Are you with Purplebricks or thinking of instructing them?

[RoseBucket]

Just make sure you’re aware of what is going on with them, I’d be hesitant paying them money/instructing them at the moment until it resolves or settles, if it indeed does.

Lol - haven’t they just been bought by Strike for £1?

Wow
OP why didn't you just say that btw.

I only know one person who used them and she found them dire anyway.

My daughter tried to view a property through them and they couldn’t even manage that. No wonder they went bust!

I viewed a few properties through them last year and thought they were great. We were considering instructing them to sell our house, but obviously I won't be now

Sounds like you dodged a bullet. There will be good reasons the business failed. Maybe you could consider going with Strike instead though I personally prefer traditional estate agents as they are generally helpful in getting the deal to completion as that’s when they get their money.

I think we will look at Strike. I prefer traditional agents too, but if we have to pay ~12k in selling fees we can't afford to move house

I’ve heard bad things about Strike too tbh

That does suggest your current property is at least £1m.

I'm not sure I'd entrust a house of that value to the likes of Strike!

rubs hands with glee

PB once disclosed my search history on their platform to a vendor we were buying from.

Bahahaha.

That said, I have heard Strike are pretty bad too.

"PB once disclosed my search history on their platform to a vendor we were buying from."

Oh. my. GOD.

It’s in the table I believe but not yet agreed. The legal claims outweigh any income currently therefore any money inc the ‘cash’ asset is unlikely to go to the vendors or agents who I feel most sorry for.

Hopefully they’ll be able to merge or join other companies, the way it’s structured they won’t see any money. It’s dreadful how they’ve been treated not sure it merits a ‘lol’. The whole thing is a mess.

Blimey, although not surprised! They started out as a sort of property version of Auto Trader, had they stuck with it they might have continued, but they grew too fast without following legislation and have got themselves in all sorts of bother.

This was 12 months ago. They shouldn't have been behaving like used car salesman that far into their business history.

Not to disparage used car salesman, that is.

I'm in an area where properties sell within 1-2 weeks (with local estate agents) unless they're with Purple Bricks where there are some on the market for over 2 years.
I didn't know they'd failed but wouldn't have been keen on using them. I've only known one person use them successfully.

We bought and sold recently, the houses that were up with strike or purple bricks took noticeably longer to sell lots of them haven’t sold now! They weren’t priced as well for the local market than people who had used local estate agents.

I’d avoid tbh

about ~750k (which is pretty cheap for the area), but all the quotes I've got from traditional agents are for 1.5-2% of sale price

Interesting that it’s failed as a business model. I guess traditional estate agents do something to earn their fees after all.

Haggle! Play them off against each other! They want your house to sell. I’ve never paid more than 1% on any house I’ve sold, I refuse to.

They have a hideous reputation for doing nothing after sale is agreed.

Traditional agents have to keep working to stop sales falling through.

I don't think they seem to care because they get a flat fee upfront.

I think? Not entirely sure.

Definitely haggle! For most agents the days of charging 1.5%-2% are becoming a very dim memory.

In my part of Surrey hardly any of them attempt to charge more than 1%.

Thanks for the advice. I didn't even realise it was really something you could haggle over.
It does seem ridiculous. I previously sold in a much less expensive area of the country and the selling fees came to £1800. There would be no more work to do in selling this house. In fact I suspect it would be a lot quicker and easier and require far less viewings comparatively. I think a flat fee is a much fairer way of doing it

We're going through a difficult sale at the moment, mostly because our buyers solicitor is incompetent (incorrect info given to lender which effected valuation, acting against our buyers instructions etc etc) it has really jeopardised the sale. At one point we thought our property was actually unmortgageable due to the strange questions coming back from the lender and valuer.

This is where traditional estate agents earn their money, our sale would have 100% fallen through if we didn't have our EAs double checking everything our buyer's solicitor does. I'll be honest it's still touch and go but that's down to the other solicitor.

I bought a house about 6 years ago and Purple Bricks were selling it. I didn't have any issues. My purchase all went through smoothly and quickly too.

I've encountered Strike from a buyers perspective and I wasn't impressed. They were relentless for a few days after the offer was accepted, so many emails and harassment to get stuff done (I get it's their job and it's important when buying a property) but then .....nothing. No updates. When I rang for updates their response was "we'll ring your solicitor for an update". Er, I can do that myself and get a quicker / better response. They also had no local knowledge or understanding of how long searches might take etc. they just seemed a bit clueless.

As a seller they might be cheaper than a traditional agent but from a buyers perspective they were dreadful.

They didn’t follow legislation… they offered a shite service to many customers… I feel it’s fine for me to lol at them going bust.