Looking to sell your home? Sign up to sell it for free with Purplebricks! NOW CLOSED

[AaronMumsnet]

We are looking for 10 MNers to sell their property with Purplebricks for free and share their feedback on the service on a thread on Mumsnet as well as filling out a short survey. All testers must list their property for at least 4 weeks and have an in date EPC (you can check if your home has an EPC here).

Here’s what Purplebricks have to say: “Mumsnetters! Are you looking to sell a property? Sign up to be a Purplebricks tester and we’ll do it for free as well as giving you a fabulous service! Purplebricks has become one of the UK’s largest and most successful estate agents because we combine amazing Local Property Experts (LPEs) with world class technology that enables us to give a personalised, 24/7 service. The vast majority of our LPEs come from the high street and joined us because they recognise this is how estate agency should be – a proper estate agent, fixed and transparent fees, no commission and a clever portal that puts you in complete control of your sale. You’ll see everything, all your offers, viewings, feedback, the performance of your advert, at any time, from anywhere in the world, at the click of a button. And don’t forget to check out our 40,000 Trustpilot reviews, too. We’re really proud of them and it will give you a chance to see what other customers have said about us.”

Here is a run-down of the Purplebricks process:

1 - Register with Purplebricks, book a valuation and get your own local property expert, who can manage every aspect of your sale and give you all the information and advice you may need throughout the process.
2 - Valuation: This can take up to 2 hours, during which your local estate agent will take professional photos, measurements for a floor plan and will complete a property description as soon as you are ready.
3 - Purplebricks will put together an ad which you are able to sign off. Once you approve your property advert, it will be made live on Rightmove, Zoopla etc.
4 - Participants will then have access to the Purplebricks platform where you can see interest in your property, view feedback and organise viewings (although Purplebricks are happy to handle this for MN testers, free of charge). Purplebricks also have no issue with you undertaking your own viewings if you would prefer.

To take part, testers must be looking to sell their property now and be willing to list their property as ‘for sale’ for at least 4 weeks (unless it sells within this time frame).

All selected testers will be required to share feedback at least 4 times on a thread on Mumsnet, as well as filling in a short survey.

In exchange for leaving feedback as required, all participants will be given a £50 voucher as well as receiving the service for free (worth £1,199 within London and surrounding areas/£849 throughout the rest of the UK, plus an unlimited viewings fee of £300).

If you’d like to take part, please sign up here.

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

Just to provide some balance... we've sold through PB and had a great experience. It went on the second viewing, wasn't underpriced as our neighbors (with an identical house) sold for the same price. Agent was responsive and helpful. No issues whatsoever. Saved us a wad of cash too.

We bought our house through purple bricks. I suspect the vendor used them as it was cheaper as that seems to have been his general attitude.

There were some points where it would have been useful for us to have had an available contact at a local estate agency rather than getting in touch with a purple bricks person who couldn’t help as they were too busy.

There’s no incentive for purple bricks to do anything to help the vendor as they will get paid anyway, whether or not the property sells

The problem here is that, unlike the commercial market, anyone can set up to be an estate agent. There are no qualifications required at all. No RICS equivalent. Nothing. Hence this mob.

Add to that, the completely daft process we have for buying and selling houses where people can muck you about (on either side) right up the last minute.

A campaign on house market buying and selling, and having people with qualifications and so forth as per the commercial market, would be far better.

I would not touch this set of cowboys with a barge pole. Further, anyone selling through them would never be part of my chain. I would not sell to someone whose sale depended on this lot. They are the worst.

This is seriously misguided, MNHQ.

We had such a bad experience with Purple Bricks that their legal department actually agreed with our complaint and all money was returned to us, it's not easy getting money back from the brothers who set up Purple Bricks but luckily in our case we did.
I'd advise you to steer clear, this is just my opinion of course.

We had such a bad experience with Purple Bricks that their legal department actually agreed with our complaint and all money was returned to us, it's not easy getting money back from the brothers who set up Purple Bricks but luckily in our case we did.
I'd advise you to steer clear, this is just my opinion of course.

We've just exchanged on our house, not selling with PB but an either cheaper company.

