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Purplebricks critic launches “agent-friendly” PropTech platform

A former City analyst best known for his scathing criticisms of Purplebricks has launched a PropTech platform that he describes as “agent-friendly” and focussing on buyers and sellers having more information to fuel their decisions.

There will also be a series of digital tools for consumers to manage their sale or purchase.

Twindig says the housing market is characterised by buyer remorse and claims buyers and sellers have been “driven by fear and ignorance” along with an “ignorance of a complicated system which may not be acting in their best interests.” 

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To try to avoid this, Twindig enables existing owners and landlords to digitally ‘own’ their properties - this permits them to gather information ranging from EPCs to planning approvals in a digital store, to be used in a future sale or let, for example.

It says this information carried on Twindig can be used by agents to more accurately match buyers with sellers, and renters with landlords.

The platform says agents can “connect to every property they have let or sold, or are currently letting or selling … get to know potential customers who are thinking of buying or selling … get insights and intelligence, helping their customers buy and sell with confidence … [and] reduce administration and improve communication.”

Agents who advertise on Twindig have free access to it for the remainder of 2020.

"Our price promise [thereafter] is that we will link fees to the level of the Land Registry House Price Index at the start of 2021. Our prices will move annually in line with the index, so if house prices fall so will our fees ... To keep our fees low, much like the way broadband providers pass on the cost of the BT line rental, we will pass on the costs that an agent’s CRM provider charges us to supply the agents data to us" says the platform.

Codling made an impact in the agency industry by a series of critical analyses of Purplebricks when he worked at investment bank Jefferies; however, Twindig is his first project since quitting search company Rummage4Property - set up to try to be an alternative to mainstream portals.

In December 2018 Codling told the Financial Times that Rummage had signed up Countrywide and other agency groups, and that its key selling point was being “much cheaper than Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket” - but Codling left the enterprise after a year.

On his new project, Codling says: “We are launching at a time of unprecedented uncertainty because we believe that the value of our homes is measured by our experiences of the space in which we live, not by price alone.

 

“The economic and social pressures brought about by Covid-19 will ask people to think longer and differently about where and in what space they are going to live and work. 

“Recognising this, Twindig offers everyone the chance to really know the home they want to buy and to whom they are selling before embarking on a process whose historic objective was price and not value.

“There’s so much potential in our properties and helping you realise this potential is what Twindig is all about.” 

You can see the Twindig platform here.

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    There's been so many, remind me, is this a 'game-changer', 'disruptor' or something completely different?

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