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John Lawson

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About Me

my expertise in the industry

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>Mr. Mitchel is over looking is that a portal selling system, one that passive intermediary firms are wholly reliant on, doesn't have the competition element of an agency sale. So Rightmove's 141 million visitors a month and 6 million pages in Google doesn't produce any competition? You must be an advocate of Rightmove if you think competition produces better transaction prices.

From: John Lawson 28 August 2019 08:37 AM

Why would the ASA see paying an LPE as a breach of the claim they don't charge clients commission? Did you ever read the Dodgy London Agents blog. Not sure you can post links so I'll post separately below. "So I looked at the 100 agents with the most listings across North London (N1, N4, N5, N7, NW1 and NW3). For each agent I gave myself 1 minute to find an example of a relisted, manipulated or very Old listings. What I found was that 62 out of these 100 agents had engaged in one or more of these practises." I think these practices are more widespread than being the odd lapse. I did some research looking at a sample of about 250 listings by a particular Agent and 34 of them had completed within recent months.

From: John Lawson 17 July 2019 13:11 PM

Really this is comparing what good Estate Agents do with PurpleBricks. The only trouble is bad Estate Agents overvalue and win the instruction. Therefore no competitive tension. This argument that a traditional Estate Agent gets a percentage fee so is motivated to get the best price is disingenuous. They have to sell or won't get any commission so will be encouraging you to take offers. They're not going to risk their commission to get you an extra £1000. If online Agents don't sell then they don't get business from "sold" boards - so this lack of motivation argument is just nonsense. The idea that Agents have all this data to hand. The ones I've had valuations from come along with the printouts that are available on Rightmove. Same as the online Agents. So really just an argument about a hypothetical good agent. Good agents won't win the instructions in the first place if they're pricing to get competitive tension so will go out of business.

From: John Lawson 16 May 2019 05:52 AM

Justin, >Not sure their rich German uncle wants any more of this dog. If you read the comment from the investment bank it says... "we believe the group will face the choice of either raising fresh equity, or debt, or retrenching to the UK." Retrenching to the UK would be failing overseas. If you class that as failing miserably then fair enough. We just see things differently. >PB will be out of business unless purchased by a foolish buyer. That's not what the Investment Bank are saying. They are saying there is an option to retrench to the UK. Did Tesco, M&S and Foxtons go out of business when they ceased trading in the USA? Why do you think PB will go out of business if they retrench to the UK? That's certainly not what Berenberg are saying, they are saying the company is worth £300m.

From: John Lawson 06 April 2019 10:36 AM

Like it or not Property Pundit, they are still maintaining a similar number of listings in the UK with fewer LPEs. Increased the fee (how many traditional agents have done that lately?) and have increased ancillary income and claim still plenty of opportunities here. M&S, Tesco and even Foxtons have tried and failed overseas. No implosion for those companies. £50M finance raised for the express purpose of entering the US market. Then a further £125M raised with most of it earmarked for accelerated growth in the USA. 80p a share is a market capitalisation of around £300m. Not what I'd call a pig. Woodford's initial investment was £7m for 30% of the company. Could be wrong but I see PB being around for a long time.

From: John Lawson 05 April 2019 13:38 PM

“With slowing growth and accelerating cash burn we believe the group risks being forced to raise additional equity (at a significant discount to last summer’s 360p raise) or reduce marketing spend and abandon the Australian and US operations” Yesterday they had a target of 470p, today 80p. Berenberg are certainly not providing a good service to their paying customers. The story changed for PB ages ago and even if you just follow the company announcements this was plain to see months ago. They issued a profit warning and reduced the focus for expenditure on L.A. and Florida in the States. Still a viable business though. UK listing and market share growth negligible at present but like "Online Agent" says there has been increased margins from ancillary sales to both buyers and sellers and PB say there is still plenty of potential there. They also increased their fee from £849 to £899. No need to make a profit, break even is enough - continue the squeeze on their competitors who now face the letting fee ban, spend what comes in on marketing and see what happens. Further investment for the USA not out of the question.

From: John Lawson 05 April 2019 12:03 PM

Very interesting blog. The blogger spent 1 minute looking at the listings of 100 Agents and 62 of them relisted properties that were already sold or let.

