And here to infuriate us all is a prediction list from – boo, hiss! – eMoov’s Russell Quirk.
Before you ask, we didn’t commission it. It simply turned up in our inbox.
The Quirkster has volunteered his forecasts in the spirit of wanting to “get the forum’s vitriol flowing”.
He said: “I thought that it might be fun to compile my very own list of what will happen within the industry next year. Some may or may not be tongue in cheek.”
Vitriol anyone? Or just a pantomime?
- Online agents will still exist on Dec 31st 2016
- Actually, so will most high street agents too.
- OnTheMarket will shrink (further) to become just a specialist London based portal dealing with postcodes W1 and SW1 only. And will be acquired by Zoopla in a deal worth several dozens of pounds.
- Ian Springett is fired and immediately sets up another website called ‘DowntheMarket’, a recruitment portal for unemployed Prime Central London estate agents.
- One of the listed estate agency groups, in a ‘Blockbuster / Netflix realisation moment’, mistakenly acquires/invests in a proper online agent but then delights in an immediate 25% share price bump.
- PeeBee and Robert May are discovered to be aliens sent to attack Earth by reversing common sense and logic through persistent, ludicrous arguments. Both are sectioned.
- Russell Quirk becomes Sir Russell Quirk, knighted for Services to the Property Industry.
- Someone, somewhere, remembers why the NAEA exists.
- Rightmove buys Tesco and launches a ‘Premium Listing’ range of foods. Profits increase to £8bn per day.
- Stelios announces ‘easyAir’, the opportunity to invest in his new venture which sells oxygen to the masses packaged in little orange cans. The venture raises £100m on a valuation of £6 trillion despite criticisms that only four cans have been sold and that was because they were mistaken for Tango.
Comments (11)
This is funny, actually its a joke but it raises the profile of the estate agency sector which can only be a good thing in all fairness.
“…actually its a joke but it raises the profile of the estate agency sector…”
It does? Perhaps you’d like to explain HOW, exactly?
Not so much aliens but Time Lords, we come from a time when honesty, integrity and decency were the norm. Qualified meant sitting exams and it wasn’t possible to simply claim to be an expert.
Hmmm… post count is off by one.
C’mon – time to ‘fess up – who posted something naughty, nasty, libellous… or just plain truthful-but-risky?
Looks like Russell has been at the festive mulled wine. Can his PA stop him drunk emailing. For somebody who wants to be taken seriously to send this out is really rather silly.
LOOK ABOVE, Gentlepeeps – The Quirkster has placed ten BETS.
I would suggest that for every one he gets – or in reality has already got – woefully wrong, that he donates the next fifty years’ profits to a charity of my choice.
That’ll be the first three pounds seventy six pence The Russell Quirk Home for Destitute Online Estate Agents has ever received.
I’m just a giving kinda guy…
When are you two going to announce your wedding/bare knuckle boxing date?
The tension is killing us
Our relationship is simply a marriage of convenience.
The Quirkster loves the attention I bring him.
Thank the stars it’s not the other way round…
yawn…………..
On a serious note, its very hard to understand (again other than due to their own respective lack of understanding as to the benefits) why one of the listed guys haven’t made an investment into an online business. Any cost would be returned multiple times in share price increases before operational benefits are even considered.
I truly hope for the sake of the future of estate agency that they aren’t planning on doing nothing or, worse, wholly acquiring declining businesess (connells and hatched) or being sold a pipe dream by switched on founders of extremely early stage businesses (too many to list but try Yopa, settled, and Iamtheagent etc etc)
One more prediction….the comments section is about to fill up with people taking the bait……..
Fair play to Quirk, hes immensely quotable, particularly on a slow news day!