Strike, formerly Housesimple, is in the process of making substantial job cuts, with a number of positions across the business at risk of redundancy, a well-placed source has told EYE, as the online estate agency adjusts to tougher housing market conditions.
After seeing other online firms, such as Purplebricks, announcing major cost-cutting measures and redundancies, EYE has been informed that Strike wants to adopt a similar approach, following the recent economic downturn, which has compromised the agency’s operating model.
Strike currently has more than 450 members of staff across Strike and Strike Financial Services, with over 150 role redundancies being proposed as the company looks to reassess and significantly reduce the size of the teams across the business.
EYE understands that Strike also plans to remove face-to-face valuations in the southern region due to high marketing costs and relatively low brand awareness in these areas. The company will rely on virtual valuations instead.
But the firm will continue to operate a face-to-face service in the northern regions of the country, and so these teams will be largely unaffected by this process.
Aside from large-scale job cuts and reduced spending on marketing, Strike will also seek to find opportunities to increase revenue, and that will almost certainly mean higher fees in the near-term.
It has also emerged that Strike has been working with an outsourced team in South Africa since April last year. That relationship looks set to continues, albeit with some changes.
EYE has made several attempts to get hold of Strike over the past few weeks but without success.
