Daniel Attia, the 27-year-old founder of online agent YOPA, has been named by Forbes on its list of Under 30 entrepreneurs.
Attia is one of 30 finalists in the technology section.
Other young innovators on the list include the likes of Hello Fresh founder Edward Boyes, football player Gareth Bale, star of Slumdog Millionaire Dev Patel, Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner, Brit Award nominee Stormzy and Apprentice 2014 winner Mark Wright.
The citation for Attia says: “Raised $23 million from the investment arm of Savills to build a more transparent, online real-estate agency called Yopa, jumping into a highly competitive industry dominated in the UK by Rightmove and Zoopla. Yopa charges a flat fee of around $1,000 instead of a percentage of a property’s sale price.”
It is a year this week that YOPA launched nationwide, securing £16m in funding from investors led by Savills.
Six months later, it also achieved backing from the Daily Mail General Holdings, which bought shares in the business.
YOPA’s other two directors are also under 30 – Andrew Barclay, 25, and his cousin Alistair Barclay, whose fathers own the Telegraph.
Congratulations on the award but don’t see YOPA making great strides into market share given spend much like all of the disrupters. Call-centre agents appear to be losing market share as a percentage nationally (down from a claimed 6% last year to a verified sub 4% this year).
Investors in various call-centre models and the public were promised exponential growth as well as many claims that have since been proved to be deliberately misleading (qualified estate agents who weren’t) as well as various embarrassing trips to the ASA. Is it a surprise that the public don’t seem to trust them and aren’t prepared to part with money up front or sign up to loan agreements with no guarantee of actually selling.
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In a results driven industry people want to see results, sadly the call centre agents have a reluctance to actually verify rates of success, successful completions and listings to sales ratios. I wonder why….?
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It is very possible that they don’t keep such records – after all – once paid, they don’t need to worry about what happens next…
…or at all, for that matter.
Simply move on to the next case of potential #CONmisery
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Sounds like the organisers don’t get it either. It appears they think Yopa is a new property portal rather than an online agent.
That huge TV ad campaign worked well then…
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Lost £1.3m last year. Extended accounting period from July to Dec- but accounts not filed yet. When on earth did raising funds become success- thats the launch pad for success and just means people with lots of money are willing to roll the dice. Find it bizarre YOPA are mentioned against much bigger and much better known brands than YOPA. Just over 1500 listings- based on a UK offering that sounds small to me.
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Not sure what to think about this ….
On one hand i despise online agents, they are naff, service, reach, value all out done by high street agents.
On the other hand, he is 27 hats off to the fella, he has seen an opening, raised millions and i am sure reaping the rewards even if the business itself is not.
I think the worry is, this lad at 27 has started a multi million pound revenue raiser and does not understand agency (he understands funding) – Must be others looking to sell their first or second homes thinking this is not a problem.
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