Purple Bricks - Stories please?

[Rubberduckies]

We are considering selling our house and have been looking around at some of the options.

Someone at work told me about Purple Bricks which looks very interesting, and I like the idea of making it super easy for people to book viewings.

Does anyone have any experience in using them? And did anyone use the eezi conveyancing service like?

I'm also not sure about viewings and whether I would have time or inclination to do this myself - what did others do?

All stories good and bad, especially from the Bournemouth area with expert Mark Turk.

Thanks!

[Rubberduckies]

I should really proof read better before posting...! Did anyone use the eezi conveyancing service? What were they like?

[Frazzledmum12]

I'm in the Bournemouth area and as a buyer I grumble every time I see a house I like is on with PB.
I dislike being shown around by the vendor and I'm certainly not keen on putting an offer in online straight to the vendor.
Booking viewings is easy, except when the vendor cancels at the last minute...you just get an email.
I guess it may be different if you pay for the service that includes a person though.

[BovrilonToast]

I've just instructed them and am very happy so far! We are paying extra for the viewings to be done for us. The website is easy to navigate and our local expert has been an agent here for 20 odd years so knows the market well.

I wouldn't go with online conveyancing though - as good and cheap as they normally sound, I would always recommend finding a local solicitor you trust. I used an online on once and they were terrible. Find one you can go and see! I've bought and sold lots of properties and the one where I tried to save a bit of cash with the online conveyancing was bar far the most stressful

[Rubberduckies]

Thanks Bovril

When you get them to do the viewings, have you found that your expert is usually free to do them?

[bananapickle84]

We have spoken to them and had the guy round as we may be putting our house on the market.
Our local guy seemed very good and genuine, however he covers quite a large area and didn't have amazing knowledge of our market.
The other thing was that he said he would get a quote with the eezie conveyancing and we had a phone call from them today as they thought we had instructed PB and were selling our house, we weren't too happy about that as they had all our details etc.
I think it is worth talking to a local agent as well as PB as we have found that one of our local agents has loads of people on their books ready to buy a house like ours, a service PB don't have. They also said it is only 30% of their business that comes through online enquiries, PB would have you think that the only way people search for houses now is online.
I think it depends whether you have to sell quickly or not, if we do sell it will have to be fairly quick so we don't have to time to wait for people to com across our house online.
The price however of PB's service is very good, less than half the price of our local agent.
Not sure if that ramble was helpful or not!

[BovrilonToast]

We're having a open day in the first instance as the market round here is great at the moment, so note sure on the viewings as yet.

I have spoken to him a lot over the last few days and he's been great. I text him mainly, he answered tonight after 8... Not sure many others would do that!

[macrocato]

Just had PB around for a valuation. I sold my property last year for 285k through Haart Estate Agents. I aborted the sale after 6 month cos I couldn't find anywhere to move as good. PB just valued it at 260k, obviously to get a quick sale. At that price I could sell it everyday of the week. Also if you take the 10 month selling contract with PB you are forced to use there solicitors. If you pay up front, PB wont care if you dont sell your property. Be very carefull, these people dont sound creditable.

[BovrilonToast]

I haven't paid upfront and I am using my own solicitor.

You can set your own sale price too, you don't have to go with their valuation. Or any agents!

[buyerbeware1]

Please do not use Purple Bricks. The local advisor was inept, I had a valuation, he over priced the property by £25,000 so we used a local agent. Sadly the house we purchased was for sale through purple Bricks, the advisor was ineffective, unhelpful and unprofessional. Eezi Conveyancing held up the sale and were difficult to communicate with by other solicitors/agents in the chain. All parties in the chain were up to standard except purple Bricks who were just awful in every aspect. To sum up...Dreadful/unprofessional/ill-informed.

[BeautifulBatman]

My mum used them to sell her house - she didn't have to pay up front, she used a solicitor of her choice. The whole process was easy.

[mizu]

Purple bricks for sale sign near us. House not on website three times I checked. Now it has been sold. Annoying as wanted to view but it didn't seem to be on the website

[roormerod]

Contacted Purple Bricks to discuss sale of a flat we have in Cornwall. Had an online chat with someone and agreed to have the details submitted for valuation. I had a message on the answerphone a couple of days later from a lady who gushed away and said she would call back later. Never heard from them again. Sent them an email in the end asking what was happening, but never had a reply to that either. As my granny would say, "all mouth and no trousers". They may be OK in urban/city areas but coastal Cornwall? Forget it! Went with Tepilo in the end, they seem fine.

[insan1tyscartching]

A couple of houses I liked the look of aren't on the website either, it's been at least a fortnight since the board went up on the one I'm most interested in and they aren't showing on Rightmove or Zoopla.