From: John Lawson 01 April 2019 08:48 AM

I have raised unanswered questions to rummage4 about the value of the Google Positions being used to promote their product to Esate Agents. I recommend others raise these questions too. Are the terms they rank for actually searched for by anyone? Do these Google positions get seen? Do they get any clicks and if so how many and how well do they convert?

From: John Lawson 26 January 2019 10:12 AM

Yes, hard to get a true picture from the trade press.

From: John Lawson 24 January 2019 11:43 AM

They compare 14 day periods so they are comparing against the 14 day period to 9th January. Not surprising there's been a big increase when comparing new instructions. Best to do your own research. Compare with the same period last year.

From: John Lawson 24 January 2019 11:06 AM

Lazy & Irresponsible journalists taking quotes from unqualified "experts". Go to a University and get a quote from a Professor. But then they're too clever to be fooled into coming out with some soundbite. A bit like all the "experts" in football. Ex-players who failed in management if they even tried. Just manipulated by the presenters to come out with controversial statements. Rant over.

From: John Lawson 09 January 2019 12:30 PM

Perhaps growth isn't as the market expected? If the market is one day thinking that the UK is growing revenue by 100% a year and that Australia and the USA are going to follow in the footsteps then any contradiction to that scenario is going to have a huge effect on the share price. I can relate to that, the fact that Axel Springer recently paid £3.60p a share for 12% of the company is hard to reconcile with the SP decline.

From: John Lawson 10 October 2018 09:59 AM

Andrew, the comment over viability was from Russell Manning, I was just quoting his post to refer to the 650 listing per month and suggest that it may be YOPA that is actually number two because they are listing around 900 a month. So Russell Quirk's comparison between Coke & Pepsi doesn't really involve his company if the 650 per month figure is correct. And if you look at PurpleBricks who are currently listing around 6000 a month there's a huge gap between number 1 and number 2. I could be wrong but I don't think Coke have 10 times the revenue of Pepsi. So to summarise, Mr. Quirk does seem to be stretching things somewhat with his Coke & Pepsi comparison :)

From: John Lawson 20 August 2018 14:12 PM

>Between Emoov and Tepilo they are listing circa 650/month, miles and miles from anything like a viable, profitable business. On that basis YOPA would be number 2 with about 900 a month.

From: John Lawson 20 August 2018 08:35 AM

This is what you originally said Chris unless you were misquoted... “After consultations and advice from Cornwall trading standards office, my original blog and tweet remain published and I voluntarily placed this matter in their hands some weeks ago.” That sounds a bit different to "I had spoken with them about the case and passed them the case information". Could you elaborate? How did you place it in their hands? This sort of suggests they officially took the case. However their response sounds like they are distancing themselves from your comments when they say "it has not offered any formal advice, is not involved in ASA activities, and nor will it be commenting or making any judgement on such matters in future."

From: John Lawson 16 August 2018 21:17 PM

Chris, could you please clarify whether you have now removed or corrected the claims which you could not substantiate and which were deemed misleading by the ASA? Would I be correct in thinking that you have publicly stated you will not make the changes but in fact have done. If not then what are the amendments that you have previously referred to?

From: John Lawson 16 August 2018 20:49 PM

In a comment on the article "Rebel agent turns fire on ZPG as advertising watchdog ponders sanctions" on 12th July Chris Wood stated "If the ASA, a non-Gov body with no statutory authority attempts to take any action which might damage my name or business prior to any formal ruling from Cornwall Trading Standards, it should be aware legal action may follow." and also "I am happy to stand by whatever Cornwall Trading Standards rule on this matter. They are the statutory authority who has jurisdiction over this matter." Today from Trading Standards "The ASA’s sanction framework provides a legally established means for dealing with such matters; therefore Cornwall Council Trading Standards would not need to be involved directly in this process" and from Chris Wood "It is correct that Cornwall TSO have not yet been formally instructed" and ">my original blog currently remains posted (albeit slightly amended). Rebel without a clue.

