Purple Bricks

[staycaysandvacays]

Has anyone use PB when selling? If so, how was your experience?

Considering using them as listing with them would be c. £2k (up front) rather than about £5k at the point we sell with a local estate agent.

Avoid like the plague.

There is no normal it depends where you are in the country. We paid a high % in central London but a lower one in a suburb.

You need to get 2 or 3 local EAs round and ask them what the rates are in your area then try to negotiate to get them lower.

And I agree with people saying don’t use PB. It’s hard to get sales to Completion at the moment and you need a good EA who only gets paid when the property is sold.

I bought a house through PB and it all went very smoothly. We completed in 11 weeks.

Name change because have read the thread and am feeling rather stupid.
Why PB? Because purchase will be more expensive than sale and wanted to save on commission plus vat. So paid for the accompanied viewing service. It was stupid to go on the market before Xmas but rep said didn't think it'd make any difference...he would wouldn't he?
No viewings at at all and no contact....thought viewing person might want to see the house they were going to show but apparently wait till there's an actual viewing. All they do is send a guy to fix a key safe the outside which the rep can set up thanks v much if they ever put in an appearance.
So will wait till New Year, if no activity lower the price and then probably go crawling to whichever conventional agent will offer the lowest commission.
By the way, it's not a cheapskate selling dodgy house scenario. People before did a lot of improvements and survey was fine.

I viewed a flat through PB when my daughter was looking and it was obvious they knew zero about the flat or the area. And they were late for the viewing because hadn’t realised the area was so busy apparently. They don’t necessarily live or work in the area whereas local EA do at least work there so know the local area.

I think they’re a good option for a hot market, ie not now. Honestly, if I absolutely loved a house and it was being marketed by them I would still view but it would ring alarm bells and I’d be worried about having no “buffer zone” between me and the vendor and no one working to keep the chain together and keep everyone on track- the house we’re currently trying to buy fell through twice because the chain collapsed either side of them. Therefore if it was an “it’s ok, let’s take a look” house then the PB thing might make me discount it.

I also massively prefer the vendors to be out for viewings.

@Sparehair same here, it's a much better experience to view a house with an agent and preferably the vendors out. The thought of the vendors being the ones actually doing the viewing is a big no from me

I live in an area where houses sell fast. My have noticed anyone with PB have huge asking prices that was totally out of whack with the local area. There is one house near me for sale for 750k. It probably worth 480-520. The sellers aren't giving up and it's been on the market for 16 months

That's at least 2 bad decisions they have made - listing with PB and not being at all realistic about the asking price.

I would hate to think how many other bad decisions they have made, no doubt the house inside is full of them.

Run as fast and far away from them as you can. Utter, utter shit. We sold through them and it was the worst service you can imagine. Ended up losing a lot of money.

I honestly would not purchase a house which was being sold through Purple Bricks.

We've had three house / flat purchases and both of our sales were held together by the estate agent due to the buyers having either unfair expectations or dropping their offer massively (10%) the day before exchange!

I just wouldnt even view a house sold via PB

From a buyer’s perspective: I found Purple Bricks so annoying to deal with that towards the end of our search we just stopped looking at houses listed with them.

I would never use them to sell my house. They have no incentive to arrange multiple viewings even if that might lead to higher or more offers. There was one house we were interested in and when we tried to view it they told us that an offer had been made and so never got back to us about viewings. The offer hadn’t even been accepted at that point. I imagine they didn’t even bother telling the sellers about us - even though we were in an excellent position in terms of buying (no chain, money sorted) - and thus the sellers were shut off by PB from the chance of a swifter sale and potentially a higher offer. I noticed the house was still on the market 6 months later. No idea what happened after that as we bought a different place.

Talk to local agents and negotiate on the price. If it's a good house that will sell quickly and you seem like a normal easy to deal with person. They will probably give a better fee!

