Member Info for cyberduck

Our posts crossed over - yes I bought back in at around £2.88 and have sold at around £2.60. I think I should stick to investing rather than trading :) Did well overall though. My average buying price was about £2.00 and I was out for about 50p of the drop.

Bankfool, I can't answer your question I'm afraid. Sold my shares earlier today for just over £2.60 and the price shot up as soon as I did it. :) So how high or how high they can go is beyond me. I wasn't happy with the share price dropping in the face of what is positive news for them. A month back the shares would have rallied for a week so there does appear to be quite a bit of negative sentiment out there. I'm keeping an eye on this because despite what some people who claim to be better informed than me are saying my own observations are positive.

That is one bad attempt at journalism. Bits taken from all over the place by the looks of it. I think the comments from Zoopla & NTSEAT are from way back. "All the figures quoted in terms of overall numbers of property per agent and sales agreed are set to be challenged, with a second report by Jefferies due to follow." "At least one agent is known to have challenged their listing in the ‘top 50’ juggles, blaming their software, according to Rummage’s Robert May." So what's the point in quoting the figures and drawing conclusions? I imagine there are some very upset Estate Agents out there.

https://www.ft.com/content/00cf4376-0e34-11e7-b030-768954394623 This is supposed to be behind the FT's paywall according to Estate Agent Today https://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2017/3/purplebricks-has-3-3-of-properties-sold-stc-countrywide-has-4-5 but I can access it so perhaps others can. Some quotes if the links don't work: "Analysts at UBS say the group now has a market share of 3.3 per cent of listings marked “sold subject to contract” in the UK, up from 1.7 per cent a year ago. This compares with 4.5 per cent for Countrywide, but Countrywide also has extensive businesses in areas such as lettings, mortgage broking and commercial property" "Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said that to justify its recent share price highs, Purplebricks would need to be instructed by more than 30,000 home sellers a year." The figure from A J Bell seems a lot lower than the statements from Hardman & Co back in September 2016. I personally think the Hardman figure of 41000 for the year to April 2017 makes more sense and even then growth in the UK & Oz needs to be pretty rapid from then on and that would include a premium because of the small float and popularity of the shares. Hardman's estimates for the UK are 41000 (2017), 57000 (2018), 77000 (2019) and 100,000 (2020). It makes me wonder whether A J bell mean growth in the number of instructions needs to be 30,000 a year but the FT article states "This article has been amended since publication to clarify the views of Russ Mould of AJ Bell. " so perhaps not.

http://www.afr.com/real-estate/arena-reit-boss-saves-38000-on-house-sale-by-using-purplebricks-20170321-gv3hrh "A veteran property executive who has held a real estate licence for the past three decades, Bryce Mitchelson knows a thing or two about real estate. But even Mr Mitchelson was surprised, and pleasantly so, with how much his family saved selling a three-bedroom house in Melbourne's inner east when they embraced market-disruptor Purplebricks. The single-fronted Edwardian in Elsternwick sold for above $1.7 million after just two weeks with Purplebricks. It cost the Mitchelson family a flat rate commission of $5,500. As well, they outlaid an extra $1500 or so to gain a better position in online advertising. Local agents sounded out by the Mitchelsons wanted a 2 per cent commission, along with another $10,000 in advertising costs."

Fair comment but the price rise started around the time of the interim statement. The expansion into Australia was part of it but it was also a long time since any news had come out and I'm sure that revenue up by 120% and a move into profit forecast had a lot to do with it. Even that tweet about having a record January spurred the share price on. The placing at £2.20 and the move into USA boosted it further. Now with a £3.50 price tag at one point we saw some profit taking and then the sale by Directors at £3.00 caused a further drop.

>Cyber the problem with your comparative cost savings is that you are giving equal weight to the valuations Sain, there are plenty of problems with my simple example and that was the point. You need to take everything into account and the lower fees are a huge factor. We've got Jeffreys saying they're going to show who sells more properties but this is only one factor and a few percentage difference isn't going to put owners off. You'll never be able to determine whether a property would have achieved a higher or lower price with a traditional agent so in any comparison you've got to assume the price is the same. The idea that a traditional agent is going to try and get a higher price because they will earn more is not very convincing. For an average priced property it's better to encourage a sale at £10,000 less than asking if the alternative is 1.5% of nothing. What are we talking about? An extra £150 on £4000? There are even some who think PB's conversion rate will be good because sellers are motivated by the fact they've already paid. My own research shows that about 86% of properties listed last August are no longer listed in Zoopla. OK, that doesn't mean they're sold but there were 3156 listings and you think you'd have heard if there were serious problems. Sure there'll be a few losers but plenty of winners and the power is in the owners hands to do something about it. Have you researched the 4 problem properties you refer to? Why aren't they selling? if it's price then who knows whether it's the owner or the agent causing the problem?

Companies don't generally provide commercially sensitive information to shareholders. Obviously if there was some requirement to do so or even if it was accepted practice they should do. When looking at the percentage of sales you need to make the cost saving with PB into account. Everybody who criticises them seem to forget this important factor. Working on average commission of £4000 and the simple case of PB having just a 30% success rate and typical estate agents a 100% success rate look at an example of 10 sellers. If all 10 of them sold through a traditional agent their cost would be £40,000. But if 3 of them sell for £850 and 7 of them sell for £850 plus £4000 = £4850 the cost is £36500. So the average cost per owner is still less if PB have an awful conversion rate and traditional agents have a superb success rate which just isn't going to be the case. This is based on the assumption that a typical estate agent has a 100% success rate which is unlikely. There must be a certain percentage of properties that nobody can sell at the price the owner wants.

