Online estate agents Emoov and Tepilo have joined forces to complete a £100m merger and become the second largest online agent in the UK.
As we reported earlier this month, both Emoov and Tepilo were in discussions with a third unnamed agent about joining forces to take on the dominant online agent, Purplebricks.
Now the deal has been completed successfully, we can reveal the unnamed third party is online lettings agent Urban.co.uk.
That marks a significant shift towards the online lettings market since it’s an area neither Emoov nor Tepilo have really sought to carve out a share of the lettings market previously.
“We’ve joined together two of the best known fixed fee estate agency businesses to make the ‘number two’ contender; along with one of the UK’s most established online lettings companies,” said the founder of Emoov, Russell Quirk, who will head up the merged business.
The Shifting Shares Of Online Estate Agents
The merger means that the current number two online estate agent in terms of number property listings, Yopa, will see it’s share of the market shrink.
There has been no confirmation yet as to whether the brands will continue to operate as separate entities, or whether they will merge into one single brand. It was previously expected that both the Tepilo and the Emoov brands would be retained.
It was also rumoured that the newly merged business would look to float on the stock exchange later this year. However, it’s now being reported that this is unlikely, but remains a longer-term aim.
Even in an industry that is used to seeing fast-paced changes, the merging of two of the largest online estate agents behind the market leaders is sure to take some by surprise.
However, we wouldn’t expect this to be the last of the major changes to shake up the market. In fact, it only increases the chances of seeing further mergers between current competitors over the coming months and years.
