Shares in Purplebricks went meteoric yesterday. They shot up at one stage by 11.25% to more than double their launch price.
The firm tweeted at around 10am: “January has been a record breaking month for valuations & instructions, so if there’s a right time to start to your property search, it’s now.” Between noon and 1pm, the shares broke through the £2 barrier.
At peak yesterday its shares hit 201.37p, later subsiding slightly to finish the day at 191.6, up 12p.
Yesterday’s share price record came almost a year to the day that the shares plunged to a low of 84.5p on January 29, 2016.
Purplebricks launched on the stock market just over a month earlier, in December 2015, at £1.
Purplebricks’ current market capitalisation of £443.6m is considerably more than the UK’s largest agent, Countrywide, which is currently capitalised at £378.56m, and Foxtons which is worth £254.47m.
Yesterday shares in Countrywide tiptoed down 0.5p, and have now fallen 51% in the last year. They finished at 175.25p.
Shares in Foxtons also had a muted day yesterday, level pegging at around 93.75p. They are trading close to their low, reached this month on January 11, of 86.75p.
Rightmove, whose market capitalisation of £3.62bn leaves others trailing in its wake, saw its shares nudge downwards 15p after brokers at Citigroup downgraded the stock to a ‘sell’.
The drop meant that the shares finished at 3,913p, compared with a high of 4,416p last October. The shares hit a low of 3,159p last July in the wake of the Leave vote.
Comments (57)
Could someone at Purplebricks possibly advise whether this property –
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-57862243.html
is one of their “record month”/”good start”/add another phrase (delete where applicable) ‘listings’?
Thanks.
Or how about this one –
http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/40706736#BiwRJlG14mIG1YiS.97
Can we assume this to be counted as a ‘listing’ towards your “record-breaking month”?
Erm… I’m confused. I know it doesn’t take much – but will somebody help me on this, please?
Yesterday, 10am:
“January has been a record breaking month for valuations & instructions” – Posed on company Twitter Page
Today, 3.30pm:
“the company has had a good start to the calendar year” – Statement published on LSE
So which is it? “A good start”? – OR A RECORD-BREAKER?
Answers, on a purple postcard, please…
Sounds like a bit of backtracking to me!!!
I’ve asked PB on Tw@tter to kindly confirm numbers of this “record-breaking month”.
They shouldn’t have any problem with that – sharing information on listings wasn’t an issue to the back in April last year as can be seen here –
http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/purplebricks-getting-closer-to-profit-as-ceo-reveals-new-listings-of-3000-a-month/
Can’t wait…
Just thought – they might prefer to do it here – Tw@tter being a very public site they might feel a bit embarrassed shouting about such a success…
The floor is therefore open –
Nor Me…..I really do wish I knew the true numbers!!!
RNS
” Purplebricks Group plc (AIM: PURP) (“Purplebricks”), the hybrid estate agent providing a new way to buy, sell or let property, notes the recent strong increase in the share price and confirms that it is not aware of any reason for the movement. Whilst the company has had a good start to the calendar year, the board’s expectations remain unchanged.”
In other words dont get carried away with the Tweet folks we forget to mention Desolate December .!
I’ve been humming ‘The King is in the altogether, the altogether.’…. all morning
(older ones will get this!) 😉
I’ve got no strings
To hold me down
To make me fret
Or make me frown
I had strings
But now I’m free
There are no strings on me
Hi-ho the me-ri-o
That’s the only way to go
I want the world to know
Nothing ever worries me
I’ve got no strings
So I have fun
I’m not tied up to anyone
They’ve got strings
But you can see
There are no strings on me
Bricks
“First there was a mountain, then there was no mountain, then there was.” Donovan.
or maybe not!!!
The stock market is based on fear and greed, I suspect we are seeing the latter with PB shareholders before the former. Totally agreed profit is sanity, turnover is vanity. Most of us will remember the dotcom bubble. Time will only tell. No harm in taking your profits now.
At say 30,000 properties and more than 300 LPE’s that’s less than 100 to each listing property expert. At ?£200 a time that’s an income of less than £20,000 a year…..how long will it be before most of these people up sticks and leave… and service levels drop way below any that even exist now?
I love the fact that the stock market now follows the Trump line of ‘policy and information’ by tweet. Dear fellow Eye readers…that 1 Tweet has added £100m in 1 WEEK
Just wait and see my friends…turnover is vanity, profit is sanity! The market will tire without it and AIM (the junior stock market) is littered with tales of hype and intrigue. Just a contrarian view for you all…how would you feel if your business had put that value on in week and on today’s sp valued at £480m! This is a biz that is here to stay and before anyone asks, I don’t hold shares as it doesn’t meet any of my criteria.
