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The high-street estate agent of the future : poncey PURP




It’s official, the new kids on the property block are beating the old guard of high street estate agents at their own game – or so the media hype would have us believe. is how the guardian advertorial starts off,


Yes online estate agents "maybe" ,making inroads into real estate , though Solihull-based high profile online estate agents purplebricks, New Broom Ltd, were recently hauled in front of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).


Two ads by the online estate agency PurpleBricks [PURP]have been banned, complaints were made to the regulator by members of the public regarding a television advert and an online campaign by PurpleBricks.


The regulator ruled that, as customers would be charged a mandatory fee within ten months of their agreement with PurpleBricks, the company's claim of "no upfront fees" was misleading. 


For a company who continually harks on about their public business transparency,it will be a bitter pill, for CEO Micheal Bruce to swallow.

Business expansion and increased marketing spend have continued , the company, which was only founded in April 2014, made a bigger loss in 2015 , £6.4m, down from £2.5m in the first half of the 2015 financial year.Marketing spend has increased from  £1.1m to £6.6m.



PURP also split from it's advertising agency recently , with marketing spend at an estimated £1m on TV advertising alone, some analysts have gone onto criticise purple bricks excess. If you add into the mix with PURP , their media team consisting of ex virgin media and price comparison site marketing execs ,which don't come cheap. At a time when many startups are going marketing lean .It will be hard to justify these frivolous extravagances, to many share holders, let alone the ASA debacle, considering their executives so called experience, within the industry. The loss in consumer confidence, will also be hard to win back, as with all business start ups consumer relationships are paramount.

The Bruce brothers need to wake up and smell the coffee, experience from space ships ,V festivals, consumer site debacles don't run parallel to selling homes.  

PURP , currently has negative earnings and continues expanding the business , with capital raised at IPO launch, which begs many to believe the stock is immensely over valued. There are many other national online estate agents, who are also cutting into PB market share.   



dumb and dumber


Many other National online estate agents who don't seem to have this problem, such as YOPA ,have recently expanded into the west midlands due to their success , easyProperty ,tepilo  housesimple .In london Settled.co.uk Soho based, is making traction within central London.


Their are also a whole bunch of diverse online agents such like 
Iamtheagent , homecloud who can all can be found on leading portals rightmove and zoopla.co.uk.



True hybrid estate agents


Then there are smaller independent agents who are true hybrid estate agents, having physical offices with fixed fees, as opposed to commissioned based fees .North East firm distriktonline.co.uk may be small in contrast to national online brands ,but has a six figure turnover with plans to expand.

UrPad Online new Hybrid online estate agent recently rolled out its new office in Wales already having two others , the south west and Bristol. Upestates Online estate agency will also be expanding with 7 new offices in Birmingham Leicester & Nottingham


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