Purplebricks' entry into selective areas of the US market comes just as new evidence suggests the use of estate agencies by younger buyers and sellers is soaring - and the US idea of 'For Sale By Owner' has dropped to its lowest recorded level.
In the annual Home Buyer and Seller Generational Trends study conducted by the US National Association of Realtors, released this week, FSBO accounted for just eight per cent of transactions - the lowest figure recorded by the association. FSBO is now only around a quarter of its level 10 years ago.
On the other side, a record 90 per cent of respondents said they worked well with a real estate agent to buy or sell. Interestingly, so-called Millennials and Generation X buyers were the most likely to go online during their search and were the most likely to use an agent. The same skew towards younger sellers using agents existed, too.
Purplebricks last month raised £50m through a share issue to fund expansion into the US later this year.
The NAR - a much more powerful body within the US agency industry than, for example, the NAEA is here - conducted the survey by mailing a 132-question survey in July of last year, sent to no fewer than 93,171 recent homebuyers. The survey had a response rate of 5.9 per cent.
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