Is Purplebricks really the UK’s most popular estate agency?

Purplebricks is now the UK’s most popular estate agency. At least that is what the online estate agency claims, as part of its latest marketing literature.

Purplebricks says that it is growing in popularity because it makes the process of buying and selling homes ‘cheaper, less stressful and more transparent’ than other estate agencies.

The online estate agency insists that it is completely transparent about all its claims. Some of them come from internal data, and the rest – comparing them to the rest of the industry – has been substantiated by TwentyEA; their data has been used to support the firm’s claim that Purplebricks is the UK’s most popular estate agency.

“The claim is based on the fact that Purplebricks listed more homes in Great Britain than any other estate agent brand throughout 2023, with 21.945 new instructions in 2023 to date,” a Purplebricks spokesperson told EYE.

“Purplebricks has more five star TrustPilot reviews than any other estate agent, with 80,081 reviews. Nine out of ten customers would recommend Purplebricks according to NPS data collected from customers between August 2023 and November 2023,” the spokesperson added.

Purplebricks has shared this table, which displays a list of the volume of new instructions for 2023 by each estate agency brand in the UK, to substantiate their claim. The instruction dates are based on whole of the market data from TwentyEA. The data in the table is for new instruction dates from the beginning of 2023 to 22 November 2023.

 

In additional, Purplebricks states:

+ We’re the largest UK estate agent

+ We’ve sold over £73.5bn worth of properties

+ We’ve sold over 303,000 homes

+ We have hundreds of estate agents across the country, with many years of local knowledge

+ More 5* Trustpilot reviews than any other estate agent

+ 9 out of 10 customers recommend

+ Sell your home for free

So is Purplebricks really the UK’s most popular estate agency? We will leave it for you to decide.

 

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24 Comments

  1. Chris Arnold

    A bit like the insecure kid who tells everyone “Look how handsome/pretty I am” whilst those with inner beauty simply attract the people that belong in their life.

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    1. jan-byers

      er – this is just selling houses it is not life changing lol

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      1. Robert_May

        If you haven’t understood a home move is life changing its a good job you’re doing something else now

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        1. jan-byers

          I build houses
          any idiot can show someone round with a key
          And I earn much more than the average UK EA salary of less than 27k according to a report last year
          A surgeon can change somones life
          The fact is estate agency is an unskilled admin job
          That is why the salaries are rubbish

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          1. Robert_May

            You are funny Jan

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  2. comment75

    A quick read of their reviews on allagents and that paints a different picture. I have a tendency to believe the 1 star ratings on there are a more accurate reflection than the 5 star one on Trustpilot

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    1. jan-byers

      Have a look most agnets reviews – almost all have 1 star reviews

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  3. Shaun77

    Popular is a deliberately misleading term.
    Dacia sold about twenty times as many cars in the UK in 2023 compared to Porche. Does that make Dacia a better quality product? Does it mean the Dacia product performs better than a Porche?
    Using deliberately misleading language in such a way is indicative of their entire approach – manipulative and disingenuous.

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  4. Cantell

    Anyone that has been involved with the purple company in a chain of theirs, know the above is a load of old tripe. What’s the conversion rate from instructions to sales/lets?

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    1. Robert_May

      Last time it was independently evaluated, 51.57%. Its best not to go there as some agents only exchange contracts on 13% of what they list.

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  5. Shaun Adams

    It’s a sad day for UK estate agency when people choose a cheap, low service, low quality agent to deal with their biggest tax free asset.

    Moving home should be about using an agent who does their best for you. An agent who is proactive, a great communicator wants to put more money in the seller’s pocket. Less fall throughs and a faster time to exchange.

    Do you want the cheapest or the best? Because the two aren’t the same.

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    1. jan-byers

      Prove it ??
      Thats is the problem
      There are plenty of high street agents who are staffed by kids who still live at home with mummy and daddy – have no life experience are on on low wages and are hopeless

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      1. Shaun Adams

        Rotten apples in all industries Jan – You sound like a true expert.

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  6. Shaun Adams

    How many new instructions are from local independent agents, please?

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    1. Chris Watkin

      As everyone knows, I am a huge fan of the TwentyEa data and not a huge fan of Pie Charts.

      What is fascinating is the the total number of listings in the same time frame (1st Jan to 22nd Nov 23) from independent agents (I chose the 250th largest estate agent and then worked backwards had listed 814,403 properties

      If it’s interests people…

      I recently did some analysis of the whole U.K. market going back to 2019

      This data illustrates the distribution of homes sold among the 15,161 UK estate agency firms (not offices) since January 2019.

      The top 10 firms, by the largest number of homes sold, account for 12.53% of the market, while those ranked lith to 100th secure 19.67%.
      Agencies ranked 101st to 250th by total home sales claim 11.85% of the market, while those ranked 25lst to 1,000th hold 22.9%.

