Yes another post titled AVOID PURPLE BRICKS

[MadWorld89]

I have used these before and had a great experience but let me just quickly let you in on why to AVOID them now. I went live on the 26th of July, I opted for hosted viewings. They organised to have someone do my hosted viewings who was on holiday until the 19th of August.

Every time someone wanted to book a viewing they can only do it online and were faced with choosing a date from the 19th of August.
That is 24 days potentials are supposed to wait to get a viewing. Can you imagine telling that your buyers?

The service costs an extra £600 between the unhosted package to the package that includes hosted viewings. I must declare now that i chose to pay upfront because it was half price (cheapskate, I know)
I regret that choice now, actually I regret choosing Purple Bricks altogether.

I had to phone them to let them know of their mistake can you believe, how is nobody managing this?

Everything seems to be done internally with them via email so do not expect someone to rush to your aid because it is not happening. Phil my account manager sent an email to the manager of hosted viewings, guess what, she was on holiday too so that never got picked up either.

Phil said he would put my account forward to this external company called Viewber where they can put out jobs for local estate agents to take on the role of hosted viewings. Days went by with no contact from them.

To rectify the situation I felt forced into asking them to remove the hosted viewings package so I could do the viewings myself so i could set the availability to get viewings to now rather than the 19th of August. I did not want to do the viewings, I had literally just come out of hospital after skin surgery, I was in no fit state but what can you do?

I put in a complaint and just today received the outcome. You will laugh at this, they offered me a £100 refund. You know where they can stick that!

Honestly, you really do get what you pay for with this service, run away now if you haven't already.

You are still here, interested to know more are we?

The photos are shocking, too much contrast, and oddly made the rooms look smaller than they are, what happened to them looking bigger like they always do? Plus you are only "allowed" 15 when the guy takes 50+

The floor maps were all out of wack making rectangular or square rooms appear like they were trapezoid.

The house description, as they now no longer use actual people to come round or know the local area, do not expect them to describe the lovely area your home is in or what is around it, that is far too much effort. Ai it is for you.

If you are still considering Purple Bricks, give your head a wobble and re-read this. Repeat as many times as necessary until it sinks in.

I'll bump this for you.

Not had a good experience with them myself from a buyer's perspective.

False economy in my opinion to try to save a bit of money but in the process make it harder to sell your property.

Bumped as I know a buyer and seller who both had awful experiences with them.

Wow that’s terrible 😮 they should have told you that there was nobody available to do hosting viewings before you had to fork out the £600. Is there anything in the fine print that permits this? I would be taking them to small claims court, you are paying for a service you are not receiving.

I wouldn’t even view a house which was listed under Purple Bricks.

Explains why traditional physical estate agents haven’t gone the way of betting shops and travel agents.

I think PB recommend crappy online solicitors too. Imagine being the proper solicitor for the buyer and having to deal with them!

I still would if the property seemed like one I might want to buy. But only with a heavy heart. And a feeling that the sellers are probably going to be hard to deal with because they've already made one big decision I consider to be unwise that could make the process of buying their property harder than it needs to be.

You didn’t watch the Panorama episode about them?

We once pulled out of a sale (we were the sellers) as we found out our buyers were using purple bricks and their lawyers. I hope you have more luck. I wouldn’t view a house listed with purple bricks

That is awful. Definitely won’t use them ever !

That email gives me the rage. You complained about the viewings, and they patiently explained that the reason is that your agent is on holiday (which was the basis of your complaint!)

Yes it’s the email of a company that don’t give a shit about customer service.

I wouldn't be put off viewing a property simply because it was with pb if I liked the look of it. I don't necessarily think they've badly maintained because they're trying to save money...look at the property, have a survey. But a lot of people do think that so a risk in selling through them.

This. We moved house this year and one came up with purple bricks, but I just couldn’t view it. I think we had to pay to submit an offer as well!

We’re all moved now in a lovely house :)

Local estate agents are worth their money I think.

A relative selling a property was involved in a chain, in which two of the buyers were using Purple Bricks. On the day of completion and moving there was a problem and the chain failed leaving 6 buyers packed and with possessions in lorries but nowhere to go. A nightmare for everyone but Purple Bricks would not even answer their clients emails. They were getting no response at all from them.
They sales all went through a few days later, but everyone was in limbo for a while.

Very recent panorama docu that covers purple bricks, well worth a watch. I now wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole.

I'm sorry, but your sale is probably dead in the water if viewers can't get their foot through the door within 2 weeks of going live.

I'd insist they take it off their website, issue you a full refund and then I'd put it on with a high street agent.

Otherwise I'd threaten them with the Property Ombudsman.

I don't think it's usual to have to ask 'do you have staff available for viewings within 24 days of the advert going live?'

You stand a much better chance selling your house with pretty much anyone other than Purple Bricks, tbh.

That Panorama documentary in a nutshell: the poor Sales Executive who thought she had a nice, WFH job ended up spending around half her time dealing with complaints from sellers who were getting dreadful customer service but couldn't get through to anyone else to complain, so were phoning sales staff.

She was a proper sales lady and was distraught at the crap that was being flung at her.

We had a pretty decent experience selling our house with purple bricks but we did do the viewings our self and we did give them the text that we wanted used for the ad. their photos were fine .

DH has been a professional contract negotiator so we didn’t need the estate agent middleman . We were selling a good house in a desirable area that was priced correctly to sell. We saved a lot of money

To be honest you get what you pay for . It wouldn’t suit the majority of people.