Online Estate Agents

[Delectable]

We're prepping to put our flat on the market. Central London location not enough properties for buyers yet some EAs are looking for 2% commission.

Has anyone used Purple Bricks or other online agents to sell a flat in London? How did it go?

We're open to doing our own viewings.

[Title edited by MNHQ at OP's request]

My SIL and husband did about 5 years ago. It all went smoothly and they said they would use them again.

In our experience, they “talk the talk but didn’t walk the walk.”
Complete & utter waste of time.
Not a single viewing.
We went with another EA & the house sold very quickly.
This was about five years ago so maybe they’ve improved not only their customer service but ability to help sell!
Good luck. Selling snd buying can turn your hair white!

I never managed to get access to any flat I’ve ever tried to view via purple bricks .

i eventually stopped bothering with properties that weren’t on with a traditional agent.

All central london.

Are you sure stuff is selling? 4 flats on my block have been on the market recently as we have been in EWS1 limbo for a few years so no one was able to buy or sell. 3 of the owners have just remortgaged buy to let as stuff wasn’t shifting.

desirable area. Nice block. None of these flats had outdoor space though.

Complete waste of time. We tried to view several houses with them.
never again

We sold our house with purple bricks Z was really easy to manage the viewings etc. the seller sets the times they are willing to do viewings . If a buyer can’t get a viewing that is not down to PB.

I would recommend as long as you have half decent IT skills.

Nothing worse in London than a viewing by the owner. Cough up and pay for a proper EA.

awful company. Whatever you save in fees will be lost by them being absolutely shite at negotiating on your part as they don’t care about the selling price as they already have their fee.

What's EWS1?

I think the seller must be good availability for viewings or the online EA must have a sufficient pool of local people to conduct viewings.

We had a viewing with one of the big EAs. The EA didn't show up. We called the office and the weekend call center said he'll call us but no. The property in now on the market with a different EA I think and reduced months after.

We'll be able to conduct our viewings and I've had informative tours by owners without a problem. Some EA don't even say a word when they show you round and in the pandemic show tours were video only.

It's always bugged my why solicitors are paid peanuts for conveyancing which is the risky bit of the transaction requiring huge insurance premium yet EAs do nothing as to be honest a house sells it self.

I'm not a fan of EAs obviously.

I’m not too sure why you’ve posted on here OP. You’ve clearly decided you want to conduct viewings yourself and use Purple Bricks, despite several posters showing their own poor experience with them.

We used them on our last move....we ended up selling over the asking price....agent couldn't do enough for us tbh....would recommend....

And at that time Thier cut was less than traditional estate agents

PB is absolutely awful. I viewed with them last year and it puts me off so much.

EWS1 is the External Wall System Fire Certificate, if you're selling a flat you should be aware if it is needed. So many people can't sell because of it at the moment.

@PragmaticWench I figured it had to do with cladding. Ours is a Victoria Mansion flat, popular road cos of the mansion blocks and the location as it overlooks a huge Central London park.

Glad to read people's experiences with OLEAs. Will speak to my DH to consider further.

I wouldn’t use them because of the dreadful way they treat and dispose of their staff, loads are now taking legal action.

Id use anyone but them.

We won't view properties listed with them any more as all the ones we've viewed with them have been wildly overpriced with deluded owners and the agency are useless.

We used yopa to sell our Victorian conversion flat 4 years ago and it was not a great experience
We still sold but probably would have got more for our flat
I suppose we paid less fees so it's swings and roundabouts

We sold a flat in Marylebone recently and the estate agents truly earned their commission even though it was 2% plus VAT. They had to do 30 viewings as the central London market for flats is not great. Then they helped keep the sale on track when it easily could have fallen apart due to complications.
I wouldn’t use PB personally- they have been rubbish when we’ve been trying to organise viewings and I doubt they offer much after sales support.

Purple Bricks recommended the most appalling solicitors: thenegotiator.co.uk/purplebricks-staff-angry-over-handling-of-premier-property-lawyers-mess-claim/

This nearly cost me my sale and I would never use PB again. They didn't care that sale was stalled by this as they already get their fee early on so after that youre on your own.

My daughter used ‘Strike’ to sell her London flat. They were utterly dreadful. After months of wasting time she used a local EA and sold quite quickly with the EA being helpful, available and easily contactable for prospective buyers and for her.

I wouldn't buy a property being marketed/handled by any online estate agency. It would be an immediate no for me, no matter how much I liked the property being sold.

I recently Purchased a house with purple bricks and found the whole process to be quite stressful as there was no one to talk to . We had to communicate directly with sellers which was very awkward when we had to renegotiate after our survey picked up on a few things. I definitely prefer working with estate agents as I feel the process is smoother , less stressful and quicker. It took us over 6 months to complete! Thank goodness we were not in a chain or otherwise this would have been a total disaster and we would have lost our buyer. I think you need to be very careful going with purple bricks as a lot of people won’t even view properties with them. It is also a false economy! I believe the pb house we ended up buying was under valued by 10k. All the houses we were looking at at the time were so much more expensive and they all had huge amount of interest with crazy biding wars! We were fully prepared for a bidding war but the pb house was the only house that didn’t and we couldn’t believe our luck that we got it at asking price after losing several houses to crazy bidders who were bidding 20-30k over asking price.

I would not sell with them

Seems a bit OTT....I really did have a good experience (selling) through PB....their agent was lovely, we were quite demanding in terms of getting the photos right and she was very patient and nothing was too much trouble....maybe we were just lucky but I wouldn't hesitate to use them again....bit of a worry that people won't even buy a property even if they like it if it's been marketed by PB though....

As a previous poster has mentioned, we've bought through PB twice and the problem is there is no one to talk to properly about your purchase and they have no incentive to hustle things along. Whereas our EA did everything she could to help the sale of our house along because of course she wanted the commission. I would not use them.