From: John Lawson 16 July 2018 19:15 PM

>I agree with Freedom Road' please tell us Mr Lawson if you work for, or have a personal or financial interest in Purple Bricks? No. Let's not get too hung up on just one of the issues the ASA had with Chris Woods' attempt at substantiation of his claims. Let me summarise them here: 1. “We therefore considered that the properties which had been cited as withdrawn were very likely to include properties which had been sold on other websites” 2. “in one spreadsheet, the Land Registry data was incomplete, while the second spreadsheet was only comprised of properties cited as withdrawn. Furthermore, neither of the spreadsheets matched the list of properties instructed by PurpleBricks between October 2016 and 2017. We therefore considered that those spreadsheets could not be relied upon to determine the percentage of properties in that period that had been withdrawn without a sale.” 3. “That did not mean, however, that those properties were never sold after those ten months, and those figures did not in any case relate to the period and region cited in the ad. In any case, because we had not seen the source of the figure, it could not be relied upon as evidence.” 4. “the infographic they provided was only based on the West Cornwall area, which we considered was not sufficient to make a claim about the whole of the UK market as there was no evidence that properties sold in West Cornwall would be representative of the UK” 5. “PDQ had not shown us where the figures in the infographic were taken from, so we were unable to verify them. Similarly, they had not provided verification for the data in the image of the PowerPoint slide.” 6. “PDQ had provided further data obtained from Zoopla to substantiate the claim. However, that data only related to 15 properties, which was not sufficient to support a claim about the whole UK market.”

From: John Lawson 14 July 2018 07:29 AM

Chris, I'm afraid you need to read words more carefully. The facts of the matter are that the ASA have been given jurisdiction to determine whether an advert is misleading which is what they've done. Trading Standards do not have jurisdiction to determine this but of course may hold and express an opinion which they would have to present to the courts if they thought it was in the public interest. Hence the application with yourself and Trading Standards to the ASA. Trading Standards clearly don't have jurisdiction to determine whether an advert is misleading otherwise they wouldn't have gone to the ASA would they? See https://www.asa.org.uk/rulings/purplebricks-group-plc-a17-376791.html "Four complainants, including Plymouth Trading Standards, Alexander Dawson (an Independent property consultant) and PQD Estates Ltd challenged whether the references to “Local Property Experts” were misleading and could be substantiated." You of course failed with that complaint and didn't seem to understand that decision either. Weren't you compliance officer at the NAEA? Frightening! I think you need to look at all your claims again. One that springs to mind as something you would not be able to substantiate is an advert by PurpleBricks which didn't mention it was for an LPE but you assumed it was. That's just speculation as with a lot of your claims. I honestly can't trust any of the points you make when you demonstrate such a poor understanding of what substantiation entails. Your comment earlier "My article makes it clear that the sample refers to a specific geographic area and that the figures quoted nationally are an extrapolation of that area" shows a complete lack of understanding. It's not just a matter of saying what you've done, it also has to be reasonable. The sample has to be a good representation and 15 properties in Cornwall is both too small a sample and non-representative of the UK as a whole (or do you actually think your postcodes are a good cross-section of the UK?) Do you think it would be OK to say you have 3 apples and put a little asterix and subtext saying "where 1 + 1 = 3"? There's a lot more to substantiation than just writing how you've come to the answer. The reasoning must be robust.

From: John Lawson 13 July 2018 07:37 AM

>They are the statutory authority who has jurisdiction over this matter. No, Chris, they may offer an opinion but it is not their jurisdiction to decide issues. Trading Standards have taken cases to Court & lost so don't try and pull the wool over people's eyes. The ASA do actually have jurisdiction to decide whether an advert is misleading. >there is no one with statutory authority who has made any ruling about the legality or otherwise of my post Doesn't mean it's not misleading though. The same applies for the rulings against PurpleBricks but that doesn't stop you from claiming they've misled does it? Incidentally, didn't you make a joint application with your local trading standards to the ASA and lose the case? Kind of suggests they don't have jurisdiction doesn't it if Trading Standards are making applications to the ASA? >The ASA also make it clear that the data on which the original blog was based was verified by ZPG as not having been tampered with or altered by me and, subsequently, allege that ZPG admits that the data headings supplied by ZPG may not be reliable. Well this wasn't mentioned in the report. https://www.asa.org.uk/rulings/pdq-estates-ltd-a17-401398.html Having looked at your blog you state the ASA said in an email "While I appreciate you took the data at face value, your reliance on it does render the claims in your ads misleading because your claims assume that all properties cited as “withdrawn” have not been sold." The key word being "assume". Something you do a lot of. Let me quote you "Having checked the evidence and drawn on my experience, I tend to believe I am right until I am proved I am wrong or the evidence changes". Hardly confidence inspiring is it? >[The ASA] "allege that ZPG admits that the data headings supplied by ZPG may not be reliable". Given your ability to make false assumptions I'd like to see that allegation. The comment from your blog suggests your assumptions were incorrect. Pretty vague anyway! It is up to you to check what data represents and not jump to conclusions. You really have to stop passing the buck for your own failings and notwithstanding your misinterpretation of the ZPG data, the ASA ruled your claims were misleading for other reasons, all valid in their own right. I've never known such hypocrisy, still pointing the finger elsewhere.