[Bearbehind]

We bought through them and there were several things I didn't like about them.

Firstly, as a potential purchaser you don't know what the vendor has paid for ie, we didn't know whether to make an offer direct with the vendor or through them, as you've no idea what 'extras' the vendor has selected. At least with a traditional EA you know the protocol.

Secondly, and this is linked to the above, if you want any information on any aspect of the sale you have to ring their call centre and chances are you'll get a different person everytime.

Each person then has to read through the case notes etc to even begin to attempt to answer the query and it is very clear that no one has actually been to the property/ met the vendor.

Yes they are a cheap alternative but, having sold our property through a great EA, I strongly believe you get what you pay for.

[duracellmummy]

Purple bricks probably ok if your house is in a sought after area with lots of footfall or a very desirable postcode but I wouldn't touch Eezie conveyancing with a barge pole

....my buyer is using PB and Eezie, PB failed to sell her house in a very desirable location for 3 months and the conveyancing firm have cost us at least 2 months of waiting around with the whole chain except my buyer poised to exchange late November.

The query that held us up from then til now had not even been submitted to the relevant people. In the end I did it myself and forwarded the result on to my buyer. We have now exchanged but the likelihood that Mr Eezie will manage to complete at midday is slight, he likes to have "meetings" at crucial point in the process so I am assuming that he will hold us up and we will end up scraping in at 3.30 on completion date.

I agree...you do usually get what you pay for.

[duracellmummy]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/property/2498593-purplebricks-turns-out-it-was-too-good-to-be-true

and this

[Diamogs]

IIRC they have a clause that you pay their fee after 8 months whether they sell your house or not.

IME you get what you pay for. Go with someone you like and trust who has good feedback from other people.

The most important work is done after a sale is agreed, ie all the chasing of surveys. Solicitors etc etc my friends sale fell through the day they were due to exchange cos she used an online agent who didn't push the chain.

[Bunbaker]

"I dislike being shown around by the vendor"

Why? Admittedly, it is more than 10 years since we moved house, and I have never had an estate agent show anyone round any house we have sold. It wasn't offered and I didn't ask. Also, estate agents aren't as knowledgeable about the house or the area as the vendor.

We were only shown around one house by an estate agent and it was very unsatisfactory. He clearly didn't know anything about the house and couldn't answer any questions.

When I have shown potential buyers around a house I have shown them round and then sent them off to look by themselves.

[Sallyhasleftthebuilding]

Purple bricks is owned by Sarah Beeny

They mush employ people on zero hours contracts as and when properties arise!

Just a thought

[Bearbehind]

Purple Bricks isn't owned by Sarah Beeny, I think your thinking of Tepilo.

Same idea just not as well known.

[JT05]

They are selling the (probably)most expensive thing you own, which you are emotionally attached to. I interviewed 4 EAs as if they were applying for a marketing job, after they had toured my house.
Two were woefully not up to the job, one nearly sent me to sleep, he was so boring, and the other extremely arrogant and patronising.
You need to know how they will personally handle to potential buyers.

[staceyabrahams]

I listed my property with PurpleBricks in January of this year. Unfortunately within 19 days of listing I had a financial issue that was out of my control resulting in me no longer being able to sell. When I reported this to my agent and asked if I could remove my property from the market he informed me I was still liable to pay the full fee of over £850 despite being on the market for less than 3 weeks and completely contradicting my consumer rights. I was completely unaware of this clause but the agent simply told me I should have read through the terms and conditions and continued to become aggressive and rant at me leaving no room for response. When I did eventually reply to him that he had not given me any terms and conditions, paperwork of any kind or even explained this charge to me in any way, he became more aggressive towards me. I explained that he had simply talked me through the listing process and instructed me to tick certain boxes without disclosing that this was me agreeing to terms I knew nothing about. Yes I was naïve but I was under the impression I could trust this man as my agent, and that any kind of agreement would be brought to my attention and explained to me before signing or as they do it, ticking a box! This particular agent became even more aggressive when I stated I was going to seek advice from the ombudsman and finally laughed at me saying "read the terms and conditions you stupid b**ch!" before terminating the phone call. I was utterly floored by this display of unprofessional behaviour and blatant rudeness! I can not put into words my horror of this experience as I would never in a million years have expected this to happen or to come from a man who was so charismatic and helpful in the first instance we met. I can only warn future vendors to please read everything thoroughly and make sure you know your stuff when using this company to market your home. Also, check out other agents as they're are plenty of online agents if that's what you need, not to mention 90% of other agents do not charge you anything unless they actually sell your home no matter how long you are on the market with them. Don't be fooled by the low cost either as other agents can offer similar deals and after all the added little charges that purplebricks put on, the cost is pretty much on par with most high street agents.