Purplebricks Australia down to just 182 property listings

Purplebricks Australia down to just 182 property listings
Staff reporterDecember 7, 2020

There are now just 182 listings remaining on the Purplebricks website.

It's less than a quarter of what remained in July when they still held 800 listings

Since then a number of properties have been presumably sold or vendors have ditched the UK-based disruptor for local estate agents.

The remaining 182 offerings range from around $2.4 at 19 Alawara Drive, Tallai (pictured above), a seven bedroom, seven bathroom house set on 0.82 hectares to $150,000 for 140 Gilmore Ave, Medina.

The 522 square metre Medina, West Australia holding has been for sale since December 2018 with the asking price reduced from $170,000 in August 2019.

According to their website, around 73 agents are still on deck, down from 85 in July.

In early May, Purplebricks Australia announced its intention to exit the Australian market.

Despite the newly-installed CEO Neil Tavender and Kenny Bruce having overhauled the pricing model, so that half the fee was paid upfront and half on completion of the sale, Purplebricks decided to abandon the Australian market.

The pressure on the Australian business was most clearly exposed when it reported an $18 million interim loss for the six months to October last year.

Vic Darvey, the Purplebricks Group CEO said in May that after much consideration it had "made the difficult decision to close the Australian business."

"We’ve been operating here for two and half years and, unfortunately, we have been unable to make the progress in the Australian market that we’ve wanted, despite the tireless efforts of our employees," he concluded.

The Australian branch announced that they would take no further listings in Australia, but intended to finalise all existing agreements.

They announced their decision just a week after UBS said the company was not likely to make money in Australia until 2022.

In the month prior to the shutdown it was forecast that Purplebricks would potentially have to close its Australian operations to save the UK mothership.

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