From: John Lawson 12 July 2018 20:07 PM

So you agree that this sample size is inadequate?

From: John Lawson 12 July 2018 12:42 PM

From your website Chris "It is quite right and proper that every company and individual is entitled to protect its interests if it believes it has been misrepresented, libelled or slandered. It is also the case that some companies use the law to silence journalists, the public or competitors who are asking awkward questions or making perfectly fair and reasonable complaints which the company were rather not aired." If you think anything I have said misrepresents you, libels or slanders you just let me know what the issue is, what damage has been caused and I'll consider putting it right. If you don't reply I'll assume the latter applies "some companies use the law to silence journalists, the public or competitors who are asking awkward questions or making perfectly fair and reasonable complaints which the company were rather not aired" That is unless you were threatening to send the boys round.

From: John Lawson 12 July 2018 12:40 PM

A simple question for you Chris. Do you think a sample size of 15 is adequate to make the claim "“Cheap agents could cost UK consumers up to half a £Billion in wasted fees”

From: John Lawson 12 July 2018 12:05 PM

Andrew, the option of a slap on the wrist would have been open to PDQ Estates however their desire for publicity made them fight the claim. Chris Wood is again misleading by deflecting the attention to ZPG. There were many issues with the supposed substantiation according to the ASA. Not least the fact that the sample size being used by PDQ was just 15 properties "However that data only related to 15 properties, which was not sufficient to support a claim about the whole UK market". Also the fact that Cornwall is not representative of the UK "the infographic they provided was only based on the West Cornwall area, which we considered was not sufficient to make a claim about the whole the UK market as there was no evidence that properties sold in West Cornwall would be representative of the UK". I think also the data provided did not correspond to the period in question and because the source was not known could not be relied on for evidence "In any case, because we had not seen the source of the figure, we could not rely it on as evidence.". So Andrew, take no notice of what Chris is saying. He couldn't come close to substantiating his claims and instead of accepting this and taking an informal decision decided to fight and lost. Also ignore his volunteering to his local Trading Standards. Again this is publicity seeking. Trading Standards have a dedicated department based in Wales for Estate Agency matters.

From: John Lawson 12 July 2018 11:19 AM

James, some time ago, after asking Chris Wood some questions about his claims about PurpleBricks, he provided me with a letter from PurpleBricks’ solicitors where they alleged he had tweeted “Hilarious but have missed off choosing a DIY agent where you pay £1k up front but only have a 14% chance of selling” (15 January 2017)” and his response to the allegation was that “This, again, is factually correct statement based on a report by an internationally renowned investment companies analyst.”. After showing me that letter he tried to get me to pay him $500 an hour for “experience, advice and insight”. Thought it was a bit fishy at the time and am thankful I didn’t take him up on this seeing that he thinks Cornwall is representative of the UK as a whole and that he believes 15 properties is a suitable sample size to make claims in regard to how much online estate agents are costing consumers.

From: John Lawson 11 July 2018 15:53 PM

Simon, glad to see somebody critical of Chris Wood’s approach, however I wouldn’t agree that this was a slip by Chris Wood. If it had been an honest mistake he would have accepted an informal ruling from the ASA.

From: John Lawson 11 July 2018 15:46 PM

>Therefore, onliners will use sales progression teams to deliver something more like the sales rates achieved by traditional agencies. Maybe they will but it's funny everybody forgets the point about PurpleBricks made in the Jefferies report which stated "Our research sample found that it had sold 51.6% of the homes listed in November 2016 within 10 months, a similar success rate to the overall market" So in the case of PurpleBricks (which represents 80% of the online market) the sales rate in the 10 month period was similar. Having studied my own data on sales rates for PurpleBricks it is clear that after the 10 month period properties do go on to complete and that some of them had completed in the 10 month period but were simply not registered within 10 months. This seems to be supported by what Sohail Rashid says in response to the Rix & May report. "the presence of online agents in a chain does not increase the fall through rate. However, our data shows that those chains take, on average, two weeks longer" If improvements are made by PurpleBricks, then providing Jefferies' report is reliable, it would suggest that PurpleBricks' sales conversion rate would be better than the success rate of the overall market. In fact it might already be better but delays in registration are a factor.

