Purple Bricks - not keen

[Longbarn5]

So we are looking for our first home in our rather expensive home town. Saw something that needed masses of work but would be perfect and in budget. What to view it and phone pinged all day long telling me about other viewings booked. Made the offer on line as you do with PB, well over asking price and it was one of several offers. It has been rejected which is obviously really disappointing but no reason given! Presumably they got a higher offer but we cant tell. No negotiating, no reasons, nothing. PB seems a bit like buying through auction. Not keen to view something with them again,

They don't work for you. They work for the vendor.

That's why the sellers use it. You're not paying to smooze buyers when you have plenty of interested people.

PB would put me off too. Buying a house is stressful and it’s good to be able to speak to an agent who knows the vendor, their situation and the local market when putting in an offer.

Not enough to stop me offering if I really wanted the house, but if there were numerous houses to view I wouldn’t be prioritising one on with PB.

Dont view anymore houses listed with purple bricks then? That's your choice.

Buying a house is brutal, the online offer thing may seem impersonal but it's an email vs an agent who doesn't really care about you.

Keep looking, you'll find a house. Have you flyered your fave streets? I know a few people who have gone with that option rather then go to this open crazy market especially if as a buyer you're happy to wait until the vendor finds somewhere.

We offered on a house on PB pre-pandemic. Like you say, there’s no negotiation. Our offer was refused, with a message of ‘too low’ - if an EA had said ‘they’ll accept 10K more’ we might have paid it but The house eventually sold 6 months later for 50K less than we’d offered.

It’s a cheaper way to sell a house than the conventional way but in our case the vendors lost out as a result.

Following with interest

We just sold using PB and have had no issues whatsoever (as sellers however). I understand there is an online portal where you put in the offer however our EA was negotiating with our buyer for us over the phone and once we came to an agreement they put in their offer online for us to accept formally. Our EA was very hands on.

Only thing which I hated about the process which I didn't see before we agreed to use them was that you have to use on of their solicitors for the sale and they really have awful reviews! This is however only if you choose the buy now pay on completion option. Should have read the fine print I guess!

I just dont understand why they put the house we were interested in on tge market at such a ridiculously low price. We know the area so we weren't stupid enough to think it would sell at the sale price but there were probably a lot of viewers who did and it was a complete waste of their time viewing it and the agents time really, having to show people around who would never be able to stump up the final sale price.
I am going to be really interested to see what it finally went for.

Currently trying to buy a house which unfortunately being sold through purple bricks. I spend every day chasing, and poking and trying to encourage them to do their jobs.

Utterly fucking frustrating. If the house wasn't perfect for us I'd have pulled out a month a go.

We bought through PB a few years ago and I thought it was great compared to some estate agents. This was pre pandemic and we lost out on the house initially, but then the buyer fell through a month later so sellers were able to chat to us again through the app. Working FT we found it hard work getting in touch with normal EAs to book viewings etc during working hours, whereas we were able to book a viewing on a Friday night for sat morning etc. They also have the home report available when you first view the ad online, rather than having to email and ask for it, sometimes not getting it until after the viewing, at which point you spot things that meant you wouldn't have even viewed if you'd known, so it wasted everyones time!

We're in Scotland though so our market works differently than down south with all the negotiations and back and forth, so that might be the difference!