Purple Bricks

[TheStenchofTruth]

Looking to sell a house in Fleet, Hampshire. Does anyone have any experience of using Purple Bricks?

We are about to use them. So watching with interest.

Mind if I ask why you chose them?

I've only got experience of trying to buy a house with the company and it was a nightmare. I went to two open houses. Both were rushed with loads of other people. I could barely think straight. The agent doing the day knew absolutely nothing. I asked some basic questions and he said he would email me but didn't even ask my name.

I made an offer, spoke to an agent and then was completely ignored. I chased for a bit and then gave up. Apparently this happens alot.

My solicitor said that its conveyancing team are awful. Very slow and communicate badly. Apparently the agent gets paid to put the advert up rather than complete.

Awful. I viewed a house listed with them, turns out the "large garden" was actually a picture of next door's orchard.

Because they're a budget estate agency we always assume the seller is looking for a quick sale and would offer low.

I bought a btl property and vendor used Purple Bricks. It went very smoothly. I think it depends if both vender and Vendée are motivated to push things along. I completed in 7 weeks which is quick.

We’ve just sold with PB, albeit not in your area. The app means that I could manage my own viewing schedule, and the agent was always quick to reply to messages or requests from us.
He negotiated a good deal for us and advised us well.

Only got experience of buying with them. It took 5 hours to get through to someone to put in an offer. I can't speak to anyone about the purchase. It's a nightmare. I can see why sellers are tempted but remember you have to pay whether or not you sell.

We're currently looking to buy and trying to even arrange a viewing with them is a nightmare. So much so that when I see a property listed with them I scroll past it.

We sold with them two years ago. It wasn’t an awful experience but probably wouldn’t use them again. We took a few months to sell but not sure if that was to do with them versus slow market at the time. (Houses similar to ours in the area were slow to sell so who knows.) Pros were the app, our local agent was helpful (again not your area) but I felt the photos could of been better and I do think some people were put off by us using them. We did sell for our full asking price in the end. We did reject two very low offers beforehand and were going to remove the property from the market (I was heavily pregnant) but one of them came back with a full asking price offer when they heard that so who knows.

Awful but 3 viewings on first day and three offers despite dreadful photos! It would have sold anyway due to location so if not in a particularly in-demand area I would go with a proper estate agent.

Sorry hit post too soon- so who knows if being with PP caused the initial low offer.

From what I have heard they have a very good spiel but little substance.

I also heard that if you decide to stop using them there is some kind of embargo on appointing another agent for a certain period of time after (a year?). It’s in the documentation that you sign up with.

I'm an EA in Scotland and PB are not big in my area. But I did take over a house that sat on the market for 3 years with PB and I sold it in a month. Also the fees piled up and if they sold with me it would have been half the price in the end. We didn't provide conveyancing as they were tied into PB deal. My experience of them is if I ask anything they don't know or don't want to tell me. It's different here though and they haven't a clue how the system works in Scotland. Additionally they advertise it and then that's it. No incentive to refresh the ads, change it up to drum up more interest etc. I'm always looking at my properties and refreshing it on Rightmove etc. Trying different photos, changing up the text, or offering other advertising avenues if the property isn't getting interest.
My advice is to read the small print. Good luck x

We just sold with them for over asking, the house does sell itself though so was never going to be tricky to get people through the door. 6 viewings and 5 offers. It's saved us thousands.

To add, you have control of the Rightmove listing yourself so can change photos around, add new ones yourself which we found really refreshing. The app lets you chat to viewers directly and we found booking viewings much easier without the middle man, but that is not for everyone.

And no embargo in our contract as we paid up front. They are paid no matter what.

Tried booking a viewing through them. Bloody nightmare

Avoid. Always surprised me how they got away with that 'no commission' advertising for so long, when you literally have to pay them up front to avoid being unable to list elsewhere if your property doesn't sell. So whilst you may not be paying a percentage fee of your sale, they are getting paid a fee regardless of whether they sell your property or not. They will absolutely be cheaper than anyone else but you get what you pay for I suppose.

Have a look at the Watchdog piece on them. Their reviews aren’t great. They look good on trust pilot and social media but they have anything negative removed and deleted.

You pay them regardless of whether they sell or not. Why on earth would you pay anyone upfront to sell your biggest asset. They’ve got your money so zero incentive to get a sale for you.

Also, what will someone sat in a call centre in the middle of Manchester know about a house 150 miles away. Nothing.

We sold with them, as did several of our friends who recommended them.

In our area traditional estate agents are awful. We have bought, sold, viewed and offered with them all over the years and found most to be lazy & useless & they have not helped us to buy or sell. We used Purple bricks to advertise & do viewings for a flat fee. Our house sold quickly for above asking price & we were able to communicate with the buyers directly to cut out time delays of a middle man. I would use them again. We did not use their solicitors as they are reportedly not the best. We did look at few other online agents such as strike, but hey did not seem to know our area well enough.

I've had difficulties viewing a couple of properties with them too. They don't make it easy and on one occasion the person on the other end of the phone was extremely rude to me. Everything has to go through their website, nothing personal about the experience of trying to buy with them.

Last time I managed to view a place the PB agent knew less about the property and area than I did. I was going to make an offer [he knew this] when he got back to me to answer a query I had about the property...he didn't bother.

I also scroll past PB ads now. Wouldn't bother with them. I've heard of vendors having trouble with them. PB lisst, then go. But you get what you pay for I guess.

I think the whole point of Purplebricks is the you can message the vendor directly via the app instead of asking the estate agent. Our estate agent was local and did know about our area, but we didn’t actually need him past the viewing stage.

We had a horrendous time with Purple Bricks, they lied to us, tried to get us to pay for things we didn't need. When we cancelled with them they sent us one email refusing to cancel without us paying the fee. We emailed back with all our evidence of how they mishandled it and lied to us and them we received another email to say that the contract was cancelled with no fee owing.
It was a stressful time and when we were looking for a new house we wouldn't even consider viewing one of it was on with Purple Bricks.
A house near us has had a Purple Bricks sign outside for over two years, it's been changed to 'sold' three times and then gone back on sale again. I don't think purple Bricks are great at seeing a sale through to completion, they just don't seem to care enough.

We sold with them 3 years ago and our agent was great. I really liked being able to book in viewings online and correspond with potential buyers via the portal. We had 14 viewings in 10 days and sold for the asking price. We've bought and sold 6 properties in 34 years and have some horror stories about high street estate agents, so were happy to take the risk.

I used them to sell my dads property as i needed someone to be there to do the viewings as i was unable to. They sold the property within a fortnight and took a cut of the cost.