From: John Lawson 03 March 2018 08:47 AM

Bit too long, stopped reading half way through. Seekers of course were pre-Rightmove. Not really a good comparison. The latest unverified figures from Jefferies which of course don't factor in properties that are sold STC, temporarily off the market and completed but not registered yet suggest PurpleBricks perform as well as the market as other Estate Agents in terms of completions. Perhaps this is purely that it's just a matter of listing on Rightmove these days or perhaps PurpleBricks are more motivated than suggested.

From: John Lawson 13 February 2018 13:37 PM

What PurpleBricks need to do is counter the Jefferies spin with some of their own. The real startling revelation from Jefferies, that few have so far picked up on, is that a conversion rate of 51.6% is a "similar success rare to the overall market". This of course means that those customers that sell with traditional agents are paying the costs of about 50% of the traditional agents customers who don't sell as well as the profit of the agent. Back in March Jefferies stated "we have details of every property listed for sale on Rightmove by the main corporate agents (both hybrid and traditional) since the beginning of November 2016. We are tracking the performance of each property and later in the year hope to report the efficiency and effectiveness of each agent" I wonder why we don't now have figures for Countrywide, LSL and Foxtons? Particularly Foxtons who charge 3% commission. Seeing as Jefferies are not releasing the data for some reason, If they are not already doing so, PurpleBricks or one of the other Analysts should collect their own data and fight back by exposing all those poor performing traditional agents. I will watch with interest to see whether the recent spate of news affects PurpleBricks' trading which is the key factor and not the share price dropping.

From: John Lawson 05 February 2018 03:47 AM

>Would you bet £849or more on an evens bet? Paul, it's not an even bet. Own a £500K property and you sell with PurpleBricks and you make a profit of £5151 over an agent charging 1% + VAT, don't sell after 10 months and you can leave it on the market until you do sell or even take it off the market and relist later at no extra charge. So, even if you don't sell after 10 months or later when you relist then the odds are just less than 4 to 1. If the agent charges more than 1% + VAT (most do) then the odds are even better. What is interesting is that PurpleBricks has ”a similar success rate to the overall market.” which means that it is pretty much a matter of listing your property on Rightmove as online Agents do. Inn the average case, Traditional Agents are adding no value but are charging a percentage of the asset when sold. Anywhere between 1% and 3% if I'm not mistaken but they may also charge two customers with 2 identical properties different amounts aqnd if you don't like negotiating your going to end up paying more. Consumers are free to make their own choice but unless you know an agent who consistently does better than average and can demonstrate this to you, you'd might as well list with an online Agent unless your property is low in value.

From: John Lawson 02 February 2018 01:02 AM

Paul do you have any evidence to the extent of overvaluing by PurpleBricks and whether this is better or worse than overvaluing by traditional agents? Also what percentage of customers are suffering from poor service levels and how does this compare to traditional Estate Agents?

From: John Lawson 11 January 2018 14:51 PM

PB's post sales charter https://www.purplebricks.co.uk/terms/post-sale-charter I can assure you, contrary to what some disgruntled reviewers say on TrustPilot, they will strive to get your property sold for you. Just like traditional agents, some LPE's will not be as good as others and some post sales team reps. are not as good as others.

From: John Lawson 15 December 2017 13:30 PM

Is Anthony Codling serious when he keeps stating "Until they are willing to disclose those statistics, which as a data driven company they must have, I believe the jury remains out with respect to the effectiveness of their model" On 23rd March 2017 Jefferies produced a report entitled "Portal Juggling Part 1: What's That All About?" and stated "Working with Rummage4, we have details of every property listed for sale on Rightmove by the main corporate agents (both hybrid and traditional) since the beginning of November 2016. We are tracking the performance of each property and later in the year hope to report the efficiency and effectiveness of each agent" Over a years worth of data and he still doesn't know the number of sales for Purplebricks or if he does then isn't telling anybody for some reason.

From: John Lawson 15 December 2017 07:29 AM

How can the NAEA appoint somebody who pins a logo he has paid for to his twitter account which states "Crystal Mark Honesty and clarity approved by Plain English Campaign" when this relates solely to a document which has been assessed by the Plain English Campaign? With the Honesty Mark conditions of use being that the Honesty Mark can only be displayed on the document they approve.

