Member Info for cyberduck

I give up: 12 million pounds sterling. Very impressive if they reach the tipping point in November 2018.

Sorry, that should be �12M turnover.

Sain, Oz has always been talked about as being potentially as big a contribution as the UK. Fees are a lot higher over there with PB's fee being $4500 at least. On schedule for $12M turnover according to my data.

Zeus Capital comment : http://www.***************************/purplebricks-agm-trading-update/412737087 "(1) Purplebricks UK is growing very fast and profitably. (2) Purplebricks Australia is on track to breakeven in November 2018 (after 15 months trading) and will be a similar sized unit to Purplebricks UK. (3) Purplebricks� USA, which is developing more quickly than either the UK or Australia, has the potential to be many times larger than the rest of the group." I hadn't realised the tipping point in Oz would be so soon.

>You are right about the review being still there which merely highlights heir incompetence as their complaince informed thatthey had completed their investigations and were removing it and that was a week ago! jonboy review by any chance? "Having seen it on rightmove I arranged to view it through purple bricks "local expert" I couldn't make the appointment so I rang the mobile for the "local expert" but had no reply in repeated attempts. so I gave up and lucky for me I found a better property through a high street agent and bought it and completed in 4 weeks as I had already sold my property."

>It just seems strange that both parties can move like lightning to remove a 1* review but a little more pedestrian to remove 5* reviews Sain, you're not comparing like with like. The reviews in the US are being reported by PB and TP are going through their process of contacting the reviewer. Your review wasn't even removed. As for TP providing your contact details, did you not agree to this by accepting T&C's? If you did then I would imagine this is part of the review monitoring system that PB will be using. That would be the most efficient way to do it anyway.

It was back in May but Regulator provided details more recently. See PIE article from last week http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/regulator-lays-bare-what-went-on-in-estate-agency-cartel-case/

> that doesnt explain how quick both parties reacted with a huge degree of copoeration one Saturday morning when I posted a negative review I'm guessing this was the UK. So what were the grounds for removal? What happened after PB phoned you?

Mike, I'm afraid I don't understand all the technical terminology and have always been a bit skeptical about technical analysis. I have traded for the short term at times though if i think I see a trend. Also if I identify something I think will take the market by surprise I might have a punt :) Or if I think the market has overreacted to news. In PB's case, as I said earlier I think the price is driven by private investors and just positive news has driven the price before. Sometimes not even positive news but just concentrating on the positives. PB aren't known for being shy :) PB were the third biggest agent (in terms of new listings) and must be approaching or might have already overtaken Countrywide & Connels. I would expect some sort of prediction or comment in this regard but could be wrong. I also expect them to make big about the USA. What I don't know is how the market will react. :)

Sheepy, Just had a look at the PB US website for the first time. Was hoping to see a link to PB listed properties but haven't found one yet. Not that they should particularly have listed any yet but it would be significant/interesting if they have. How did you find the listings you refer to? I had a bit of a play with Zillow too but didn't get very far. I notice that 2 of the PB agents are still listed with other companies on there.

>I give in Sain, I'll never give in until I've convinced you :) Think of it as payback for all the help you've given me in regard to TEF. The bit that was speculation was that you are seeing an effect and assuming the cause. Just because you are not satisfied with the result doesn't mean that PB have done nothing. Perhaps they have raised the issue but TP are holding firm to their procedures. We just don't know. The procedure of only removing after giving the reviewer 7 days to present their own stance seems reasonable to me anyway. TP have 40 staff in their compliance department but that doesn't mean they'll jump to it because a particular customer wants them to vary their procedures. PB are probably a high profile customer but sticking to their procedures will be fundamental to their own business plan and building of trust as to their impartiality in the industry. You will probably find they would need to run any variations to procedures via their lawyers and change the documentation of the procedures before taking action that differs from the current set of procedures. A similar example that comes to mind is Google and their search results. In the early days they built their reputation on the fact that the search results were built on an algorithmic approach which decided what position a particular website was listed at. This might still be the case but I'm not 100% sure. Strictly no human involvement in choosing and this was fundamental to their business model and their reputation as being impartial. If anybody reported poor search results to them they took the problem to the developers and they produced better code, they didn't manually interfere with the results but later released a new version which dealt with the problem (as well as others). People would be furious with Google. "all they have to do is remove the website from their results". But Google stuck to their guns and still maintain the reputation of producing the fairest and best search results of all the search engines. Convinced?

