Your estate agent/s

[Housenotsoldmom]

What did your fabulous estate agent did throughtout your time from beginning to end? And even if you didnt sell your house, they tried their best.

Thanks

I by are you asking? Are you selling and dis-satisfied with your agent? Or looking for things to suggest to them?

Im unhappy who I am with atm. Just wondering what is their responsibilities are to sell our house as im being kept in the dark from day 1 since june

You've been on the market since June?!

Well, I don't know if this is exhaustive, but I would say minimum requirements are:

Marketing your property properly – decent photos, proper floorplan with dimensions, accurate description of the house and surroundings, inclusion of anything useful like proximity to decent schools, etc on the details. Advertising on Rightmove, Zoopla, etc. showing your home in their window at least on a rotating basis. Initially calling anyone on their database whose requirements match your home (rather too late for that now though, so I'm assuming they did that months ago..

Ongoing – responding promptly to anyone who expresses an interest in your home, booking viewings at suitable times, letting you know the feedback from viewings promptly. Checking in with you regularly to suggest anything you can do to improve the saleability of your house – moving furniture, tidying, Making your garden looks better etc. passing on any offers quickly and following them up in writing – have you had any offers at all?

I would caution that house selling is a two way process though – do you think you are fulfilling your end of the bargain? Is your house priced fairly for your area? Is it presented well? Are you flexible with when you allow viewings? Are you open to any reasonable changes that the agent suggests?

@unfortunateevents Wow.. thankyou so much for your input.

Yep been on the market since June 🤦‍♀️.

Ive just read all the way through your post.

The things im not agreeing on (cos it not happening/ed to us!).

• Initially calling anyone on their database whose requirements match your home....we would not know as we are kept in the dark (we're with Purple bricks..)

• Checking in with you regularly to suggest anything you can do to improve the saleability of your house – moving furniture, tidying, Making your garden looks better etc. passing on any offers quickly and following them up in writing – have you had any offers at all?..... No..they dont check in with me... im thinking "Are they doing their job?!"

No suggestions to us either.
They brought in a different photographer as they werent happy with the photos (5 months later).

We've had 1 offer at the very beginning...one buyer who not viewed our house, put an offer in £30k less. We declined it.

• do you think you are fulfilling your end of the bargain? Yes and no maybe as we live on a very busy road so that's why we are thinking "its gonna be harder to sell" but the viewers were surprised how quiet inside our house is cos weve got double glazing windows put in 4 years ago and we live in an victorian house so solid walls as well.

There was an empty house sold last week on the same road for £10k less but there were and are houses selling around the corner between £5 - 20k more than ours but on a quiet ish road but a nightmare to park in the road.

Is your house priced fairly for your area? Yes.

Is it presented well? Yes, people love our house but they seem to pick out faults, eg 1 small bedroom, no parking outside during 7am till 7pm cos weve got a bus stop which is a quiet bus stop but you can park around the corner of a other street where is plenty to park, no driveway, busy road, etc. But we do tell them the good points as we show them around the house, pb are clueless with the questions.

Are you flexible with when you allow viewings? Yes and its all on the PB app.

Are you open to any reasonable changes that the agent suggests? They've not suggested anything but yes I'm very open.

Also the original expert who came to value our house and we instructed him to start the house sale, left 2 weeks later and another expert took over who weve never met.

As the original expert promised us that it would sell above the asking price, and he had a lot of buyers they would ring and would expect to sell quite quickly...... does that mean he took them buyers with him to a different estate agent as we dont know why did he left suddenly !

Ah, Purplebricks – so not a regular High Street agent with a shop window. I know very little about how they operate, some people seem to have a great experience with them, but I think it's safe to say that after nine months they're not going to sell your house! Just look at the terms of your contract with them, at this point it must surely be easy to get out of and put your house back on the market with a new local agent who knows the area well. Bear in mind that the price may have changed in the meantime, we've had the horror of the Truss mini budget and huge increases in the cost of living since then.

OP purple bricks are useless and when we were looking for our new home we did not view any houses that were marketed through Purple Bricks.

You mention an empty house sold for 10k less than what you have yours on for, was it the same standard as yours, could the buyer want a chain free purchase this does make a difference.

Does it have a bus stop outside that house?

You can't park outside your house during the day and it's on a main road but houses on quieter streets are only on for 5-20k more, this is the problem your house is overpriced for the faults that it has, have you reduced the price of the property in the 8 months it's been on? A house on the market for so long rings alarm bells with buyers as the first question would be what wrong with it!

I would contact a high street agent and get them to value it and then go from there.

we're with Purple bricks

This is your issue.

Use a proper estate agent and you should have a bit more success.

An elderly relative of mine is about to move house, they are in a 6 person chain, the only one in the chain that is having any problems is the one with Purple Bricks. Our locally based estate agent has been really good, house sold within 2 weeks, excellent service and communication. Our estate agent told us that Purple Bricks are notoriously useless.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64678984

The whole company is in a really difficult spot.

They've lost 98% of their share value in the last few years.

We used an online estate agent and they were excellent. It's not necessarily that yours don't have a shop window, it's that they are crap.
I'd sack them and get another one.

But...the market has changed a lot and we accepted under asking price (whereas 12 months ago it would have gone for over asking)

@unfortunateevents thats the reason why we went with them so we can pay the fee at the end of the 10 months...if our house is sold. If we pull out now, we have to pay the fee. Or otherwise i would've of gone like a shot. And yes the house price possibly could drop now.

@Teenangels the house that was sold £10k its more or less same as ours different kitchen outlay than theirs and yes theyve got a bus stop outside their house with a tiny pavement but yes the house had been decorated, brand new of everything. (Ours is 2 years old of everything). We was quoted £5k higher but decided to settle £5k less cos of the bus stop. Another estate Strike quoted us £20k more 🤷‍♀️ but they wanted us to pay the fees upfront which we dont have.

@Mildura i know as we know who to go with next. Thanks

@Itsagrandoldteam 👍

@Bakedbanana i would sack them there and then. Ive complained to them yesterday, i was not happy with their service as they haven't delivered what we expect from them. I sent it over 24 hours ago, no reply.....no reassurance..nothing! The next thing i may have to do is to message to the pbs headquarters (thats if they be arsed too!). So frustrating.

I've just been doing abit of reading of Purple Bricks. Back in June, we were offered "money back guarantee" so if we weren't happy with their service (when though?, the first week, first month, all the way through??) We can pull out amd go elsewhere. They've scrapped this in July but not informed us. Also i asked my dh "did that agent (who left 2 weeks later) say 'no sale, no fee', after we asked him do we need to pay the fees if we don't sell?", dh said yes. What a bloody lie!!

🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

id say that being on since june is your problem... anyone wanting to buy will be looking at the market daily and see the date you listed.

@pavillion1 i agree. Weve been putting it down as our house is hard to sell cos of the busy main road and we werent in a rush at the time....but now we are

What does your actual contract with them say though? Not what you are now reading online or what the agent or may not have said at the time?

Sorry but your problem is that you are using purple bricks , I and many others won’t bother to even look at the property online if it’s not with a reputable high street agent

Purple bricks isn't a typical estate agent. A high street agent is getting a 1-2% fee, so more incentivised to get it sold.