From: John Lawson 09 November 2017 05:57 AM

>Established agents now need to make a concerted effort to rubbish this newer business model Online Agents will improve. They may even offer an option of no sale no fee. It's early days in the battle for market share and whilst traditional agents will try and point out the negatives with online agencies, online agents will use their marketing budgets to educate the public about the negatives with traditional agency. The secrecy over commission rates and whether they are negotiable or not. The unfairness of charging a percentage of the value of the property meaning those who sell higher priced properties subsidise those with lower priced properties and even those who don't sell. These are early days and the public have a lot to learn about both models and then likes of Which? have a role to play. In the end a well informed consumer will hold all the cards and will probably know when it's best to use a traditional agent and when it's best to use an online agent.

From: John Lawson 21 October 2017 09:47 AM

Hi Sally, >However, I do not believe that the large amount of negative reviews for Purplebricks posted on AllAgents were all fake, the majority of them were way too detailed about the reasons for the clients dissatisfaction for someone to have made it all up. I don't think even PurpleBricks are claiming they are all fake but if I was to write a fake review I'd definitely try and make it look legitimate and provide lots of detail. >If an estate agent is good then the positive ones will outweigh the negative ones I would agree if those who write positive reviews were motivated enough to visit more than one review site. In the case of PurpleBricks they encourage customers to review on TrustPilot. I think that those writing negative reviews are more likely to post on more than one site and if you follow events like I do you will have seen one customer complaining that her negative review which AllAgents took down was in fact a copy of one she'd left on the TrustPilot site. >Of note, I am aware that every time a negative review is posted on TrustPilot for PurpleBricks they have it removed because they say they do not recognise the client Well that's not strictly true. There are some negative reviews which aren't even verified. Also, what happens is that when PurpleBricks flag a review up as an unrecognised customer then that customer is contacted by TrustPilot. If they come back and verify then the review is reinstated. TrustPilot have come out and said that PurpleBricks flag more positive reviews than negative ones. Also, what a lot of people probably don't realise, is that a large number of reviews will come via a link in an email sent out by PurpleBricks. If PurpleBricks claimed not to recognise the customer for any of these reviews then TrustPilot would see that they were abusing the system. BTW, I'm a PurpleBricks customer and used to work in the Internet Marketing industry.

From: John Lawson 19 October 2017 13:58 PM

Sally, you are one of the exceptions. Over the last 15 years I must have met with 10 different Estate Agents, some of them multiple times, and apart from 1 (who I asked) they haven't even told me their commission rates when they valued the house. AllAgents were asked to verify reviews were legit and if they couldn't that they should remove them. This is in accordance the the Defamation Act 2013. That's a big difference from being bullied into removing them. TrustPilot will remove a review if they can't verify its legitimacy which is the proper way to do it, otherwise people with a grudge post multiple fake negative reviews.

From: John Lawson 19 October 2017 12:05 PM

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-4922744/Burnham-Sea-estate-agents-conspired-rip-sellers.html Here you can see how "local" Estate Agents colluded to rip off homesellers.

From: John Lawson 27 September 2017 14:03 PM

"The nation is often quick to criticise estate agents but our experiences have been quite different. Discussing the importance of being local with estate agents showed there is in fact a softer side to them. It demonstrated how proud and passionate they are about the neighbourhood they live and work in, not just about the properties they are wanting to sell." I welled up when I read that. Am I mistaken in thinking GetAgent's paying customers are in fact the traditional Estate Agent that they are so impressed with.

From: John Lawson 27 September 2017 13:34 PM

James, Is there any reason you can think of to stop PurpleBricks switching to a commission basis and undercutting traditional agents? As a company they seem to me to be in a position to trim the number of LPE's back if the demand is not there. The current marketing campaigns are fueling close to 100% per anum growth in listings and that marketing has already created the most recognised brand in the Estate Agency sector. Perhaps they could also trim back marketing costs and be able to at least tread water if market conditions changed?

From: John Lawson 30 June 2017 16:11 PM

Some of the expert panel members could benefit from the knowledge that not all statements in a companies annual report apply to the financial year. For example it is normal for comments on current trading. This could explain why at least one member of the panel finds themselves in a purple haze :) The report is for investors but I'm sure PurpleBricks appreciate the extra publicity they are getting from what they will undoubtedly put down to jealousy of their success by traditional estate agents.

