kiama42
22 Sep 2017
Re: PURP - does it trust the public? Does the shift button not work on your keyboard?A big reversal in SP around the time of your post...
thirty fifty twenty
22 Sep 2017
PURP - does it trust the public? so there are these 20 people that posted reviews on Allagents.co.uknow given that PURP is causing tremors in the rest of the property world,i would have thought that all estate agents are trying to find the people that wrote these reviews,and maybe leader them to give an interview with a newspaper e.g. "i'm annoyed my review has been stopped by legal action"of course it is not really news,and very probably it only represents a smal proportion of the trasnactions that PURP doesbut it would now be a very valuable story to create negative publicityI really think PURP have made a big mistake on this one.....them taking legal action against a review site for 20 odd 1* reviews which may or not be true is a proactive action - it only needs some of those reviews to be true for it to seem that PURP has acted heavy handedly and of course it will encourage others to go to other routes to criticise if their experience with PURP is less than ideal.if they had just left it.. then the good experience of their customers would have won the day. the public are not stupid so they would have seen through the fake 1* reviews. So ironically PURP by taking action has shown that it doesn't trust the public which isn't great for a business trying to get the public to trust it!Remember that the BBC went undercover to get quotations from the LPEsurely now there must be a few people operating under cover trying to get a story from an LPEit is probably very unfair on PURP but if there is a story to be had some-one will try and get itthere is also a lot of money to be made because the rating of PURP is so high that such a story would cause further share price falls. All IMHO, DYOR + BoLPURP is in my portfolio (short)
thirty fifty twenty
22 Sep 2017
Ken Bruce pleaded guilty in tribunal 2015 PURP discussed in [link] Ft has posted a document showing Mr Bruce has been in tribunal in 2015 and pleaded guilty to 2 of 4 charges. So that's why he is not a director but just a sales director despite co-founding the company. he is however in charge of the US operation. What this in return for him stepping down from teh board?i dont think his breaches are serious and everyone makes mistaks etc...but what i dont like is the company lauding itself for being open and honest but then 1 - changes the board structure of the company to create an impression2 - takes a hammer to a small issue of 2 dozen negative reviews on a website. All IMHO, DYOR + BoLPURP are in my portfolio (short)
thirty fifty twenty
21 Sep 2017
Re: Purplebricks USA what sort of value to you put on PURP USA?how do you arrive at the same.i struggle to see how a launch buget of 50 million,training 30 LPE's for 10 days,can suddenly create a business worth much more than £200m.The more value one ascribes to it - to me the more likely it is to attract competitors.Their first mover advantage is only a few months,they have no IP protection, and all their technology and processes are easy to copy.and dont think it would be difficult to recruit 30 sales reps eitherAll IMHO, DYOR + BoLPURP is in y top5 hldgs (short0
thirty fifty twenty
21 Sep 2017
PURP compared to Ryanair..... I have no doubt that >90% of PURP transactions go smoothly.But also seems to make sense that when there is a problem there is much less incentive for the LPE to spend serious time to sort. I think PURP said that they aim for the LPE to sell 5 houses a week - so assuming a 40 hour week - each transactions only gets 5 hours of their time. (BTW - does anyone know how much the LPE gets of the fee? Or indeed how much RMV get?)Since it is in the news today it seems very similar to Ryanair. They have provided a cheap, no frills service and changed a market place (a growing one). Most of the time everyone was happy and customers knew what they were getting and happily paid. When things went wrong , they went badly wrong and customers were furious. It stood to reason - with a focus on minimal costs there was not a service element to the company. M O'L took several years to recognise this but recently admitted they were wrong and is trying to change the company.On that point - interestingly Ryanair has a pretty much unbroken history of sale growth. In 2006 the MV reached a peak of slightly over 3 times the forecast next years sales. it was never as high before or since. In the 12 months after 2006 the share price fell 50% (this started before the main stock market fall). Since that point Ryanair has gone on to grow sales 3 times and profits 5 times. The share price has since risen 500%.I accept that over a 10 to 15 year time scale PURP may well cause the same disruption to their market. But they will not do this without bumps on the road.At the moment PURP are valued at 12 times next year forecast sales. let's say 