Especially if you offer to do a couple of viewings for them

I wouldn't touch with a bargepole. There were LOADS of different ones near me with PB plus a few other online type agents. Very very "competitive" area to buy in with an enormous pool of buyers. The ones with agents would usually sell before they'd even been viewed. The ones with PB etc would just sit on Rightmove for months and months and months.
We paid about 1.5% to our EA and was worth every penny. They supported us when our sale fell through at the last minute and found another buyer within hours. They also did most of the chasing of solicitors (who they already had a good working relationship with!) and also gave a lot of advice on various aspects.

I personally would never buy a house through PB.

I was a buyer last year and ended up discounting anything with PB/Strike for all of the reasons given already. Get an agent who knows the area and knows how the process goes. It's stressful enough without cobbling together some DIY conveyancing effort.

Having bought and sold 5 houses in my time, I would avoid a house marketed by PB / Strike etc. Doubly so if the vendor used their conveyancing ‘service’ (sic).

Marketing a house is in some ways the easy bit. Progressing the sale is the crucial bit and whatever people say about EAs good ones make all the difference between a collapsed chain and completion.

Purple bricks are responsible for the worst selling experience of my life and I will never ever ever use them again. There's plenty of threads warning people on Mumsnet

Nottinghamshire here, marketed August 2022 (housing peak), 5 viewings and one offer within 3 days at asking price (£350k). EA charged 1%, so £3500

With hindsight I'd have used Purple Bricks. I had a saleable house. All it needed was to be on Rightmove, didn't matter who with.

When buying, it was always our preference to be shown around by the owners. You get to ask much more specific questions - where do you keep the ironing board? Where is the kitchen bin? What broadband do you use? Who cuts the hedges? Etc etc

That said, the after-sale chain support from an EA is very helpful. Our EA paid for an external service to do this and they were brilliant - the sole aim of the company was moving house chains to completion. The people we bought from, their own EA (a self employed one (wo)man band) did all the aftercare and it was clear in comparison to ours she was less experienced and professional in chain maintenance and after sale.

I bought via PB and they were beyond useless. Our estate agent ending up doing their work.

I would never view a house with them in the future.

This!!

We sold with Purplebricks 5 years ago and they made the whole process a fucking disaster. I paid extra for them to hand over the keys, no one turned up on the day to do this. I had to stay behind with the van full of stuff to move into our new home for the buyers to collect. They were useless at viewings, sometimes not showing up! Honestly would avoid them at all costs. The extra couple grand is more than worth it. We may be selling again soon and will be going with a local EA! Absolute nightmare!

Same here, we used them in 2017. I did all viewings and we sold in a week, but again a very sellable property (village setting, quiet road, good school, 4 bed detached). We're going on the market in the new year and I'll definitely contact PB again. I think a lot depends on the capability and motivation of your local PB agent. Ours last time was absolutely brilliant. He was older and knew the business inside out, so I hope he's still around! This property is a lot more niche, so I'm not expecting buyers queuing up outside!

@Woush it's interesting how different people are. I was given the option when selling my house recently (I used a 'high end' EA at 2% and wrestled quite a lot with the question as to who I should market my house with) to either do viewings myself or at no extra cost, they would. I chose not to do them, but did end up facilitating one viewing which was put in for a Sunday and they asked if I'd be amenable to hosting it. I found it excruciating, even though they were a lovely couple - it was clear quite quickly that they were nowhere near being in a position to proceed and it was hard to continue wanting to be nice to them - I'd wasted all morning preparing the house and giving up my time for nothing. So far I have really quite enjoyed the 'luxury' experience of having paid more money for the EA - the service has been amazing, they were firm on my buyers using a decent conveyancing solicitor, the communication is faultless, and they got me a really good price for the house very quickly. But - that last part could easily not have happened and I count myself very lucky in this market.

DONT.

please don’t.

1. They have no incentive to get you sold as they get paid when advert goes up. NOT when house actually sells
2. They aren’t an actual estate agent with a wide network of agents and buyers and sellers to get you connected as a team.

We made this error, waste 2 grand and had to get a brick and mortar agent in who got us sold.

never ever ever again.

Good Luck - you need it if you choose PB!

A niche property & a Buyers market & PB sounds a terrible combination but you may get lucky.