From: John Lawson 30 June 2017 07:56 AM

That's why he phoned me. He was going to validate and negotiate for me.

From: John Lawson 25 April 2017 14:41 PM

What would you say is a typical fall-through rate? Rightmove says 15% of properties that are 'Sold STC' come back on the market. You say above that the difference between you and PurpleBricks is chain management and sale progression. What percentage of sales would you estimate would complete with no involvement by the Agent?

From: John Lawson 25 April 2017 14:40 PM

>They have their money on instruction so why bother doing anything else-better for them to just focus on grabbing the next £ from the next poor soul. Except that would be a very short term view. The LPE's are all shareholders and the one I've spoken to is very keen to get 'sold' signs out there on the properties. I'm selling with PurpleBricks and that hasn't been my experience. One of the reasons I went with them is because I'm a bit of a control freak. i don't trust others to put my interests first. So I negotiated a price with somebody who made me an offer in a message through their system accepted it and then thought it better to ask him to go through the formal offer process on the PurpleBricks website. I was just typing in my formal acceptance when my LPE phoned me to tell me I had an offer. Within 30 seconds of the offer being made.

From: John Lawson 25 April 2017 14:25 PM

Lenny, how are you measuring their fall throughs?

From: John Lawson 25 April 2017 14:01 PM

PurpleBricks had 4330 instructions in 2015. 19200 in 2016 and had clocked up about 18000 in the first half of their year to the end of October. They were talking about 108% growth of instructions back in December and an estimate of 41000 instructions by one broker for the 12 month period to the end of April which is in 5 days. Countrywide & Connells have, I believe, approximately 60000 instructions per year. So is it really unimaginable?

From: John Lawson 25 April 2017 13:27 PM

>But, as the proposition gets more popular it's downfall is assured and even those who do sell using this method, do so at their great cost and that's the purple smoke and mirrors exposed for what it really is. Sounds like wishful thinking. Even if it is all smoke and mirrors how is it going to get exposed? To be able to claim PurpleBricks are achieving a lower price for properties then that property needs to be easy to value. I can't really see homeowners allowing PurpleBricks to sell their properties cheaply if it's obvious what the value is and I can't really see PurpleBricks undervaluing properties that are easy to value. I can't even see PurpleBricks listing many properties that haven't been valued by other agents. With a £14m marketing budget anything that's thrown at them comes back in trumps. Our expert says this and their expert says that and they get some more free advertising. How much of this criticism actually reaches the public anyway? Yet PB carry out a 1000 owner survey and it makes the Daily Express. It's very interesting reading the thoughts of Estate Agents but in the end there are a lot of properties that are suitable to be sold by owners via online agents. Then there will always be properties that aren't really suitable but do get listed. I've even seen £50K properties marketed by PurpleBricks. I'm not sure what those owners were thinking.

From: John Lawson 08 April 2017 08:17 AM

Hi Jon, thank you for replying. What are the ranges of conversion rates from best to worst for Estate Agents in general? I'm also wondering whether Rightmove would even know when a property is sold that PurpleBricks lists. Like I mention above I'm currently selling with them and one of the things I like is that as a seller you are not necessarily relying on the agent to sell the property. You are effectively dealing directly with anybody who makes an offer. When you receive an offer you have the option to take the property off the market. Could the figures you are seeing in Rightmove actually not be truly representative? I have seen some of the figures bandied around by agents 14% and 30% and I've seen PurpleBricks' claims of 88% and I've also done my own research on a small sample of listings from about a year ago and I won't say what my findings were but they were closer to PurpleBricks' claims.

From: John Lawson 07 April 2017 12:07 PM

Jon, I'd be interested to know where you get your figures on the conversion rate of PurpleBricks. Chris, it sounds like there's a lot of unethical and lazy agents out there according to your comment. 425 already working on "the dark side" and all the others who are going to join. I currently have a property listed with PurpleBricks and the LPE had previously managed 2 local agents. They were the only agent who came to me and told me what they charged and the only one who admitted my property was difficult to value. The others seemed very keen to value it at anything I considered to be right. Since listing with PurpleBricks I've had phone calls from these agents offering me special commission rates and telling me how busy they are and how good they are at selling properties when the evidence just isn't there to support this.

From: John Lawson 07 April 2017 09:53 AM

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