reasonable period at a Very fair fee? That’s what I believe is truly achievable.
Truly achieveable by independent agents, I mean’t!
Fairy story. How many times will PB say they are “close to profit” and dupe the investors before they wake up.
This time next year we’ll be millionaires….
just as their share reach 116p slightly over their initial offer.
Is Mr Bruce planning on selling the rest of his shares and needs to up the price?
Because there isn’t a profit forthcoming unless he has sacked all his staff, turned the lights off and using what business he has in hand to show some kind of profit !
only 2 negative? share price still falling LOL
You simply couldn’t make it up.
Oh… actually…
What a crazy world we live in that there doesn’t even have to be actual proof of anything before it’s said in a public domain.
Trump as a prime example, but at least Trump once admited that he would run for the Republican Party as their followers are more gullible.
PB. No question you’ve created a big stir. You have gained a huge amount of instructions. You have a very strong presence across a very wide area. However, being (supposedly) the third largest agency in the U.K. (This also needs to be quantified) doesn’t make you successful.
By all means, release your good news when/if you make profit. That will then be a fact and something worth listening to and as you say it will then be accepted.
Currently you sound like my jumped up little next door neighbour who thinks that shouting anything loud enough will make people believe it.
Last year had 2/3 loss on turnover. You would presume he knows something that no-one else does at this stage, as what he says surely affects the company share price ( or is that why he said it). Will be really interesting to see if this pans out as the truth. Will turnover for the year be significantly up or will costs be right down?
one thing is for sure, as agents, we can’t bury our heads in the sand any longer….rather than just comment … we need to start doing things. They offer a different proposition entirely to ours, but how many of the public know or fully appreciate that? We need to promote the virtues of ‘hi-tech full service estate agency’ so people know what the full advantages are and ‘why’ they should use our proposition.
It’s time for a new network representing ‘forward looking’ full service independent agents!
You talk a good talk AgentV. How about some action?
Action is in the pipe …so to speak. Want to join in? How can we contact you?
Think I will wait to see what is flowing out of the pipe before I decide whether to drink from it 😉
The aim will be to develop (at a very reasonable cost to members) systems and software that will provide agents with efficiency gains, cost savings, promotional, marketing and prospecting tools…..helping agents attract/find more valuations and win more instructions.
We also want other agents with great ideas to come forward and participate in what will be a sharing organisation with development know how and appropriate rewards for introduced products.
Early participants are likely to gain the most quicker (free trials of developed products for instance)…but wait and see if you like.
The overall aim above all else will be to extol the virtues to the general public, of the true value to them of using a good independent agent.
AgentV, not sure this is correct arena but we have developed a lettings tenancy administration platform which we believe saves upto 50% time and money throughout the process, and we would be interested in offering free trials to members when you get this off the ground.
We are always open to new ideas. How can we contact you?
In profit by its third anniversary? Pah!
You’ll be telling me next that Donald Trump is the American President. Oh, hang on…
“First of all they dismiss you as having no relevance, no importance – that’s the first cycle, denial…”
Has anyone got past the ridicule stage yet?
Well Bricks have an uphill battle to reach profitabiity .The Hardman Report forecasted instruction levels of 43,000 for this year ,They are going to need a very strong pair of binoculars to see that .The level of instructions looked as if it might breach the 10,000 barrier this summer but has eased off from that level with new instructions being pedestrian over the last couple of months .They have increased their fee base in order to attempt to bridge the gap
33% of instructions in my locality have been on for over a year!!!
The lettings side is an abject and utter failure where the instruction levels hover around a paltry 400 .Their fee levels arent overly competitive either .
Trustpilot is another story over 10,000 reviews!! Incredible response rate?? Must be one of the highest in consumer industry Some are so enamoured with the service they receieve they post in the early hours of the morning Many sugar sweet with a variation on the theme-“and so much cheaper than the High Street agent ” By the time time Felicity walked back to the car after inspection she had uploaded the photos and details on the site. 3 viewings arranged on her long drive home as she lives locally!! Offer received on arrival at home and a deal done which makes the London Auction House one mentioned today seem positively snail like Its strange how all the unverified positive reviews on Trustpilot remain on site but not the unfavourable ones?
Oz seems to have kicked off Ok and has probably reachedthe point where they willincreasethe number of LPE.s However -more cost and starin on current profitability Jury certainly still out
Hysterical!
Also says he sells 88% of instructions.
Jackanory!!!!