It’s been another hectic week for the industry, here is what has caught our eye.

First: Market correction?

Lending and listing data out this week showed we could be heading for a market correction after the buy-to-let stamp duty rush boosted sales in March.

Figures from the Agency Express Property Activity Index have shown a sharp decline in both ‘To Let’ and ‘Let’ properties.

New listings were down 11.9% and properties ‘Let’ down 11.1%, marking the largest month on month decline for May since the index’s first records in 2012.

Buy-to-let lending also fell 64% in a month, after the Stamp Duty deadline, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

Meanwhile, Charles Curran, principal at Maskells Estate Agents in London, warned buy-to-let was a train crash waiting to happen and said landlords will quit the market en masse as regulatory, mortgage and tax changes kick in.

However, one commenter YieldisKing was more positive, stating: “Mr Currans’ prediction of much higher rents and lower prices can only lead to higher annual rental yields for B2L investors – this when all other asset classes are predicted to stay in the doldrums at best!  Great news also for the existing 70% of landlords who do not have a mortgage plus those with a corporate wrapper.”

Second: The online agent debate

Ross Jezzard, director of Jezzards, reignited the debate over traditional and online agency insisting both could co-exist, as he does in his firm.

Jezzard, whose firm has branches in Hampton, south-west London, and Surbiton, Surrey , said that the Purplebricks mega-marketing campaign has really helped its online agency, whose business has grown particularly in the last  year.

AgencyInsider pondered: “It is this story and those about other firms, such as Countrywide, that signal long term structural changes afoot in the estate agency industry. The hybrid model of traditional with online, all under the same roof will gather pace and  in five years time all agencies will offer both.

“If this becomes universal then the likes of Purplebricks, Tepilo, e-moov etc will lose their USP and simply become A.N. Other agency competing with a massive volume of competition. Undoubtedly not all of these ‘pioneers’ will survive.”

Third: Going global

Readers and analysts were intrigued by online agent Purplebricks’ plans to target the Australian market.

Purplebricks announced this week that it made a loss of £12m on revenues of £18.6m and said it had sold £2.8bn worth of properties in the year, sending its shares up to 140p.

This prompted out comment of the week from Clarkuk: “Madness, it’s much bigger than the UK, less densely populated and the LPEs will have an even larger territory.”