Housing

Online estate agency reports maiden UK profit



Estate agency platform Purplebricks has posted a maiden profit for its UK business.


In its interim results, the firm reported adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of £0.3m for the six months ended 31st October 2016, up from a loss of £6m in the first half of last year.

This growth follows a 159% increase in revenue to £18.7m, exceeding full year 2016 sales of £18.6m.

Michael Bruce, CEO of Purplebricks, said: "Our strong results are testament to the seismic shift that is underway in the estate agency market.

“We continue to win over an increasing number of customers by offering them a complete and seamless high-quality estate agency experience at an attractive fixed fee.

“These results demonstrate that the business model is working, with the UK generating a maiden half-year adjusted EBITDA profit while growing market share.”

Michael revealed that the firm was now agreeing a sale every 16 minutes, with £2.59bn of property sold in H1 2017 and a sales pipeline of a further £2.52bn.

Meanwhile, the average revenue achieved per customer has grown 20.6% to £1,000.

The announcement follows Purplebricks’ launch into the Australian market earlier this year.

Its Antipodean business reported a £2.5m loss in adjusted EBITDA for the first half of 2017.

“We have also demonstrated that our team can internationalise our model with the successful launch [in] Australia, which has performed better than any of the initial regional launches in the UK,” Michael added.

“Although we recognise that the UK market backdrop is tough, we continue to have a confident outlook for the future.

“We have momentum, a superior, low fixed cost flexible business model and a strong balance sheet, which we will leverage further in the early part of the busier spring market so as to build on our success to date."   



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