AIBU to not want husband to use Purple Brick to sell our house?

[LittleMG]

So I don’t really know why, but I feel worried about selling our house using Purple Bricks instead of a regular agent. You have to pay if you don’t sell £800 odd and I’m worried we won’t sell and will end up losing our money and having to sell with a normal agent anyway. AIBU? Has anyone got really good things to say about them? Cheers.

Our buyer is selling his own place via PB and it is a problem because nobody can get proper information as to what's happening further down the chain.

I would never use PB and, frankly, I would be very wary now of accepting an offer from someone relying on PB to sell their own place. At least having proper estate agents all through the chain means you can find out what's happening and prod as necessary.

I've never sold with them but as a buyer they were a total pain the arse.

Where is it?

Some agents usually have some BTL landlords on their books too.

Price well. In the current market price to sell if you need to.

Quality is better than quantity regarding viewings IME.

We used the most expensive agent who had super amazing photos - looked so good online compared to all the other agents photos. Cost was £2400 and we sold for £9000 more than what we would have got with another agent - I know this because I work in financial advice and deal with property. I know my expensive agent did a mega hard sell and actually pitted 2 people against each other and they up bid each other. This was not luck at all and just bunging it online and hoping people will buy it - you get what you pay for. Unless you live in an area where places get snapped up in any condition at full asking price without any photos because it's such a highly sought after area!

We used the purple brick price to negotiate with a local estate agent to get the commission right down. So glad we did, they earn every penny keeping our jittery buyers and their flakey solicitor under control!

I decided against PB last time we sold. I can't see they have any incentive to keep the chain moving as they've already been paid.

A good agent is fully worth the commission in terms of ensuring the transaction completes

Would never use them. My sister got stung like that.

There's a house for sale with Purple Brick not far from me.

The sign has been up for months and months. In that time loads of houses in the area have come on the market and sold, so if that's anything to go by I wouldn't be using them.

Actually don't know why they've got a sign up at all tbh as the house has absolutely no passing traffic of any kind and having the sign there just results in people in the local area looking at it and, probably thinking like me, that Purple Brick aren't managing to sell that house.

Every single house on with PB in our area is valued loads and loads over market value.
Think one house on for £410,000 and the PB house next door in worse condition on for £460,000 3 days later.
Think they price high to get people to sign up with them.
I’d say 90% of the PB houses I’ve seen here have gone on with another agent after not selling, have had a huge price reduction and then sold.

From a buyers perspective, the online ones are awful. I didn't even end up viewing a couple of was so much faff. You want me to buy your home, don't make me create logins and faff about. The one we did view, the offer was never relayed to the vendor and we assumed it was rejected and bought something else!
You might save money but you'll risk more...

I am a Scottish estate agent. We work with clients every day who won’t view a PB property. Submitting an offer is extremely difficult and everything is always last minute. Why you’d want to pay for that upfront we have no idea.

Put up the link to your house photos and I am sure you'll get some great suggestions wrt improvements/things that jump out in the photos that might make a difference to your viewing stats.

We used a local agent. They did a lot of the donkey work and sorted out our buyer (their initial wasn't really one), and kept everything ticking over. Communication was good as well.

When we were looking I looked at two houses using online agents, one of which was Purple Bricks. It was hassle from start to finish though Purple Bricks was a slight head above the other one.

Yeah but they do it all for you and don't charge commission - according to their obnoxious adverts

We sold with PurpleBricks, average, nothing special Northern city terrace in an average area, sold within two weeks, whereas others on our street had been up for months with local agents.

We had no problems with them at all, our local property expert (agent) was fab!

From observation and friends and neighbours, if you have a saleable house - character, good price etc they are good value. If your house has any ‘issues’ like a busy road, needs lots of work etc then they don’t seem to sell as well.
A friend who used them found they weren’t great at booking in viewings, but they did sell eventually.

"Use a reputable and established agent." PMSL. As if such a thing exists. ALL estate agents are terrible crooks

I deal with Purple Bricks a lot in my job. They are absolutely dire, I'd never use them. I've been trying to get in touch with their local agent for two weeks now, to arrange a viewing. She's not returned a single one of my calls. I'd love to be able to tell the vendors they are paying for this shit!

I suspect most houses are 'viewed' on Rightmove or equivalent but getting the pricing right and with the upheaval of Brexit makes things trickier than pre 2015 say. There is a fair amount of luck involved in getting your house under the nose of a buyer at the right moment.

I wpuldnt go near them either, my grandparents are trying to sell through them this time (they move every 2-3 years as they are never happy!) and have had one viewing from a woman who wasn't even planning to move for another 18 months. They've had it on the market for at least 6 months now whilst numerous others in thw road in mixed conditions have sold for similar prices. My Grandad is a cheapskate and my nan is extremely peeved that she let him go with PB!

Great we've just put our house up with them I'm gutted reading these replies, has anyone had a good experience with them?We've gone for the deffered payment so don't pay for 10 months maybe if they're in a hurry to get their money they will try harder

OP I think it really depends on the purple bricks agent in your area. We bought and sold recently via PB and would highly recommend them.

We bought a house that was on with PB. The actual viewing, offer etc process was fine. The conveyencing service they encourage vendors to use is appalling though, caused a lot of stress and delayed our move by months.

Been dealing with people bricks for about 18 months. They're dreadful. I'm about to take a complaint to the ombudsman and a second going through their internal process.

Happy to discuss by pm with screenshots of their inadequacy.

I'm dealing with PurpleBricks at the moment. They are a source of non-stop stress to me.

Don't do it!