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Original poster

Has anyone used Purple Bricks?

29 replies

Nicknacky · 07/07/2020 22:11

As per the title, what’s your experience?

My mother in laws house is going up for sale and my SIL’s are determined to use Purple Bricks however my H would like to get quotes from other estate agents but his siblings are set on PB.

Does anyone have any opinions?

OP posts:
Original poster
Nicknacky · 08/07/2020 09:32

Bumping for the dayshift crowd!

OP posts:
Brendabigbaps · 08/07/2020 09:37

We had a valuation from PB and one from a local EA.
PH man wasn’t professional, he hadn’t done his research and made it up as he went along.
You pay a fee (£999) wether they sell or not and that only covers you for a year, so if it takes a long time to sell you have to pay again.

EA is no sale no fee and knows the market as they are local. 1% fee

Bumblebee413 · 08/07/2020 09:37

We tried to buy through them, wouldn't do so again or use them to sell. They put buyers and sellers in direct contact and actually when things need discussing, such as repairs or price adjustments, things can become very personal very fast, when really it's a business transaction. They also send emails out to anyone who has saved the property as a favourite, so they know when there are viewings or offers made or accepted on the house. We used an online EA ourselves to sell- SellMyHome and they were fantastic. You'll also see that they have much higher ratings on trustpilot. Hopefully they could be a good compromise?

CayrolBaaaskin · 08/07/2020 09:39

I’ve used them to sell and buy and they were great and cheaper than others.

Ohhhh · 08/07/2020 09:43

We are trying to buy through them at the moment. They are awful, our seller is having to do everything himself with no guidance from them. I would never use them to sell unless you are 100% sure of the process and happy for them to just upload to Rightmove and then leave you to it.

Tootletum · 08/07/2020 09:43

Bad experience. We decided to pull the sale because we found a tenant and they didn't refund the money.

Original poster
Nicknacky · 08/07/2020 09:52

Interesting, thanks. My instinct is not to use them and I don’t know if I am correct in thinking this but I think we might get a higher sale price therefore justifying the bricks and mortar estate agency.

PB might be cheaper but might achieve a lower price. My SIL’s are just focused on the lower fee. And I think we should use the option which gives the least amount of stress or work for the family to do.

OP posts:
MrBennsshop · 08/07/2020 09:59

There was a thread on this a few weeks ago. PB were terrible from start to finish for us and I'll never use then again. Please don't be fooled by positive reviews on Trust Pilot, PB had my factual but negative review removed. I was then asked to provide evidence that I'd actually used them, and the review wasn't reinstated until I had. Many people won't bother to go to the effort of providing that evidence, so lots of negative reviews will stay removed.

TW2013 · 08/07/2020 10:05

Are they available at any time to show people around at short notice and are they likely to be good sales people? We went with a local small agency who had sold lots of similar properties. They only charged 0.7%.

iknowimcoming · 08/07/2020 10:09

We had a great experience with PB but I think a lot depends on the individual agent and also the property you're selling. Our house was in very good order on a popular estate with no onward chain. PB valued it higher than the 'normal' ea's and got full asking price in 1 week, and we found them very helpful, and of course saved thousands. I recommended them to a friend and her property was a bit more niche and she found them difficult to deal with.

So I'd say if it's an easy sell go for it - it's probably worth a punt!

BammBamm · 08/07/2020 10:39

We just sold ours free with Housesimple but they're not in every postcode. Could this be an option? For a free service it was great.

Original poster
Nicknacky · 08/07/2020 10:51

TW2013 Thats a point we raised. One sister lives 40 miles away, one is in London (we are in Scotland) and only one is local.

They said we would need to do viewings but we are both working full time with two kids so can’t commit to viewings.

They would probably be ok at showing people round, to be fair.

OP posts:
Original poster
Nicknacky · 08/07/2020 10:53

iknowimcoming I don’t think it will be an easy sell. I agree if the house was to sell itself then it could be a good option but this house isn’t many peoples dream home!

OP posts:
Original poster
Nicknacky · 08/07/2020 10:53

BammBamm I will have a look at them. I haven’t seen them in my area but maybe I haven’t noticed them.

OP posts:
Original poster
Nicknacky · 08/07/2020 10:54

Just checked, not on our area.

