Emoov CEO says online agents can't get above 10% market share

Former CEO of Emoov has been quoted to have come to the terms that, at least when it comes to the defunct property portal, he had failed. 

Speaking at the FUTURE: PropTech Conference in London, Russell Quirk described his presentation about the failure of onliners as “a weird kind of therapy”.

Although the Emoov brand has been purchased and now continues as a low-profile online agency under new ownership, Quirk’s original enterprise under the Emoov name began in 2012 with a fixed rate fee of £295; by the time it went into administration at the end of last year that figure had risen to £895.

Quirk told the audience at FUTURE: PropTech that when he launched Emoov he was “very positive about the prospects of the online agency sector”, based on the belief that onliners who charged less but did “a decent job” would create a valuable market. 

However, he admitted that his original prediction of a 35 per cent market share for online agents was “completely and totally wrong” and - citing Rightmove data - their current seven per cent market share after 15 years of online operators and £150 million spent on marketing was “frankly astonishing“

Quirk then outlined three reasons why market share was so low and why online agents have been perceived to have failed.

Reason 1 – Competitor numbers: Quirk explained how in the early days of online agents there was an appetite for the service, an opportunity to operate unopposed and the chance to grow market share quickly. However, after this initial period, competition grew significantly and it became like “lots of ferrets in a box fighting over the same morsel.”

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