      The remaining 33.05% is divided among 14,160 agencies, those ranked from 1,001st to 15,161st.

      This distribution underscores the presence of a vast number of smaller, independent estate agency firms in in the UK

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      1. Shaun Adams

        So if PB listed 22,000 properties, independent agents listed 814,000 in the same time period?

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        1. Robert_May

          Between 2015 and 2019, when various claims were being made about disruptors’ performance and market share, I developed a system specifically designed to critically analyze statistics that were created to support marketing claims, often full of spin and puffery.

          One of the most outlandish claims made by the most brazen promoters was that they were selling everything they listed for 99% of the asking price. What Mr. Spiv actually did was remove all his listings after three months, then republish them with a new reference number. On the rare occasions someone made an offer on their listings, Cadd & Co would adjust the asking price just before marking the property as “Sold Subject to Contract” (SSTC). There was a taught set of portal gaming routines, allegedly advised by the portal reps themselves, leading us to uncover 15 methods of portal juggling, each designed to manipulate the pie charts.

          The original of this cliché PR came out in November 2018, when, conveniently, Purplebricks was the biggest brand of agency based on listings. The portal pie chart stats broke down the listing into individual brands to ignore that group agents, consisting of multiple brands, were far larger. However, the strategy of ignoring group “local brands” made it appear as though Purplebricks was listing more than their professional competition.

          Chris says he doesn’t like portal pie charts, but this is the same data manipulated in the same way but presented differently, giving the marketing team an excuse to find an “Anthony’s grandma” excuse to say something positive.

          The true measure of an agency’s success is the bottom line—the cheques cashed from the completions made—the number of “Sold” boards an agent can plant by the roadside. Let’s have a PR piece where the data is analysed objectively based on the profits made by each agency brand.

          If people are going to crow about their 5 star reviews how about posting that one agent has 1735 more 1 star bad review than the combined total of all the other agents in the list of competitors they chose to be compared against.
          Perhaps, moving forward, there could be a push for more standardised reporting practices within the industry to prevent such manipulations. Transparency is key, and maybe it’s time to advocate for regulations that require more honest reporting.

          Stats for hire, get glowing stats to support your puff piece, stats for hire!

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          1. Shaun Adams

            Very commendable Robert

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  7. RCM1962

    Nothing to see here in my opinion. Its the same business model as before and therefore will deliver the same outcome.

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  8. Matt Coster

    Listing homes and actually achieving a successful result at the end of the process are two very different things.

    Using generalisations such as ‘we’ve sold 303,000 homes’ a) doesn’t quantify in what timescale this has been achieved and b) doesn’t actually confirm if these sales resulted in a successful exchange of contracts or not.

    Does all this marry up with their ‘cutting the bull’ advertising campaign of old or merely create more false and misleading information for people?

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  9. Jonnie

    This is all a bit 2017 over again? Picture the PB Boardroom;

    THE BIG BOSS.
    ‘Right, the data is in from that company we paid to find it and it’s a flipping result! Our PR guys have had a look at we can definitely talk about how excellent we are, ignore the brands that are all the same aside from the facia in Connells Group actually being the biggest and lets chuck in a bit about Trust Pilot too, it’s a win, win a slamdunk and a back of the net, damn I am good and the investors are going to be positively moist with delight.’

    THE OUTSPOKEN SOON TO BE SEEKING NEW OPPORTNITIES PERSON.
    ‘Im not saying I don’t agree, obviously but the Bruce Fellas did this in spectacular fashion years ago and they had all the simpler, easier, more transparent guff woven into the patter as well but they still burned a whole hill of cash. Should we stop repeating history and doing things that didn’t turn into profits?’

    BIG BOSS.
    ‘Your fired pal, get out.

    THE OUTSPOKEN SOON TO BE SEEKING NEW OPPORTUNITIES PERSON.
    ‘But, hang on, we need to……………’

    BIG BOSS.
    ‘Shut up, and leave your pass at reception. Everyone else, Pub, beers are on me, I’ll be there as soon as I’ve given Carphone Charlie and the other money boys the news of my brilliance’

    Jonnie

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  10. jan-byers

    Prove it ??
    Thats is the problem
    There are plenty of high street agents who are staffed by kids who still live at home with mummy and daddy – have no life experience are on on low wages and are hopeless

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    1. Shaun Adams

      Rotten apples in all industries Jan – You sound like a true expert.

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    2. morrisseysillegitimateburger

      Why do you follow this site you vapid harpy? You have the textual dexterity of a carpet beetle and the intelligence that would make Forrest Gump look like Stephen Hawkin. Your vile, bitter and twisted rants have no place here and everyone that reads your vitriol loses 10 IQ points in the process. So do everyone a favour and just disappear you sad little person.

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