Purplebricks has again blamed a sharp slowdown in the number of homes being put up for sale for a £10m shortfall in revenue last year.
In a short stock exchange announcement, the online estate agent warned investors that revenue for the year to the end of April totalled around £70m, compared with £91m in the previous 12 months.
The City had expected revenue to come in at nearer to £80m.
The top-line miss will feed down to the bottom line, with Purplebricks now forecasting an underlying loss of £8.8m for the year – 10% more than analysts had previously estimated.
It also burnt through cash at a rate of almost £600,000 a week last year, having seen its cash balance reduce to £43.2m at the end of April from £74m 12 months earlier.
Purplebricks, which will publish its full results in July, said its underperformance was brought on by a 31% drop in net instructions compared with the year before. Between May 2021 and April 2022, its agents helped to sell 40,141 homes. In the year before, it sold 58,043.