>This is information they should provide to people but don't. Are you sure that Agents actually publish these figures?

Cabala, being a cynic is good but it's clear from Jefferies' latest statement "We have details of every property listed on Rightmove since November 2016 and will track all of those properties through to the Land Registry database during 2017" that they can't back up their earlier statements. Surely they would now be restating what they said back in July 2016 if it held up to scrutiny? If you're a cynic you'll be asking yourself why they aren't.

Cabala, there were allegations from this same analyst that PB weren't selling properties. See https://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2016/7/purplebricks-blasted-over-sales-totals-and-speed-of-completions. They claim to have demonstrated this by analyzing the Land Registry in Bournemouth, Southampton & Birmingham. PB addressed these claims in their interim results statement: "We are very proud of our success in selling property on behalf of our customers which is testament to Purplebricks being the most positively reviewed estate agent in the UK. We recently conducted a verification exercise on a random sample of our properties marked on the portals as SSTC, nationally and regionally, against the Land Registry database. We took into account the sample size of our properties and regions referred to in any notes published by analysts in the market and increased them five fold. We also looked at a larger sample of 10,000 properties spread across the UK (which did not include any of the regional sample). The results of the samples were as follows: 10,000 properties sampled nationally: Confirmed as registered by the Land Registry: 91.9% 1,611 properties sampled in Southampton, Bournemouth and Birmingham: Confirmed as registered by the Land Registry: 87.5%" So whether you believe it or not, they have made claims that are easy enough to disprove. If I'm not mistaken, Jefferies haven't commented on that matter since the results which I think says a lot.

I've investigated this and the main issue from what I can see is that Zoopla are listing as newly added, properties that are withdrawn by PB homeowners when they are sold STC and these properties are returning to the market when the sale falls through. I believe this is supported by the fact that only about 3% of PB's properties in Zoopla are classed as sold STC. It is typical for this to be over 50% so this shows properties are being withdrawn in PB when they are sold STC but the fact that it is not all properties shows it's not an automatic feature. If anybody is claiming that PB is intended to mislead homeowners into thinking that they are listing more properties than they are then good luck to them in trying to prove this. They may also find PB's lawyers are very interested in their claims. The effect of this is to show more newly added properties than is the case (about 10% from what I have seen) but it also shows fewer properties when listed in the last 30 days is the search criteria. So the effect is both positive and negative so any claims don't really make sense. Zoopla need to come into line with Rightmove and only list properties as new if they've been off the market for 14 weeks. That would sort out the "problem".

Thanks.

Property experts... What's going on in Tyne & Wear? Over the last 7 days there are 939 "new" listings in Rightmove. A massive 310 of these are actually reductions. Only 7 of the real 'new' listings are with PB. The lowest market share I've seen - just 1.1% and the 7th most densely populated county.

I don't disagree terrace. The valuation seems too high but Institutional Investors have been prepared to pay £2.20 and now £3.00. It's about future profits more than current ones and the market and the Institutional Investors are basing the valuation on this which is clearly risky. From memory, if you go on the Hardman & Co projections then they need 7% market share here in the UK by 2020 and OZ repeating the growth seen here but lagging. This to warrent a £4.00 valuation in 2020 discounted back to a £2.20 valuation at this time. Since that report we have the potential of the USA to factor in as well as an increased number of shares.

>So at the end of the day its the buyer who ultimately benefits by bricks charging less fees Possibly to some extent but unless it was a real buyers market the seller would too. So for two $600,000 properties and a typical 2% commission and $4500 PB fees I really can't see the seller accepting $7500 less and giving all the benefit to the buyer. They might be happy to split the difference in a buyers market to make the sale ahead of the other seller but in a sellers market they probably wouldn't even have to do that.

Not sure I understand the figures in the first comment. Not sure of the point being made either. Is he suggesting that a buyer will reduce the offer so much that there is no net benefit? Very unlikely. I'm not even convinced buyers will think how much the seller is saving especially if its an auction or a sellers market. The second comment has merit but the same logic hasn't really stopped PB in the UK. Also I read somewhere that there's a similar arrangement in regard to the paying up front option we have here.

> in a small market town in pitches just offprime its possible to rent an office reasonably cheaply Well areas like this will probably continue to offer traditional agencies. I would imagine PB and any copycats who come along will be growing into the more population dense areas. Taking a bigger and bigger percentage of those areas. I was looking at a few. Still only 3% in London. Devon only 1.6%.

So if you can do it for £1500 then there must be something wrong with the Agents who say they can't reduce commissions and aren't getting rich from charging 1.8% or more. Little wonder people have jumped at PB's offering. The trouble with the small local Estate Agent model is that you need premises to promote your business. Why do we need 4 different Agents on a High Street with shops & support staff? Very inefficient. If the public don't like the service they get from PB central, they can always change the model and increase the cost. It's a bit harder for Agents to gain the trust of homeowners again and come up with £14m a year to compete with the advertising campaign. Reduce costs by moving off the High Street and they pretty much are PB.

>it's all smoke and mirrors They're the most scrutinized Estate Agent in the country. My LPE told me they had to be careful about what they put in the advert because the whole industry were waiting for them to do something wrong. Not allowed to put within walking distance of the school apparently but nearly all the other local Estate Agents write what they like.