Sarah Beeny says Tepilo has seen a 400 per cent increase in turnover and aims to exceed £10m in turnover next year.
Beeny revealed the target in an endorsement of Purplebricks’ floatation, scheduled for the end of next week, and endorsed by the TV property presenter as an indication of how strong the online agency sector has become.
“It wasn't long ago that people dismissed it as a passing fad, but this move shows that consumers are wising up to the fact that they no longer have to pay astronomical estate agency fees when selling their home and that there is an alternative” says Beeny.
She says this is endorsed by the government’s recent call for more innovative thinking in estate agency. “The government talks about wanting to arm consumers with quicker, simpler and cheaper ways to buy and sell homes. It makes specific reference to the fact that new business models, such as online only estate agents, will enhance price competition, and should therefore be encouraged” says Beeny.
She says her agency “consistently sell homes over the asking price and have saved our customers millions of pounds in fees, so it's no wonder that investors, consumers and the Government are starting to sit up and take notice.”
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No mention of profit? We all know the old saying about turnover and profit.... At least she's not valuing the business at £200m+
More hyped drivel to try and boost a share offer - whos making the money here then Ms Beeney? Another online proposition that doesnt stack up and is an irrelevance. If you are really selling homes consistently for over asking price I would suggest that you are under valuing your clients properties. As for astronomical agency fees, through experienced negotiation I agreed a price yesterday at £6000 more than my client was prepared to accept. This clearly covers any fee I may charge and some.
Agents know full well ''people'' (In general) can't sell their own homes.
Perhaps I should more accurately say ''everyone can find a buyer'' - essentially that's often the easy bit!
An Agents job is mainly acting as ''Shrink'' to both the buyer AND the Seller during the process!
Without an Agent I believe 75% of sales would fail due to Buyer and Seller falling out. (The thigns they say to an agent about each other!)
What price can be put on the transaction succeeding first time? I wonder!
I second this. My experience exactly.
We get so much business from online agents because their back end is so poor. Even the Purple Bricks 'hybrid' model is nonsense. I've been involved in loads of chains where no one seems to be able to get hold of them to ask simple questions. I'll be worried if/when they get their customer service on point. Little evidence of that so far.
Just a brief glance at their account shows a growing negative equity with sporalling liabilities. In 2014 they recorded just £50k in the bank but liabilities of nearly £130k. BVut yeah, sure, if course £10m turnover is likely next year- but they are probably going to have to spend £12-15m to generate it. Much like Purple Bricks & EasyProperty- quick invest millions in these businesses for a 1% stake and.........get rich?
What I dont understand is I genuinely see a place for online agents in the market as they service a sector that do not want to pay full agency fees but are willing to take on responsibility for many elements themselves. This should, in fact, be a very simbiotic relationship however all we ever do is make useless accusations and now the seemingly endless claims by online agents of ridiculous vauations.
Just beciase of the media hype it doesnt mean any of this is true. Companies like this and PB are still small fish compared to the large and established agents and there are few of those that would boast of the fogures and values this lot do.
I'd love to see some real journalism from LAT/LLT/EAT to really drill down in to all these hyped up online agents, pick apart the firgures and publish a piece that tells the facts rather than simply regurgitating PR releases.
I'm not quite sure how Tepilo intends to pull off a twenty percent plus increase in turnover* when their new instruction rate has fallen by 30% from 1,168 to 823 over the past six months. Low fee agents depend on turnover and the UK is seeing a shortage of stock and, does not appear to embracing on-line by the look of market share figures either.
*With a 'back of a fag packet' estimated average monthly income (based on Tepilos' basic £595 package) of 1,111 new customers per month = £660,747.5 PCM = annualised income of £7,928,970 this year.
Well said Kristjan
Well done to Tepilo.
What I think is that in 2016 we shall see a further reduction in sales turnover and a big pause in the buy to let market as everyone tries to digest the big changes that start to hit in April. I think these conditions will make the current business models of many high st agents unviable, the fact online agents will be taking market share as well will make things harder still. The big strength of the online model is the size of the area you can market to is huge, this insulates them, at least to some degree from a local squeeze. Also on their side is the positive publicity they are getting, the public's General dislike of agents and the fact that many traditional agents do a pretty mediocre job. So my advice to any traditional agent wanting to flourish in these new conditions would be to embrace change, Look at all the new tools at your disposal and start planning to compete not bleat in the New Year
Tepilo simply cannot create an competitive environment to enable them to achieve the best possible price. I believe they are actually losing their clients thousands not actually saving them hundreds.
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