Purplebricks

[DaughterOfEvening]

Anyone have any experience or advice regarding using this route rather than the usual high street estate agents?
I understand how it works but trying to decide whether the service is any different in reality.

I would not view a house on the market with an online agent.

Where else are you willing to cut corners with your most expensive assest (probably)

I was interested in a house on with PB and despite emailing and calling couldn't get an answer. I've since heard many people say that if a house is on with PB they don't even give it a second glance.

Quite a risky option, I think.

As a buyer I found them very frustrating- it’s hard to arrange viewings, they want to do “open house” style ones but if you can’t fit those dates they won’t make an effort to squeeze you in. I gave up on any house listed with them.

We used them before and would recommend them.
We had a nightmare with traditional estate agents mucking us around when selling our property.
Took a punt and used purplebricks when it was pretty new so not many people knew about it.
We sold through them and found them great to deal with.
I wouldn't hesitate to use them again.

My moment has arrived. Settle in.

We decided to use them for our current sale. Made total sense right? Rightmove advert is all it takes to sell a house! Save money! Do own viewings! What’s not to like?

Here’s what we discovered having lost £1500, hired a proper high street agent and now having sold the house.

1. An online advert is NOT all you need to sell a house. You need the extensive database of contacts of potential buyers and interested parties that your agent and their little team ring and pursue. A one man show does not do that. 2 viewings from PB versus 29 from high street agent and a sale in three weeks.

1. There’s more to an agents role than an advert. Ours chased every viewer for feedback, chased every hopeful for a second viewing, negotiated on our behalf on offers, personally vetted and verified viewers to sieve out time wasters, and are prodding the chain regularly to keep things moving.

1. Buyers know this. Buyers know that the agents role continues till completion. Buyers don’t want to engage with what’s effectively a call centre acting on behalf of the sellers of the property they are buying.

1. finally PB take your money when advert goes live or in ten months. So yes we’ve lost those £1500. High street EA is no sale no fee. They have a reason and a motivation to chase your case.

As people who have ended up wasting £1500 on PB followed by an utterly worthwhile 1.5% on high street EA we won’t touch online agents ever again.

@friendlycat

It would put me off even viewing a house being marketed br PB.

I think this too. I assume poor communications would lead to delays. I r=prefer a normal high street agent.

Yes just to add. After we sold and started looking last month saw a great house with an online agent. We didn’t even view it. Our buyers are on a tight timeline and need to know we are going to as sure fire a purchase ourselves with a tight closed chain and we know we will rely on our agents heavily. We didn’t want a call centre/1 man team to have to deal with for what we are purchasing. So we didn’t even view the house.

I must say if someone had told me all this at outset I may not have believed them as the price factor is SO convincing.

If you search purple bricks on this website you will find dozens of threads. They all say the same. Can be great as a seller, but buyers hate them. Very hit and miss

@TheFantasticFixit

After a couple of disaster viewings with Purple Bricks it would take the house of my dreams for me to view through them again. The agents we have met have been very poor, local knowledge minimal. Neither could answer questions we had about the houses. I’d only go with them if I had the time, inclination and knowledge to practically sell it myself and chase chains because I’ve rarely heard good things about the agents.

This.

And it's so difficult to get viewing.

I was previously buying a house that was listed with Purplebricks. I actually found it okay, but the seller was very motivated and available, their agent or whatever it is was also on the ball, and most importantly they were using a local conveyancer not the one recommended by PB.

I think if it's an easy bog standard kind of house, and you're happy being on the ball with things, it's probably okay.

As a buyer I wouldn't be put off, but I'm happy to take charge of things quite directly.

I would never ever view a house via PB ever again. Worse than useless

I had a horrendous time trying to buy a house with them. The agent knew nothing, didnt get back to me, didnt put my offer through, arranged a second viewing with me even though it was sold. According to my solicitors its solicitors are awful.

Not sure OP is around but another thing to add is: in February this year when we instructed PB I did my research. I too looked at past forum threads. I heard these stories. But they didn’t convince me. It felt so so mind blowingly a no brainer to spend just 1500£ and their business model made perfect sense. When they were in a rush to get photos done and the advert live I now know that the minute advert goes live you lose the money. That’s it.

It’s only much later 3 weeks in when our mental health had become strained with the worrying about things that we decided - bye bye £1500 and hired our high street agent. 3 weeks later we were sold.

But nothing would have convinced me to not hire PB in February. I read these stories and felt “no but we are different”.

The house we bought was in Yorkshire, our 'local' agent lived in Florida. Does that tell you enough? Luckily our seller was happy enough to swap numbers and deal with issues ourselves. She literally did nothing.

Just don't, we did and regretted it hugely.