Purplebricks’ group head office has come out fighting over recent reports that its operation in Australia is struggling amid allegations of departing LPEs.
The company claims that – although as we reported recently its official list of LPEs is down on the 105 it claimed to have in the field in Australia within its most recent annual report – 18 new LPEs have been hired over the past two months.
Purplebricks also claims its LPE count hasn’t dropped since March “despite some churn” and that it is “winning market share in a declining housing market”.
The hybrid agency also says it continues to hire while other traditional estate agents in Australia are reducing their head counts, and that “higher quality” former traditional agency staff are joining its ranks.
Purplebricks has also made the bullish claim that its revenue in Australia are set to increase by 250% year on year. The company launched in Oz during August 2016.
Aggressive campaign
Part of Purplebricks challenges in Australia are that the country’s agents, industry associations and regulators have mounted a far more aggressive campaign to question its business model than in the UK or the US.
In March the company was fined AU$20,000 by the Queensland Office of Fair Trading over claims that it had misled customers about its fixed-fee offering and not followed accounting procedures correctly.
And earlier this month one of Australia’s larger trade bodies, the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia, called for a government investigation into the company’s claims – similar to those made in the UK – that it completes the same service as a traditional agency but for a much smaller, fixed fee.
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