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Purple Bricks

39 replies

TheStenchofTruth · 12/03/2021 16:54

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

OP posts:
nettytree · 12/03/2021 22:53

We looked at a house on with purple bricks. The poor vendors had just driven back to Wales from Manchester Airport, after a flight from florida. He didn't think they would be back yet. We didn't buy it.

harknesswitch · 12/03/2021 23:06

I know 2 people who've sold through PB and both have nothing but good things to say about them.

We spoke to them and the agent was great, we decided to go to another agent, but only because we're not convinced we actually want to sell so want to be able to back out without any fee

Level32 · 12/03/2021 23:13

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

showmethegin · 12/03/2021 23:18

Just don't. If your house is in a great area then fair enough you might not have problems, but we tried to buy a house in a great area and had to visit 3 times. The first time the agent kept everyone waiting for 40 mins so half the people left and forgot the back door key so we couldn't view the garden (was one of the best bits of the house). Told us to come next week. We did, again couldn't get us into the garden, had no answers about the house, even basic. Third week they didn't show up at all.

The house did eventually sell but for 20k less that it would have done

Scarling · 12/03/2021 23:26

I bought through Purple Bricks, no issues at all.

A lot of houses in my local area sell through them (Scottish central belt) so they must be doing something right here.

noblegreenk · 12/03/2021 23:29

When we were buying I tried to book viewings for several different properties with PB and wasn't successful in securing a single viewing. Each time they said they'd call me back and never did. I chased a few times and gave up! DH and I agreed to not bother with any houses listed with PB. We also made a mental note that if we ever sell in future we wont be using them.

Bricksandtile · 13/03/2021 08:02

We sold with them - pros, we really liked the photos they took, the agent we had was honest about everything up front and there was no hard sell, viewings were arranged smoothly with no issues, we could talk to the people buying our property directly which sped things up immensely as we got further down the process. No passing messages through third parties etc.
Cons, their after sales team is terrible - ie, verifying the legitimacy and financial information of people that put offers in on your property. For some a con would be that the agents are quite no nonsense and don’t spend ages fawning over you/prospective buyers like high street agents do.

Summary, we would use them again but would be weary of the aftersales and push harder through our agent for them to get prospective buyers verified as legit (we wasted time on one idiot and took our house off the market etc before he pulled out as didn’t have the funds). I have had awful experiences selling with and buying through local estate agents. I think as PB are national you are more inclined to see all these because there are so many reviews. There aren’t the same platforms for local estate agents if you see what I mean. Good luck whatever you decide!

kitschplease · 13/03/2021 08:34

Trying to arrange a viewing was such hard work, I automatically discount PB house on right move.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 13/03/2021 08:38

I have worked for them, twice.

Their local agents could be anyone.

I am not an estate agent yet they asked me if I would take photos, arrange an open house, take details of those viewing, and all the other things agents do.

I am not covered by the usual safeguards that all estate agents MUST sign up to.

And, having refused all work beyond my scope, they still ripped me off for work done and seem to have list all the reports I did for them - their paying clients had to contact me directly for copies

Based on that I wouldn't go anywhere near them!

OneForTheJourney · 13/03/2021 08:41

@TheStenchofTruth we used Purplebricks for selling a house in sandhurst. Well attempted to. After a few viewings (brand new house we'd built, lots of stupid questions from the agent). I booked to view the house (as I hadn't met the agent). She was bloody useless. Brand new house. Just been built. She couldn't answer simple questions- how old is boiler, windows etc. She'd been told EVERYTHING IS NEW!
Also when I asked if rooms were doubles (not furnished). Instead of saying yes (clearly all rooms were big doubled) she just read out "this room is Xft by xft Hmm

We switched to a proper agent house sold almost immediately.

On the other half I viewed a house towards Reading.. very very knowledgable agent!

I did get our house in fleet valued by Purplebricks last year, ended up not going with them, basically down to the previous bad experience.

RememberWhenWe · 13/03/2021 08:50

The first thing I'd say is don't believe the overwhelmingly positive reviews. PB complain about negative reviews and insist that they are taken down by the review sites. The reviewer then has to provide proof to the review site that they are a legitimate PB customer. Many don't bother, so the negative reviews stay disproportionately low.

Our experience:
Terrible photos. When we asked for better ones to be done, we were told they didn't provide a professional photo service. We used our own photos in the end.

Badly written blurb. I rewrote it.

Sign put up on someone else's land after I'd specifically said not to put it there (difficult neighbour). We moved it ourselves.

Location was somehow wrongly put into Rightmove so if you put our village into the search engine, our house didn't come up. This was never put right.

No contact at all once we were on the market. I had to contact them to suggest a price drop as I felt they had over valued. The price was dropped and we ended up with 2 parties both wanting the house within days.

We were left to do all the negotiating. The EA checked the buyers were in a position to proceed, that was it. We never heard from EA again.

EA was impossible to get hold of. Voicemail was full and emails went unanswered.

If you are a confident experienced vendor, it's a cheap way to sell your house. We were, so were able to make the key decisions along the way. If not, and you aren't lucky enough to get one of their more engaged agents, I'd steer clear.

bert3400 · 13/03/2021 08:55

We sold our property with them and it was all very positive. Our agent was very responsive and very good with communication. I think it depends who the agent is. Can you ask on your local FB groups if anyone has used them ?

Mydogisagentleman · 13/03/2021 09:01

We tried to buy 2 houses through PB.
Never again

Evidencebased · 13/03/2021 09:08

You either agree to use their law company ( appalling reputation), or you pay upfront.
Grandad, in his mid-nineties, spotted the catch in a flash: so you've already paid them, what incentive do they have? If you want an online agency, there are others with a no sale no fee policy.

As a buyer, it could work fine sometimes, but I found it could be literally impossible to book a viewing, if the computer process didn't work, and impossible to speak to someone on the phone. Sellers are blissfully unaware of buyers who are really interested, but simply gave up .

I started selling with another online agency, and moved to high street agent. I can genuinely say that both were awful, great at selling themselves, but unprofessional, disorganised and didn't deserve the money I paid.

I looked at many, many houses, and the only agents I would describe as efficient and professional were the 'upmarket' ones, Savills and the like. though there's no way I could bring myself to pay their eyewatering fees. Bit depressing all round really.

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