10times if the TU delivers better than expected as Argentus predicts. My investment is based that this rating will fall - even if it falls to 8 times that is a 20% gain on my short. I believe it could fall to 6 times and indeed to 4 times if the general stock market falls. In time this might just be a 'bump in the road' for PURP - I don't know. But for now it seems a very good risk / reward scenario to be short. For me, the slowing house market in UK is just icing on the cake.And the bad publicity around their heavy handed legal team, (BTW I think the wrong biz decision), more relevant to me gives the motivation for holders to bank profits with a resultant lower price. hpcg - good analysis. there was an interesting in CLIG this week about incentives. I think this is a very pertinent issue of our time about giving the right incentive to create the correct culture and behaviour and not lead to easy money for some.All IMHO, DYOR + BoLPURP is in my top5 hldgs (short)
thirty fifty twenty
21 Sep 2017
this seems madness .....1. assuming these 1* reviews are from 'the competition' why raise to the bait.why not just respond and let the consumer decide?if they have 26,000 5* reviews - I don't see why they are getting worried by a couple of dozen 1* reviews.this is not the actions of a company that boasts about openness and integrity2. if there is any actual truth in the reviewswell then, the premium rating wont last long in a slowing house marketFrom Allagents.co.ukPurplebricks Plc - Account Inactive21st September 2017Not only, it appears, does Purplebricks not like what our reviewers say about them on allAgents, but they're also rather miffed about what we wrote about the suspension of the Purplebricks profile on our site. So, due to the further threat of litigation from Purplebricks, we've decided to remove it, despite it being entirely factually correct. We're a small company, and we just don't have the money for a prolonged court battle against a Plc with a market cap of £1 billion. We hope you'll understand.In our humble opinion the thousands they're paying their lawyers to write to us might have been better spent responding in a positive way to the criticisms raised by our reviewersevery Estate Agent in the country is going to be using this as part of their sales pitch ...chart and volume still indicates further fallsAll IMHO, DYOR + BoLPURP is in my top5 hldgs (short)
Eadwig
21 Sep 2017
Purplebricks USA Some metrics that may help future measurement to see if the site is expanding in usage. It should be noted that some of the listings are land, and some of them have been listed for years, so be very careful about extrapolating growth figures from this.I assume Realtors who have signed up have copied over their whole property stock, some of which have been on sale for a long time.I've done the searches by county, all of which make up the LA sprawl - or which may have land listed with Realtors in the area and from which people commute into L.A. I've split it so that if anyone wants to do comparison searches in a week or two they are easier to copy. san diego county, ca- 7,427orange county, ca- 8,235los angeles county, ca- 24,213riverside county, ca- 13,907san bernadino county, ca- 12,965kern county, ca- 1075ventura county, ca - 3,078santa barbara county, ca- 1,686san luis abispo, county, ca- 1,795Clearly the launch 'in Los Angeles' is a very wide definition. The above counties make up most of the Southern half of California, from the Mexican border to about half way to San Francisco, with a couple of inland counties not included.I'm glad to see 'The Valley' included, it only makes sense. That's basically the Riverside and San Bernadino counties. Often you will see Los Angeles listed as a City of around 4,000,000 but there are another 4,000,000 at least in The Valley area, which is reflected in the listings numbers above and the big money properties are in Orange and Ventura counties.San Francisco and Oakland will be a very small step (almost literally) from where they are currently in the rollout, which will include similar sorts of numbers.
admiralty12
21 Sep 2017
USA Going onto the USA website there now appear to be 700 listings in CA. However, if you zoom into the USA map you get listings all over the country inc NY. I assume these are local agents able to plug their listings into PB's site. If this is the case, it will be hard to see the 'true' PB listings. Keeping a close eye on the CA listing numbers should give an indication of growth but the fact they have additional listings is annoying. Still not back in yet. Regards
Eadwig
21 Sep 2017
Re: Wow! (NB. Shorts) Eadwig 24 hours ago "Over 200 properties listed in Santa Monica"374 properties now listed. That's almost doubled in 1 day. I wish I had taken more sample sizes now!I'm not sure is this is true growth of something to do with the focus of the interface, to be honest, so take it with a pinch of salt. I'll try and get a grip on it later when I have more time.
