[Help] Purple Bricks

bhafc99 · Feb 28, 2019

I remember the good times said:
Thanks guys. Noticed that PB may be in trouble financially as well. I did occur to me that most house hunting is done online though. But going with local agent but hassle fee.

There have been some disappointing results in the media recently; as a business they’re not meeting anything like the planned-for growth and performance, especially in trying to crack markets outside the UK. The CEOs in the UK and USA both quit last week.

Isn’t necessarily a factor in your decision (it’s a macro factor, when all you care about is the micro factor of how well they’d do at selling your property), but personally would make me think twice.

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happypig · Feb 28, 2019

I've used Purple Bricks twice. Once to sell my mother-in-law's house (ex local authority in a very popular area) when she had to go into a nursing home. Second couple to view it bought it. Second time we put our place on the market with them and had hardly any interest (but the market has changed considerably and we are in a very different sort of house). Tried a normal agent, still little interest so we pulled it, will give it a year or two.

beorhthelm · Feb 28, 2019

Springal said:
I've not used Purplebricks, but did view a house on the market with them. It was OK but the woman that did the viewing knew very little about the house so basically just let us in and followed us around

sounds like a lot of estate agents, plus ca change.

for me the problem with estate agents is the after sale service is usually so poor, so PB cant do any worse here. economics of the business is very interesting, its in their interest to inflate valuations to get you signed up, then once a buyer appears in their interest to lower the price to secure a sale, so they work against the interests of the seller to some extent.

Boroseagull · Feb 28, 2019

Rugrat said:
My experience says your point 3 is bollox.

On both of my last two house sales the agent tried (hard) to have me accept offers to make the sale and on both I held out and got £20K and £30K more. The difference in commission is tiny once in the ball park.

I'd also say that for the most part don't have the agent accompanying viewings. They're generally kids who know SFA about the house and make a complete hash of it. I much prefer showing potential buyers around, I can point out all the good stuff and answer questions accurately, not guess

Call point 3 what you may - but my experience in 3 house sales in the UK is very different to yours.

Uncle Spielberg · Feb 28, 2019

I think Purple Bricks charge an upfront fee and that is what they get regardless of whether it sells or not so where is the incentive ? 1% plus vat or maybe 0.8% plus vat to me seems very reasonable for an estate agent to charge. And the market is very tough at the moment so it is not money for old rope, they will actually have to work harder atm for their money. As always properties that are sensibly priced will sell, those that are not will not or will at least take a lot longer to shift. That is my view

Bold Seagull · Feb 28, 2019

My issue with Purple Bricks is that a good estate agent is more than just selling your house, or selling you a house. In my experience, especially when times are slower, a good agent works hard to ensure every part of a potential chain is doing its bit to get to completion. I've known absolute shit agents in a chain, and a deal has only gone through in spite of them and the hard work of other agents because their incompetence can almost cause it to fail. So many charlatan agents, but there are also plenty of solid good agents who have worked their areas for a long time and know what they're doing. They normally charge reasonably too. I wouldn't touch the likes of Fox & Sons either for the same reasons.

luppers · Feb 28, 2019

dont know if it has altered but some years ago wanted to sell my property and contacted PB. Wanted a fee up front plus a seperate fee for every viewing ! Needless to say didnt use them.

mejonaNO12 aka riskit · Feb 28, 2019

I hate to be that guy that rants but here we go.

PB were a bunch of absolute TOSSERS with us.

A shortened version of the story.

4 years ago we thought we would try and sell. We went through PB with the offer just too good to resist. We were very confident of a sale so the payment to PB (required even if you don't sell) seemed not risky at all.

We took up their option for them to do the viewings. Something like £90 on top. "BARGAIN" I thought.

Things started well. A few viewings, a couple of offers but it didn't quite get to the price we told PB we would need to sell. Fair enough.

Then things went a bit weird. You have access to an online portal where you can see people requesting viewings. We saw a few times viewings listed but then cencelled. "that's a shame", we thought. "They must have found somewhere else".

This was beginning to happen more and more and now we were getting NO viewings. "I'm sure we will get a sale" said Mr M from PB.

Now, the joy of the online portal is you can see who has requested the viewing. After yet another cancellation I was really suspicious. I decided to give one of the last minute cancellations a call

"I'm SO sorry to disturb you, and please don't feel obliged to answer this, but can I ask, why did you cancel the viewing?"
"Oh, we didn't. YOU DID".

That's right. Our wonderful estate agent was cancelling our viewings because he had taken on too many clients. I said to the lady she was more than welcome to come view the house with us guiding them round. They put in an offer that day.