All my deals of viewing PB houses have been good and their estate agents actually showed us around the properties and dealt with negotiations etc. A better service than the cheaper online agent I have sold with.

The house are buying was sold by local estate agents, for approximately £4000. We found the house on RM and the vendors showed us around. The only dealings with the estate agent were a few emails/ phone calls. The company we are using did the same, but for £200...!

This recruitment drive is a bit of an own goal, as we are considering selling later this year, and I was thinking of using purple bricks. Having just read all the comments now we will not be using PB.

We sold using PutpleBricks and whilst the estate agency part of the service was lacklustre (very few viewings, a year on the market in an area where property was moving quickly) the really bad point of the experience was the on-line conveyancing service they insisted we use.

Abysmal service, no way to find out what was going on as the online portal showed that a letter or phone call had been received but not what was said and no one answered the phone or ever returned our calls. We nearly lost the sake twice due to their utter incompetence and inability to provide our buyers solicitor with any information months after sale was agreed. Ended up exchanging and completing on same day 4 months behold bd schedule!

I have used an online agent who I found excellent - better than all but one of the many high street agents I've used. Really professional, helpful and did everything but the viewings and blurb (negotiated, dealt with enquiries and solicitors promptly). They were Urban Sales and Lettings.

My experience of estate agents is that their quality and value offered varies wildly. Some high street chains are overpriced used-car-salesmen, whereas some local ones are really high quality, helpful and, above all else, they employ knowledgeable grown-ups, who listen.

I had PB to value my house, along with some other 'conventional' estate agents and I eventually picked a local agent. Anyway, I then out of courtesy emailed PB to let them know what I was doing, thanked them for their time and said that I would recommend anyone to consider using them, ie. I had been impressed with what they offer, nothing personal. They didn't even have the sense to send a short reply acknowledging my email. The other local agent that I rejected replied to my email and was very polite and helpful, clearly with an eye on leaving the option of moving to them in the future I suppose, but still very pleasant and professional. I can read a lot into that lack of reply from PB - not bothered, lazy, too busy, rude, downright arsey - and although I might be very wrong, it seems a very poor way to do business. Shan't use them, ever.

When will we find out who has been picked? I’m hoping to get my house on the market quickly so if it’s a while my house might already be on.

RUN IN THE OPPISITE DIRECTION AS FAST AS YOU CAN

I'm stuck with them as I can't afford to buy myself out of the contract.

Yes i would be VERY happy to explain my complaints in detail of anyone wanted to contact me

I'll give you feedback. Seriously purple bricks - call me and discuss why you watched my completely refurbished flat get damaged by leaking water without mentioning it to me. Blah blah terms and conditions - your agent promised me to keep an eye on the flat because I don't live nearby myself. He's left. I ONLY KNEW ABOUT THE DAMAGE WHEN MENTIONED IN VIEWERS FEEDBACK??? I handed you a flat with new ceilings, newly plastered walls, brand new never used kitchen, brand new flooring and completely painted throughout.

Your agent who made promises has left and you've deleted all of our correspondence from your platform so if by a miracle this was recorded it's all deleted and even if restored, its been compromised.

And I'm selling 2 flats with you. CRAZY

I cant afford to buy myself out of my contract with you but FUCK I wish I had seen the threads reporting how SHIT you are.

Hilariously I was also considering PB, think I'll give it a miss now.

Thanks for the heads up vipers!

We're on the market with Purplebricks and the service has been great. I think it depends on the local agent tbh.

I agree @WhyNotDuckie and I also don't understand all the people saying you're forced to use PB conveyancers...you're not, or at least we weren't! We're using conveyancers of our own choosing

Yes, we'll be using our own conveyancers too.

We had a great local agent with PB. We did get offers with them but not at the level we wanted. So we used a High Street agent alongside them. The High Street one wasn’t as good. But buyers seemed to prefer to use them than PB.

As for the valuation 3 Estate Agents (including PB) gave us the same price. We didn’t end up moving as we couldn’t find a house to buy in the end. But if we do we were told we could use PB at no extra cost as we’ve paid already.

If you don’t use their conveyancers then I believe there’s an extra charge.

If you don't use their conveyancers you had to pay up front rather than pay after the sale. Unless anything has changed. It was over a year ago we used them.