Eadwig
21 Sep 2017
Re: TRUSTPILOT - analysis on the review 30, 50, 20, "high street agents fees (evidence they are doing business at 1% but I've used 1.2%)"I had my flat valued about 2 years ago and was shocked that the estate agent named 1.5% The last time I sold a property there was a fixed fee of £1000 - which was also about 1.2%. That was 15 years ago, mind (in Sheffield).Purplebricks USA has 60 reviews but all(?) are challenged, mostly with the note "We believe this review should be on our UK Trustpilot site. This is currently under review and appropriate action will be taken."Purplebricks UK has >26,000 reviews and Australia >1000 reviews.One recent poor - 1 star - review of Purplebricks Australia has a response from Purplebrocks " Reply from Purplebricks AustraliaPublished 23 hours agoThank you for taking the time to leave a review. We would never wish for any of our customers to be left feeling like they do not have our full support and we are really sorry to learn of your experience. Our State Director will begin investigations immediately, should you wish to provide further information, please don’t hesitate to raise this directly to our Customer Service Manager by emailing [email protected]. Thank you. "Which seems entirely reasonable to me.I used to manipulate rankings on these sites for a living, by the way. I wouldn't read very much at all into a rating with less than 1000 reviews for any mass-market product or service.
thirty fifty twenty
20 Sep 2017
Re: TRUSTPILOT - analysis on the review point 1 - the fact is the average price of a house sold with PURP is £145,000 - so that might cost £1.700 in high street agents fees (evidence they are doing business at 1% but I've used 1.2%).so PURP fees are £1,000 (blend London and outside) + say half go for viewing at £300 so that is a total bill of £1,150.the average saving is not '000s it is c.£550.I will happily update figures on next PURP results.point 2 - my view that the price will fall is not based on their business being impacted (this is a bonus) it is that the stock market will give a different rating to that business. At the moment it is rated at 25times sales. rating at 20 time sales is still a 20% fall. I do think the bad publicity will impact sales, and I do think the rating will continue to fall.All IMHO, DYOR + BoLPURP is in my top5 hldgs (short)
Eadwig
20 Sep 2017
Re: Wow! (NB. Shorts) soi, "The market likes it. The only truth is the tape."Yeah. When looking at the multiples you have to consider the out years, perhaps two, and three years ahead. Then maybe the multiples actually look cheap ...But to be honest, how on earth do you tell, really? Its a growth stock and they're chasing more growth, with, I believe, their sights on the next market beyond USA already (judging from RNS wording). That's aggressive. They get marked down because the UK market is slowing, its a BUY. Why? Because they're going to pile into another market that has the fastest growth profile and high value properties. There's plenty of them beyond London and the Uk, Sydney and half a dozen other Australian cities, New York, Phoenix, Vegas, S. Fran. (all more so than L.A.).Still to come. Hong Kong, Taipei, Shanghai, Singapore, Doha, Sao Paulo, Cape Town - the list goers on. Not everywhere will it be legally possible to set-up, probably, or barriers may be much higher to enter the market. But, in some ways its weakness is its strength. Easy to set-up and get a few local agents on board with a couple of weeks 'training' is a pretty easy model to follow. Its also easy to set-up and roll out in the next market too.Again - all down to the management and their ambition at the end of the day, I believe.I agree that legal action over a few duff reviews out of tens of thousands seems a bit silly. They must not allow themselves to be distracted - plus there will be some genuinely bad experiences or customers who have duff property and decide to blame PURP. Taking action just draws attention. Not very wise, really. If the service genuinely failed, examine why, improve procedures and compensate where necessary, say sorry and move on. Hopefully there is a board member or manager who has a Quality brief. If not they need one. Everyone does. The buck must stop somewhere when it comes to maintaining a quality experience (and all that consultancy malarky I used to spout).Eadwig
kiama42
20 Sep 2017
Re: TRUSTPILOT - analysis on the review Bottom line is the bad reviews wont stop vendors choosing PURP to sell their home if it will save them £'000s in commission.
