Purple Bricks

[pilates]

Thinking of using them to sell our house.

Has anyone used them? Was it a positive experience?

Don't do it!!! Not used them for our sale but from buyers perspective they're sh*t!

The house we're buying is listed with PB and couldn't even arrange to view the house - this was in early Feb before Covid was even on horizon here. Reason given was a lack of agents.

Ended up messaging vendors over app, who then showed me round themselves, as they were at wits end with them. Sale agreed but only had one post sales call from PB which was just to check we weren't pulling out after lockdown was announced. No other contact whatsoever.

Previous to offering on this house, had nightmares trying to view a different PB property where vendor on 5 occasions didn't confirm bookings and PB were not able to speak to vendor.

My old NDN used them for her sale and found them to be useless. Our new neighbours were only chatting to us yesterday about how bad their experience was with them too from buyers' perspective.

Our neighbour and the vendors of new house we're buying paid around £1100 to use PB, and our local independent agent who we listed with is only charging £1000 inc VAT, so honestly think using a local independent agent is likely to be just as competitive and in my experience, a much more reliable service.

We have just bought through Purple Bricks and it was ok. It was a pain trying to book a viewing as we couldn’t actually speak to anyone and we had two appointments cancelled before actually viewing. Making the offer was a simple process and we had contact with the vendor Immediately which proved helpful to us.

Our estate agent has had to do more of the communication throughout the chain as she basically said they are incredibly hard to get hold of and you can’t speak to the same person twice. Worse though is that the top of the chain also used PB and is unfortunately using their solicitor too, who are incredibly slow.

I wouldn’t use them as an agent for selling.

We had a awful experience. Be very wary of the percentage of positive Trustpilot reviews; PB had my negative review removed as they 'didn't believe I was a genuine client'. It was only when I provided proof that my review was reinstated. If you think about it, most people probably don't go to the trouble of providing evidence, so the majority of negative reviews will be quickly removed, never to be seen again.

Our issues were:

Terrible photos (the agent said we should have gone to a normal estate agent if we had wanted 'professional' photos!). We did our own in the end.

Badly written description, particularly the intro which is what is seen on the RM search results page.

We were told it wasn't possible to have a video on RM, which is of course nonsense. One DC is a film maker and had done a great video of the house. We insisted on it going on RM, but the only way PB would do it was with a non clickable link (suspect it costs PB more to pay for a link to a video hosted on the selling sites).

Our house didn't come up on local searches. So if you put in our village, our house didn't appear (others did!) but if you searched the local town, our house came up. This was never resolved.

For sale sign was put on someone else's land despite very specific instructions not to do that.

The agent was almost impossible to get hold of.

She wasn't proactive when after the first flurry of viewings, they slowed to nothing. We had to contact her to reduce the price and I rewrote the description. We had 2 offers within days.

We did the negotiating of the price ourselves online as she wasnt available. She did check that the buyers were in a position to proceed via their estate agent but after that we never heard from her again.

Apart from that, I'd thoroughly recommend them

Our local estate agents charge in the region of 1.5% which is a lot of money for doing not a lot. Happy to do the viewings/communication myself as feel I would do a better job. Just don’t trust estate agents! Were the photos and descriptions not sent to you first for approval?

Yes they were, which is why we redid all the photos ourselves. Estate agent insisted her intro would attract viewers so we went with it at first.

PB are fine if you want to pay £1k or whatever it is now just for access to online sales platforms. I'd bought and sold many times so was ok with having no agent to speak of, if someone wants to be supported through the process, then they probably aren't the right people to go with. As I said, the Trustpilot review are not representative of the reality.

Oh and have you tried negotiating the fee with your local agent?

