Purplebricks or local agent?

[Perch]

Dilemma..:

We would like to sell asap

Purplebricks charge £1200 in total, agent is a local guy that used to work with one of the well-know long established local agents

Other local agent of posh-ish estate agency will cost upwards of £5.5k, 1.5 % excl VAT The branch manager pretty much said he has a list of people lined up to come and see it a soon as we sign up and will sell quickly, I’m thinking if it’s that straight forward why isn’t he giving me a lower % rate?

Agent of house we want to buy straight out said that other agents won’t look favourably upon you when you offer if you’re selling with Purplebricks.

Help please! Advice gratefully received x

Who do I go for? The saving is a lot of money for us... personally I think our house is quite sellable but I would say that about my own home!

I would haggle with the established agent to get the quote down. If your house won’t need much effort to sell it, I would expect 1-1.25%. I would avoid PB. You will do quite a lot of the leg work and it doesn’t seem to be much more than a listing agency trying to sell over priced houses. I would want someone working hard to sell my house. I don’t think you can necessarily believe there are queues of people desperate for your house though. I would ask more about what price you need to be to get this sort of attention from proceedable buyers.

Avoid PB. It's not just about getting the sale, but helping the purchase go through smoothly to completion. That, in my far too extensive experience is when the traditional agents are worth their fee.

Avoid PB like the plague. I hated them when I used them to sell and buying. I avoided any viewings of houses on wigh PB this time round too

Oh dear not looking good for purplebricks then!
Thanks all x

I bought a house recently and viewed one property with PB. The viewing itself was a bit shambolic because the agent arranged for the owner to show me around, but he was late home.

However, the main issue I had with the house was that it was overpriced for the area and for it’s size and state of repair. If your house is priced right, it will sell no matter which agency you choose.

I had my offer accepted on the house I ended up buying before it even hit Rightmove. Other houses I put offers on but which didn’t get accepted were sold with the same speed. The type of house I bought was just very popular in the area I wanted to live in.

I think the advantages of using a traditional agent are:

If you have a super sellable house, the agent will have a bunch of potential buyers ready to look at it as soon as it hits the market. Everyone knows they are competing with each other for offers. You will likely get a better price/asking price.

If your house isn’t one of those, good agents will still get lots of people through the door. Whenever I contacted an agent to ask to view X house, they always suggested I view a, b and c houses too, which I usually did.

They email out a weekly summary of houses that match buyers’ criteria.

I would definitely avoid Purplebricks and go with a local estate agent. You should be able to haggle price for local agents to 1%. A good estate agent is so worth paying the commission. Ours has been brilliant, doing most of the viewings and handholding our buyers, keeping them updated regularly. Well worth the price of the commission to achieve a good and timely hassle free sale.

PB you pay up front or if you use the deferred payment they sell it to debt collectors in 5 seconds so you are paying them anyway. What’s the motivation for them to sell if you’ve already paid.
Also a lot of buyers don’t look aT PB properties (I don’t)
Local all the way.

Definitely not PB, we attempted to purchase a house through them, awful! Are there any other local agents you could try?

Thanks all! I have been ringing round all the local agents this morning, with commission ranging from 1% no VAT (new startup) to 1.5 for the one with all the posh properties. The rest all come in at 1.25%. We’re in a Sunday Times best places to live kind of town with a liveable fixer upper. I just have no idea how to choose! They all talk the talk! Thanks anyway for all your advice xxx

If you have a knight frank that covers your area I’d go with them. Never known anyone have anything but a good experience with them. Otherwise just go for who offers the middle valuation.