Valuations, Purple Bricks any good?

[BG2015]

Going to put our house up for sale in the New Year and just about to ring estate agents for valuations.

Last time I sold, the EA were absolutely useless. By total fluke I ended up selling my house to my friends daughter and her husband. She arranged viewings with me personally but then made the offer through the EA. Their fee was 3% which, in the circumstances was a total rip off, but of course I was tied into a contract with them.

We have 3 quite prominent and good estate agents locally but just wondered what the online estate agents are like.

I've read mixed reviews on Trustpilot about Purple Bricks and it seems it's very much dependent on how good certain agents are.

A diff perspective but as a buyer, seeing that a seller has used an online agent like PB rather than a proper established agent suggests that they’re prioritising their own financial interests, and could therefore be difficult to negotiate with. Personally it would make me offer a lower price because I would assume (rightly or wrongly) that either the asking price or the intentions of the seller were less transparent.

as an aside though, 3% is crazy. It’s 1-1.5% round here (SE).

Thank you for posting that I didn't realise you could do that!

We are hoping to sell next year and I will definitely add this.

Can you negotiate on the fee?

Used PB twice had no problems and would recommend and use again

You could try. For the "average" home I wouldn't want to play more than 1.5% but you may have less room to negotiate that if they have to cut their timescale for you. They may also be less accommodating to "trying a higher price" for the first few weeks. They'd want you to follow their price guidance because they don't get paid if they fail to complete your sale.

I don’t view houses sold through PB and other DIY methods. Esp if they use the in house ‘conveyancing’. Based on long, tedious and terrible experience.

It’s not just the platform and its staff, it’s the vendors who choose it. OK, not all, but the naive, the ‘save every Penny without having a clue what you are doing’ brigade etc.

If there is any kind of chain, complication with the house (flying freehold, listed, shared access etc) you need an experienced agent who is good at progression when issues arise. I know this is the solicitors job but good agents can be very solution focussed, have ideas, and communicate with all parties. Interview them on who handles progression, whether they will give you regular updates on progress ( what the chain is waiting in etc)

I agree it’s a red flag on the vendor as well as a potentially problematic platform.

They have already made one bad decision which doesn’t bode well for future decisions. Of course, it may all work out ok as long as the sale is straightforward, but you don’t know at the beginning of the transaction if it is going to be smooth sailing ahead or not.

I think I would only use PB if the property sold itself and it was low to mid pricing in your area. Basically the sale should be fairly straight forward.

Please do not use PB. We sold our flat with them last year. All fine to start with, nice photos and 360 view, good description. but we then had two buyers pull out one after the other, as PB DO NO CHECKS ON BUYERS. Anyone seemingly can view and then just offer via the app. It's utterly ridiculous. It was so stressful and chaotic, and we had no support for going back on the market. We eventually sold but after 10 months.

Currently on the market with them and I’m massively regretting it. Awful customer service, to the point of my agent ignoring me for weeks, and the complaints department being incredibly slow to come back with a derisory compensation offer.

im in the process of raising a complaint with the ombudsman. I can categorically recommend going elsewhere.

Using them to sell our probate house at the moment . They make a stressful situation a billion times worse . Don’t even think about using them unless you want to spend a very very long time chasing your tail trying to get any thing done. They have just been bought out by a company even worse than them (strike).
Their business model appears to be have a billion departments for each facet of buying/selling that way you can always pass the buck to someone else as nobody owns anything.
I am honestly bewildered how any sales actually take place and complete using them. They are so bad
I would never ever ever use them again and if this sale ever completes (and yes they undervalued our property by £20k less than we got!. We insisted on going with the higher price) I will be hitting social media to tell everyone how bad they are

We used them to sell our house in 2021. Our agent wasn't great (example being I offered to tell her a little about the area and local amenities, or about the houae itself to help her with viewers and she said she didn't need to know anything. Came across as positively disinterested). But having said that our house did sell quickly (it was on a popular new build development) and we liked not paying commission and being able to review offers ourselves.

I think if you're confident your house will sell quickly / with little effort of an agent then PB could work well for you.

But don't use their conveyancing service, now that was absolutely appalling. We avoided them due to hearing how bad they were but our PB agent convinced our first time buyers to go with them and it was a nightmare.

Id actively avoid looking at a property listed with Purplebricks. I don't like their process at all and the agents are basically just holding Kenya - they know nothing about the property (I'm sure there are some exceptions).