soi
20 Sep 2017
Re: Wow! (NB. Shorts) I`m long and have been actively trading it for 2 weeks.Went short once, closed that, now long only.It`s a long, pure and simple.The market likes it.The only truth is the tape.soi
thirty fifty twenty
20 Sep 2017
TRUSTPILOT - analysis on the review TrustpilotThis open letter from Trustpilot was posted on another BB ….hxxp://press.trustpilot.com/open-letter-in-response-to-questions-regarding-purplebricks-and-trustpilotI thought it was very interesting when I read it and opened my mind to the possibility I was being holder bias (with a short) in PURP. SO I decided to look at the trustpilot website [link] – it was very interesting and a good use of 20 minutes. The website is friendly and highlights the highest rated companies . strange thing PURP was not on there. And i was surprised of the 50 or so companies listed across20 or so industry sectors – I did not recognise one single name. Then I realised that the typical score of these businesses was 9.9 for the highest, second highest and third highest rated companies in each industry sector. SO now the 9.6 rating for PURP does not seem so magical.The website really is friendly and you can easily search by industry sector and sub sector…..I looked at every industry sector. There is a top 10 listed for each sector. The typical number of reviews of these companies I would say is about 200 (two hundred) (this is from an eye ball guestimate) Aside from 2 examples the highest I saw was about 1,000 reviews, many were a few hundred and many again were less than 100. Again across each industry sector I did not recognise any company names.The 2 companies that did have large number of reviews were evermine (10,654 reviews)(score of 9.8)(they do labels I think). Interestingly they don’t use trustpilot on their website but refer instead to their 4.9 rating on google.and flushbay (11,622 reviews)(score of 9.9)(they sell flash drives). they do use trustpilot on their website.Looking at purple bricks – I filtered by the different levels of stars given.28 pages of 1 star, 14 or 2 star, 17 of 3 star, 102 of 4 star, 1171 of 5 starIf you use the numbers above and the 1,2,3, scoring system you get a score of 9.5 so it more or less validates my assumptions. So it just seems a little OTT that purp should try and challenge all these 1 star reviews – some must be genuine and even if half are fabricated by competitors it would only change their rating from 9.6 to 9.7. really is that worth endless effort to say 9.6 rather than 9.7. To me to smacks on some sort of ego trip and intense focus on getting a marketing message across. I think focus should be on the customer and the product. Looking at PURP US is also interesting – ALL the reviews there come from the UK. PURP have not said they are doing a review….. I just am amazed at how so many people (from the UK) suddenly put up reviews regarding the US business. Also the fact that NOEN of the US customers have put up a review yet. PURP has said (per BB comment) that the issue was to do with the launch of the new PURP US website… hmm the question is why would that affect trustpilot website?The other thing that struck me about the reviews was the number of people who were reviewing for the first time. I’d say 90% of people were using trustpilot for the first time. So obviously it is not something people use. If you look at trip advisor the average reviewer has posted 5 times I would say. I looked at those with 2 reviews….. interestingly some had voted twice for PURP… not sure how that works. Others that voted twice, their second vote was for something very household related….. matress, shower unit etc… I only saw 1 user who had posted 8 times. So we know that trsutpilot is not used by the public and that companies are encouraged to get their customers to post. So PURP have decided to pair up with this new business – not get customers to use allagents 9the industry standard historically) or google (the likely industry standard going forward). I try and put myself in the shoes of the board and think why are they making that decision? Why do they feel the need to go with a new service (trustpilot) when there are industry standards available. T