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Mightymurphy · 08/07/2020 10:55

I work in property in Scotland. Please don’t use them. They can’t work closing dates and are simply dreadful to submit offers to and get answers. They really have no experience of home reports.

muckandnettles · 08/07/2020 10:59

We bought our last house through PB and once we had agreed to buy, that was pretty much it and all negotiations were directly with the seller so it was very awkward. We were in a long chain and all the EAs and conveyances were busily trying to sort out the timings of exchange and so on, but PB did absolutely nothing, they were like a black hole in the middle of it all. So I'd say for a very simple straightforward house sale it might work, but for anything complicated where you need someone to actually make phone calls and send emails and work on it, then no.

landoflostcontent · 08/07/2020 11:06

Estate agent every time. Where they really come into their own is AFTER valuation, listing and getting an offer. Twice (once selling our house and once selling mother's) it has been the estate agent who has kept the chain together and in the case of mother's house when a prospective buyer dismissed the property actually took them to see what they could get for the price of mother's house and they offered! We met them part way! They were also a kind shoulder to weep on and I would always choose estate agent for selling and buying

Roselilly36 · 08/07/2020 11:48

Not sure if Ii would use them, to be fair I only know one person that has, they experience wasn’t great, they were terrible at keeping in touch, hardly had any viewings, they didn’t sell, had to pay the fee after a year.

TW2013 · 08/07/2020 14:46

Also estate agents really help with negotiating with solicitors as well. We had one of the slowest moves in history and knowing that there were more people chasing the solicitors really helped. Also having a (sane) other person who can reason with the sellers. I think particularly as there are what four vendors. They will all need to agree, having an estate agent to talk to the one who is still holding out for another ten thousand can be really helpful, and managing expectations that although it was on the market for £400000 that in the current climate £375000 might be a realistic price. Ours also knew what price drops would trigger alerts on rightmove etc.

Many people wanted to view asap. We were keen to sell so were flexible with dates but one time we had about 50mins notice of someone who was travelling down to see another house with the same agent and had then seen ours pop up and wanted to view ours too. I was a ten minute drive away and the house was not ready so bunged the children in the car and drove home and assigned zones to tidy (fortunately not too untidy). I think with a virtual agent your nearby sister would need to be ready to show people around with minimal notice.

The other good thing about an actual agent is that if someone rings about house A on at 250 they might also suggest that they view yours on at 260 which wasn't in their search terms, but the agent knows that you would be willing to consider 250. Building up a good rapport with the agent can really help and I don't think that you would get that with an online agent.

MotherofTerriers · 08/07/2020 14:49

Have a good look at whether they charge you a fee for viewings, some do. You really want the agent to do this, not you

Original poster
Nicknacky · 08/07/2020 14:52

I totally agree with all your points. I have bought and sold four houses in the same town over the years and wouldn’t not use an estate agent.

TW2013 One sister has said she wants to do select days and times and we have said no as that will rightly limit our pool. I know what would happen, H or I will get the last minute phone call to do it!

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Elouera · 08/07/2020 14:56

Sorry, but search for multiple other posts about how bad they are.

The initial price seems great, until you realise that YOU do majority of the work and ends up costing more in the long run- either in time or money or both.

Friend used them in Bristol. Sale agreed, but very last minute the buyer either coudlnt raise funds or pulled out for some reason. Friend still had to pay PB and they would only re-list if he paid ALL the fees once again!!! I've heard of this several times.

I'd strongly avoid- Unless your relatives are planning on doing ALL the house viewings and willing to take the hit if it doesnt sell!

Waiting42021 · 08/07/2020 15:06

In your situation I would use a carefully vetted local EA.

We used a local EA who seemed to have a good reputation, and they were beyond useless. They were hardly ever available to conduct viewings for us, and provided no help at all for our sale which eventually fell through in the 11th hour. We felt like we would’ve essentially been paying them 1.5% of our sale price for taking some pictures and putting the house on Rightmove Hmm

We instead decided to list with PB and we were pretty happy with them. We didn’t mind conducting the viewings as we were doing most of them anyway(!) and we were lucky to get lovely buyers the 2nd time round who were happy to do everything via PB directly. We also saved over £1k by selling with PB.

BUT our house was a pretty easy sell, and we were able to conduct the viewings and we were comfortable enough to negotiate directly with our buyers during the sale process. If this isn’t the case for you, I’d really do your research and find the best possible local EA.

AriettyHomily · 08/07/2020 15:09

MIL listed with them at first, they were shit. Were we are they seem to have a couple of EAs covering a large area so they don't know the area well, they had to be chased to put the property on RM. She appointed two local EAs in the end and the service was completely different.