Who remembers the children’s fable..the emperors new clothes….
I shall say this only once !
Heck I will.
PB business is not making enough money to justify a share price in excess of 36 pence (as a pure speculation punt) The general levels of property on the market across the UK means they will always struggle to generate the number of listings they need to keep going.
Clearly the stock market is awash with stock jockeys riding along until the first hurdles comes up to meet them.
I agree.
I think we need some new laws to protect their ‘investors’ Property Paddy…..O hang on? Or do two conveyancing referral fees equal one listing for any previously claimed listings that may or may not have been juggled?
Can anyone out there please give a link to a PB marketed, sold and completed (land registry verified) sale? Please
What are you planning to do with it ?
Frame it, perhaps?
Ha Ha very good
I try…
love it!!!
Notice we have all refereed to ‘it’ rather than ‘them’!!
As Purplebricks’ stories tend to bring out some comments of the more ‘robust’ variety it is timely to remind everyone to have a care when posting and to please have due regard to the laws of defamation and libel. We really don’t want to have to remove any posts. If you use the word ‘lie’ it is almost certain your post will be taken down.
In other words.Try and keep your head.
Yes Nick I can imagine you are in a difficult position I can imagine the Bricks police watch this site like others for any negative comments
That would be me then…. I was merely saying that the things that are claimed by our online friends are not like for like. Its not the same service. It would be like comparing a greasy spoon layby cafe with The Ivy. Youll pay more to go to the Ivy but you wont have indigestion and you’ll remember the experience fondly and want to go back.
Nick- Edited my post with the sentence regarding the Bricks policing of Trustpilot. The Bricks police must really be on your case !!
Yes i saw that Hillofwad71 before it got doctored!
Whoops…. sorry! I’ll try again using a more measured tone!
The problem is this is a news and debating site, the news that’s published get debated.
Ordinarily in a debate if a claim is made there is no defamation in saying that is not my understanding, there is no libel in expressing robust incredulity and asking for the claim to be supported by evidence.
It is very likely that Purplebricks have had a record 26/30.4 th fraction of the month to date and that has got the Purplebrick’s investors excited. To that I congratulate every single one of them, well done. I hope you achieve everything you hope to achieve.
BUT… (cue slightly sweaty palms, knotting of the stomach) we have been told that 3000 listings per month, 36,000 properties per year, 98 properties per day, 4 .1 per hour is the magic number to make a profit. Does anyone know if this record month has reached, matched exceeded or blown that base target into the next galaxy?
Being someone who like facts and detail I would be most interested in how many new fee opportunities a record 26/30.4th of a month represents. If the record month is just 1 listing or valuation more than the previous record it is a record, that is factually correct but like watching Eddy the Eagle smash his personal best in the Ski jump by a fraction of a metre its not quite the same as watching World and Olympic records being broken.
In business reducing losses is an achievement, but the goal is to make a profit. If this record month is the result of a record spend on advertising and the net gain is a greater financial loss to the firm that is a bad thing. If the record month is because of better service, reduced spend etc that can be celebrated Therefore I am somewhat curious why on the strength of a tweet anyone would get themselves in a frenzy without knowing the affects on profits or losses, that detail was not included in the 140 characters of the tweet
“January has been a record breaking month for valuations & instructions…)
Interesting comment…
Firstly, the month of January isn’t over yet on my calendar.
Could Purplebricks confirm when their respective “months” start and finish, please? Assuming, that is, that there is a fixed period for their “months”…
Secondly – didn’t someone from Purplebricks state a while ago that they had broken the 3000 mark for “instructions” in a “month”?
It’s just that according to Zoopla, in the last 30 days (which most would agree is pretty much what you would call “a month”, they are showing as having “listed” 2412 properties. Back end of December they were achieving around 80 “listings” per day – so wouldn’t that mean that to reach 3000 they would have to have a month that lasts around 37.5 days?
As the farther away from The Sun you are, the longer your orbit takes (and the longer your ‘months’ become – ours having increased by some few nanoseconds this millennia, apparently, some would therefore deduce that the planet they base their “months” off must sit in the vacuum somewhere between ours and Venus.
Stellar performance, guys. Out of this world.
Literally?
Ah, that makes sense. Their stats team must be based in Uranus…
I think you have got to the bottom of this. They are definitely on another planet.
Looking at their listings on Zoopla. If you adjust the URL in your web browser to added=27_days you will get 2,316.
2,316 / 27 = 86 listings a day
86 * 31 days in January = 2,666 projected listings for this month
PB have 378 LPEs displayed on their website. That would be a meager 7 each for the month.