Just spoken to one and was quoted 1%

Avoid PB
Negotiate with local agents

I bought last year, actively avoided viewing houses that were advertised with Purple Bricks as I had such a bad experience trying to view one house through them.
There were loads of similar houses in my area in my price range that were similar so I could just ignore PB ones, might have been different if it was a niche house that outcompeted others locally.
As an aside, as a buyer I HATE viewing houses with the owner there and god forbid being shown around by one. I want to be able to have an honest conversation with my other half about the things I love/hate as I walk around or what I'd rip out/change straight away. I'd never do that in front of the owner as it's rude and then I spend the whole viewing trying to make mental notes about what to discuss with OH after and hoping he noticed too. As a buyer I love a good knowledgeable estate agent and think they can really sell a house.

I wouldn’t. I haven’t used them but from keeping an eye on my local housing market, they seem to overprice to an insane degree (this may be different in different areas/markets). I might also think the vendor was probably a bit tight and that would concern me. (Again, may be different if the property was v straightforward, eg pretty new).

Oh yes, and I agree with Wanderer - all things being equal I would avoid viewing a property for sale through PB.

I'd never use them! Friend used them for sale of his house, 8mths on market and all was going fine, then buyers pulled out. PB wouldn't re-list without more fees and claimed they were essentially starting the process again- despite the house not being sold the 1st time. Friend had to pay PB fees, then found a different agent and sold for more within 1mth. I've read of this happening many times, so check the T&C's very carefully, otherwise you could end up paying fees twice!

I am avoiding any houses listed with Purple Bricks as the viewing booking system etc is so awkward and annoying. Attempted to use it for one viewing, never again.

We bought our house through them. We almost didn’t view it as we had problems viewing two other houses through them previously (both booked and accepted through the online system but both vendors claimed they didn’t know we were coming). I hated dealing directly with the vendors, I think it would have been a lot easier if they’d had an estate agent. They took six months to find another property but weren’t good at communicating with us and made us feel awkward about arranging a survey and second viewing.

A house in our street went up for sale just before we completed with an identical layout and it sold for £28,000 more than the house we bought. It was sold through a local estate agents who take great photos.

They are very sneaky, their minimal fee doesn't include sale board, viewings, arranging viewings or assisting in negotiating with potential buyers, so basically they charge for putting it on right move they do a lot less than your normal estate agents, you can negotiate with your normal ones regarding price so I would start by doing that, you can do your own viewings with all agents.

I’ve never used them but I noticed that a house on our street had a PB for sale board up for three months before going on Rightmove.

“I might also think the vendor was probably a bit tight and that would concern me.”

Really?

Before the current conditions, I believe I had a very saleable property which is in excellent condition and very close to a good primary and secondary school. If I can save £5,000 which can go towards a new kitchen for our onward property it would make sense. I understand this may all change now though.

I avoided viewing houses with Purple Bricks, I’d only view if it was a really really great house. PB are more difficult to deal with at no cost reduction to the vendor and selling through them is also a red flag that the vendor will squeeze every penny and be difficult to deal with, probably go with a cheap online solicitor etc.

*No cost reduction to the purchaser

Agree that sellers that do go with PB can be difficult to deal with and use of on line solicitors doesn't help

selling through them is also a red flag that the vendor will squeeze every penny and be difficult to deal with, probably go with a cheap online solicitor etc.

Disagree with that. We sold through them because yes, they did cost less, but we had no idea how rubbish they were. We were very easy to deal with (can't think of any reason why a PB seller would be difficult to deal with ) We negotiated a price that both sides were happy with and were very accommodating every step of the way. We also used a local conveyancing company who were excellent. Our purchasers used an online company recommended by their normal estate agent, they were shit and caused endless delays. I wouldn't touch online conveyancing with a bargepole.

Wouldn't touch with a barge pole. My dm tried using them, photos were awful! She had a really old camera (size of the disposable ones) that ran out of battery and I had to give her some fresh ones. Pictures made the rooms look half their size. Floor plans were all wrong and she had missed off vital cupboard space which she wouldn't rectify. Over all they didn't do anything and demanded £1000
Just negotiate with local EA