>They have a very large compliancee departments could easily deal withe problem Its clear that Bricks havent urged them to o addresst That really is speculation. On the one hand you are saying all this is damaging to the company and now you seem to suggest PB are doing nothing about it. The way I see it is that because of the migration to a new domain some (a very small number) UK reviewers , who will in the main be people used to using purplebricks.com over a period of many months, are going to TP, typing in "purplebricks.com" and entering a review oblivious to the fact it is now for the US site. There is no attempt to deceive, it is clearly labeled as the USA site. This is being dealt with by the standard process. PB staff are flagging up the reviews they suspect as being from UK customers and TP are dealing with them in the usual way. TP would be breaking rule #1 for any business claiming impartiality if they start permanently removing reviews without first contacting the reviewer (unless it's mentioned in their process). The fact that AllAgents have removed reviews demonstrates the problems with not having a process in place to flag up reviews for investigation. I don't see any big conspiracy here and I don't see it having any particularly positive or negative effect on anything going on in the USA. Another storm in a thimble (pinching Peel Hunt's opinion after the tame Watchdog).

Mike, I've not suggested anybody buy PB. I have just discussed what I expect from the trading update. I haven't interpreted it or recommended any action. They are a high risk investment. As you say, people should do their own research. That might also involve looking back over my own posts. I was making predictions prior to the last update too :)

Sain, Are you sure they have addresses for all people who leave reviews? Even if they do, a UK address doesn't mean you haven't had an experience with US PB.

Mike, that's right people should do their own research. Your point about the smart money though is debatable. If you look at the share price prior to the last trading update from mid-march to early may it was stuck around £3 until just before the trading update when it then started a rally up to the £5 level. It even rose after the final results which surprised me because all they did was confirm the trading update. Back in January the share price even rose after a tweet by the company about a record January! Whilst there are some big trades the share price to me seems to be dictated by private investors. With the float being so small, institutions are probably loath/unable to buy in the open market because they won't get a holding of any significant size.

>still arriving thick and fast 2 reviews in the last 22 hours? What do you suggest they do?

Foxy, >The news sellers were in fact taking Loans when they thought they were just paying later is something I felt was estate agent tricks. This probably was Estate Agents tricks. The claim that people actually thought this, that is :) Try not to believe everything traditional Estate Agents say. Sure, with over 60,000 customers, some will not appreciate they are taking a loan because they haven't read what they're agreeing to, but believe me it's very obvious. You actually have to actively make a choice to do this. I'm a customer and signed up with them and I knew I would have been taking a loan and agreeing to use a particular conveyancer but chose to pay up front so that I wasn't bound to this. Watchdog made a pretty feeble attempt at suggesting that this wasn't on the website but changed the subject when the CEO told them the truth of the matter. The next day the company released a statement and I think it was something like 0.1% of the customers who had complained. That's 60 out of 60,000. Most of the negative publicity about PB comes from traditional Estate Agents. They are using social media and bombarding the ASA and Trading Standards with complaints and encouraging everybody else to do so too.

Foxy, Zoopla is better if you make adjustments for those returning to the market. I was pretty much spot on in predicting their final results for 2017 but was using some data provided by Sain from before I was making observations. PB should announce what their August listings figure is in the trading update if they are being consistent. Last year it was 3156. Should be about 5000 this time round. My approximations say more but I was a bit high for the 2017 results.

Sain, you are forgetting that people have had bad experiences with traditional Estate Agents. http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/unanswered-phone-calls-and-ignored-emails-found-during-giant-mystery-shopping-exercise-of-30000-branches/#comment-62819 There is some evidence to support the argument that traditional agents are not as expensive as the online agents are saying/implying but the traditional agent will not publish their rates. They seem to be terrified of real competition in the industry which is understandable because their overheads are high compared to an online agent. If they can demonstrate that they achieve a better price for a property then people will gladly pay them a percentage. The only response from Estate Agents to PB seems to be to complain to Advertising Standards and Trading Standards when they won't even publish their commission rates and are misleading the public themselves if you look around a sample of their websites.

August looks to be around 60 to 70% up on the same month last year according to my approximations. I'm seeing 3.6% market share (approx) for new listings over the last 7 days. Rising from 2.9% at the beginning of February. If they can continue at this pace in the UK and keep advertising costs the same then they're adding income of about 13K instructions per year to the bottom line. £13M (approx) per year. Oz also on target for £12M turnover estimated at the end of June annual statement (again only an approximation).