I argued and argued with PB and got my money back. My 'Local expert' isn't listed as the estate agent anymore.

disgruntled h blocker · Feb 28, 2019

Had a few issues with Purple Bricks myself, this time in Basingstoke. My LPE (local property expert) was a lazy b*****d who was clearly sacked from a local estate agent and tried to rekindle his career with PB... But he did a bad job with us. We only had 3 viewings in a month but someone put an offer in which the LPE said (I repeat "said") he vetted. He did not. It was late February and the wording of his offer said he would need to complete by the middle of April, something the LPE impressed on me as being important. His offer even increased when we told him that we can be flexible to meet these deadlines.

Things started to unravel pretty quickly and only in May we found out that our buyer was getting a divorce, there was a split chain and he had issues securing the mortgage. We finally exchanged in late August, several months later than expected.

We complained to PB firstly to the LPE but he fobbed us off - telling me he warned me on the phone, irrespective of the fact I emailed the LPE to say I want all correspondences confirmed in writing via email. It finally came down to speaking to the UK Operations Director who wanted us to give a settlement figure which we agreed. I am not happy with PB because of quality of staff they have.The targets for the LPEs all seem to be about the number they clear through their system, not about the sale price or the quality of service they provide.

One other point - if you pay for the LPE to do the viewings they will moan because they want to do open days instead - ours wanted it between 9.30-11.30 on a Saturday morning - not impressed.

Giraffe · Feb 28, 2019

If you want to sell the house for the right value don't use Purple Bricks or any other online agent. Their local knowledge is poor, so they often over value and it doesn't sell or under value and you lose far more than the fee saving. I'd use a local estate agent every time and use Purple Bricks fee structure to negotiate the fee down. As others have said there is a fair chance you can get that fee down to around £3k. At that level they will easily pay for themselves if they know the local market, which the Purple Bricks chap is very unlikely to do.

Hamilton · Feb 28, 2019

I remember the good times said:
Probably been asked before. Any good?
Mum selling house £415K. Local estate agent wants £6000 (not sure what that includes). Purple Bricks charge £995

They are desperate for cash. Could go under. Too much investment without securing sales.

My stepson and daughter-in-law just used them with no problems, even though it feels a little odd at first e.g. does this person actually own the flat they are selling to me etc.

Pondicherry · Feb 28, 2019

They are concentrating on the Champions League now rather than selling houses.

Superphil · Feb 28, 2019

Boroseagull said:
) as the agent earns on what he sells it for he will always work harder for you.

Estate agents work only on the properties they know they have to do **** all on to sell. If your place isn’t tip-top, perfection, 100% sellable, in the most desirable of locations, they won’t even piss on it if it was on fire. They are 100% only interested in making quick money, it’s about time the likes of PB, Yopa, emoov and the others took the estate agency ‘industry’ to the cleaners, traditional estate agencies need to either modernise, or die, preferably the latter.

kentgully · Feb 28, 2019

I used them.....brilliant service

kentgully · Feb 28, 2019

£1750 including solicitor

Farehamseagull · Feb 28, 2019

Speaking as an ex estate agent and brief Purplebricks employee (well self employed) - do not go any where near them.

They have absolutely no incentive to actually sell the property as they’re paid regardless. This is the biggest issue for me.

You have to pay them to carry out viewings and then the ‘local’ ‘expert’ will only do viewings when it suits their diary as sometimes they live a long way away from the property so it can be really hard to book viewings and a lot of buyers are lost. This is the real reason they advertise open days, to make it work for them, not the client. Most buyers dislike open days in this country.

Their after sales is carried out in a call centre in Birmingham and is attrocious.

The online model doesn’t actually work for estate agents. Their market share is still tiny when a lot of people predicted they would have taken over by now. Look how the internet has reduced the amout of shops and travel agents etc on the high street yet in nearly every area the local independent agent is still very much on top.

Weststander · Feb 28, 2019

Rugrat said:
My experience says your point 3 is bollox.

On both of my last two house sales the agent tried (hard) to have me accept offers to make the sale and on both I held out and got £20K and £30K more. The difference in commission is tiny once in the ball park.

I'd also say that for the most part don't have the agent accompanying viewings. They're generally kids who know SFA about the house and make a complete hash of it. I much prefer showing potential buyers around, I can point out all the good stuff and answer questions accurately, not guess

This 100%. Agents and their staff are driven by targets, with their pressured meet up at 8 each morning, to get sales agreed and completed. I know several agents and someone who works for one.

Why would they wait a few more weeks/months to get 1% of £30,000. Not in their interests.

fabbb · Feb 28, 2019

Ive been an estate agent & property manager for 35 years.
I always say finding the buyer is the easy part, getting the sale through to a exchange of contracts is most often where the agent come into their own.
Its most peoples biggest assest - dont skimp on the agent..

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dejavuatbtn · Feb 28, 2019

There are loads of them out there, all with differing charges and abilities. My experience has generally been that you get what you pay for. If you want decent advertising, good advice, and people who know what they are doing, pay the money and reduce the hassle as much as you can.

Cheshire Cat · Feb 28, 2019

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47315546

I thought Purple Bricks had financial and other troubles.

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