Shares in Purplebricks start this week after strong trading last week pushed them to a new high.
They finished on Friday at 147p – having hit a record of 168p during the day – valuing the loss-making firm at £353m.
At float less than four months ago, Purplebricks was valued at £240m.
Purplebricks shares started trading at £1 each just before Christmas and after volatile trading reached a low of 72.50p in January.
Comments online on Friday included: “Booked my profits today, the stock has had a cracking run.”
Purplebricks had 294 properties listed for sale in London at the weekend.
By contrast Foxtons had 1,620 properties for sale in London.
Foxtons share price ended last week at just under 167p, down from 289p last May.
Foxtons floated on the stock market in September 2013 with shares at 230p, valuing the firm at £649m. Its market capitalisation is now £459m, with shares 24% below their float price.
Foxtons says it has not lost a single listing to any online competitor.
Comments (11)
Foxtons have 1620 properties, with a sensible fee and once sale agreed likely to go thorugh
PB have 294 that will not yeild them any further income as taken up front, buyers will not have help in sales once agreed. Buyers will never use an online agent again.
Which business model is sustainable?
FYI = Back from a listing just this morning the PB rep has insisted if the vendor signed up they MUST use their solicitors. Useful to know.
*Also the PB rep did not make up a follow up call or letter, All we need to do is keep offering the best service they will soon disappear!
“PB have 294 that will not yeild them any further income as taken up front, buyers will not have help in sales once agreed. Buyers will never use an online agent again.”
I take it you mean “sellers”, smile please?
Either way – there’s an old saying that ‘every v!rg!n can only be scr£w£d once’.
In the majority of towns there is at least ONE Agent whose income is mainly from property v!rg!ns.
I would say that a large proportion of Call-centre Agents simply aim to prey on that pool of sellers now – and as they are even cheaper (in every sense of the word) than the High-Street bottom-feeders that I refer to, it will make them more attractive to the less discerning and often more problematic clientele they seem happy to attract.
Foxtons have 1620 properties listed with an average fee no doubt in excess of £10,000. Proper estate agency.
Purple bricks have 294 listed in the same area with an average fee of less than a £1000!!! Disney estate agency.
I just checked some of their recent listings and looked at previous marketing.
3 properties out of 3 were previously listed by PB and came off the market for exactly 2 weeks – RM ‘software’ doesn’t pick up more than 2 weeks… coincidence?? so that 294 should be much smaller.
having a marketing break has happened to us all, but to happen to all 3 properties I picked at random?? This is just the next stage of portal gaming. Telling the homeowners that a 2 week break will enable PB to launch as if the property was NEW TO MARKET!!!
They have been doing this for MONTHS, Clarkuk.
It’s only one of their tricks.
At least one portal has stated they don’t have a problem with it.
Which?
Yes it all seems perfectly normal to me, but as the old saying goes.
“A fool and his money are soon departed”
Any fool can buy PB shares.
and it seems they all do!
Genuine question: is the online model picking up more traction than we believe, or are investors just assuming that because PB is the ‘biggest’ online agent that it will, by right, make a huge profit in the future?
How else can a loss-making firm attract such huge share prices and valuations?
There is an automated investment system that allows amateur investors to track high profile investors, essentially you whack in some spare cash and it invests in people with a previous good track record.The sheep investors are effectively blind to what they are investing in. the value of the stock has nothing to do with the actual performance of the firms involved.
Just check out the run rate of new instructions on RM, been gradually falling over the last few weeks, last 7 days circa 180, can’t be anywhere near enough to keep all those “local experts” fed and watered, as well as paying the huge marketing/running costs. Reality check not far away.