My guess is that they turned their TV advertising down for December and are now plowing that money into January. Hoping for a bumper month.
What they failed to mention of course is that January has only picked up part of the fall off in December. It looks like the average for December and January is going to pan out out at 2,400/ 2700 pcm -still behind schedule The increase this month very expensively won with the new TV campaign They dont even bother to comment on lettings anymore listings having flattened completely hovering around the 400 mark
The SP spike should allow them to go to the market and raise some more cash which will fund the final rollout in Oz and maybe allow them to buy in a letting agency The market valuing Bricks at close to £500m Eat your heart out Countrywide!
I am preparing some pictures of “Commisery Cakes” with 2 candles for a number of properties Bricks have listed which are fast approaching their 2nd birthdays unsold in the next few months
Bites tongue…
Like your fizzog needs any more damage this week…!
Maybe the very talented and credible Robert May will be able to confirm whether they have had a record breaking month
Sounds like someone wanted to get a lift when they flogged off some shares then!
So long as the PB #commisery advertising goes unchallenged their message will get through, embed itself in the public conscience as fact and support the rise of the share price.
If the NAEA properly represented the interest of the vast majority of its members it should be running a series of TV ads highlighting that, far from being a misery, no sale-no fee is a far better deal than the #conmisery of paying up front and failing to sell your property.
Then see what happens to the PB share price.
That would be the NAEA whose Head Whassname took to the stage at the recent Purplebricks Ra-RaFest?
I will never understand why a professional body appears to turn a blind eye to one of its members actively and very publicly ridiculing the businesses of many of its other members. It surely makes us all look unprofessional in the public’s eyes.
Dun’t forget PB’s marketing RM campaign to some applicants drawn in from their paying members property adverts?
Where do you think that NAEA are going to get the millions from to run a TV campaign? Its just so east to criticise others.
I think this is what is all about for PB. The share price is the most important thing to them. It appears that their adverts ridiculing, rubbishing and criticising other members of their professional body (NAEA), the high street agents, are working somewhat.
What everyone else wants and needs is the truth about the numbers of properties they are listing and the actual verified number of completed sales.
If the high street are so great at their job, why do you guys let this phase you?
They dont. We do it to wazz the likes of you off good’n’proper.
It’s working a treat, innit?
“…why do you guys let this phase you?”
It’s faze, actually – and they don’t do that, either.
Because the online agents make endless, unsubstantiated, unverified claims and position them as fact.
I met recently with a guy that tried working for PB last year (left because of the endless vendor complaints) who told me that their negative Trustpilot reviews “magically” disappear.
Couple this with their huge marketing budget which perpetuates their false truths to an unsuspecting public, your local small independent estate agents find themselves on a very uneven, misrepresented playing field.
It would be naive to think that us traditional estate agents therefore DON’T make similar claims. I’ve had this only this week from Marriots with Richard James only thin week:
Taken from their latest emailed newsletter – It is now just over twelve months since we opened our estate agency business in Faringdon and I am pleased to say it has been an exceptional year. From a standing start we have captured over 30% of the local market and look forward to expanding our presence further in the next 12 months.
Rightmove Market Share Analysis as of 27/01/2017 –
Marriotts With Richard James
Faringdon
14
5.7%
As Disraeli famously said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
Toe to toe any decent proper agent (not virtual receptionist) would absolutely wipe the floor with any of the so called disruptors but thats not a fair comparison. One puts your property online and leaves it for the vendor to sort out causing great stress and “choice remorse”. The other sells the house at the best price to the best buyer and sees it through to the bitter end, often picking up the pieces of the receptionists and doing their job along the way. Its not the same job so dont call yourselves estate agents. Call yourselves online listers or reactive phone guards or something. What you do is nothing to do with estate agency.
Foxtons look under valued in my opinion.
Morning Smile, I wouldn’t be so sure, I know everyone’s numbers and inspired by something I heard on the radio have worked out the ongoing KPIs for everyone.
I already have a more accurate grasp of transaction numbers and transaction values than anyone else, including the official custodians of the data; Land Registry and ONS. I have now linked the two and…. I will keep investing my money in building a system for Rummage4 agents, their clients, informed landlords and institutional investors.
Are hillofwads numbers for PB listings similar to your findings Robert? We all know they are very difficult to count accurately because of certain activities.
AgentV
What is clear here is that NO NUMBERS are being given by the LSE-listed company to substantiate the statement that has seemingly been responsible for a noticeable spike in its’ share price.
Can you argue with statistics when none are given?
I have no difficulty at all keeping an accurate count of new unique listings. (other than BT)