Purple Bricks

PapaLazaru

PapaLazaru

PapaLazaru

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Joined
23 Dec 2009
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I am just about to put my house on the market and having been told my house will likely sell within days, which is incredibly likely as they all do round here, I have been getting a little miffed with the fee's charges by traditional agents having been quoted minimum charges of 1.25%, which will be several thousand pounds for a few days work.

So on Wednesday I logged onto Purple Bricks who charge £798 inc vat for a sale. Made an online appointment for a valuation, got a confirmation email and the local agent called me on Thursday morning for a chat about what our plans are. He is coming round in an hour and having liked what they offer, am likely to use them and save several thousand pounds.

They sold a house up my road last week after an open day and received 14 offers, so I cannot see what value a traditional agent can offer me.

This thread is to talk about my experience as the sale progresses and whether they can offer everything a traditional agent can at a fraction of the cost. Also interested if anyone else has used them and what their experience has been? Certainly well rated on TrustPilot - https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/purplebricks.com

Will update later as this will be my third valuation so interested on what they say.
 
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I liked the sound of this at first, but then the issues was you pay £75 per viewing if you are not showing them round yourself so it can soon rack up especially from some one who views 2 times and doesn't put an offer in. iv ended up paying 4.2K to sell my house on a 2% charge and that still worked out cheaper but not by a huge margin if you add up the viewings vs offers ratio
 
Good luck.

As a buyer, their set up is simple to make an appointment for a viewing and you get reminders. I guess this all depends on if the vendor actions requests quickly.

If we had still been living at our place we would have used them too.
 
Will be interested to see your experience.

Strangely I would say only 1 in 20 matters I have had on recently have involved an online estate agent. Frankly I don't see what high street estate agents can possibly offer that makes the extra cost worth while.

One thing I did note that was annoying is when a price gets renegotiated they send a notification to the solicitors that the current sale has fallen through and then issue a revised sales memorandum later rather than just sending a notification of revised price.
 
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Just sold ours through Tepilo (basically the same idea) and I did the viewings myself at weekends. Did two weekends of viewings and got an offer of full asking on the second Saturday. Saved loads of estate agent fees as a result!

They are basically a route to getting yourself on Rightmove, Zoopla etc, which is all that really matters these days.
 
I think that Purple Bricks et al are riding a wave of increasing house prices, and I imagine they do offer value in that a house in most markets (especially in the South East) basically sells itself at the moment.

Where a traditional estate agent probably comes in is where they might have to work harder for a sale or where they have contacts or a mailing list of people looking for a specific type of property, or where the property needs some work or modernisation or a combination thereof.
 
Ive never trusted estate agents as far as I could throw then when sitting in their car, so with that comment made I share the views on what are they actually offering for the money.

Years ago, pre-internet searching for or selling a house was a more time consuming process, lots of agents to sign with, lots of pieces of paper to look at etc. Now the majority you can do yourself, including checking schools etc. The sort of info that a good local agent would have given as an added benefit is all there now online with a little bit of searching.

All they are doing is matching at the end of the day, and if I was buying and being pushed by an estate agent i would swiftly tell them to do one.

Personally I prefer doing viewings anyway, the buyer gets a chance to ask sensible questions but equally you get to see and gauge the buyers as a seller, if you don't see and speak to them its far harder to get this data and if they come in with an offer harder to know if they seem likely to be able to procced, or are chancers etc
 
So on top of the initial fee, they charge an additional £132 inc vat to do the viewings, but this covers as many as you need to sell the house.

They are all self-employed so it is a franchise of sorts. The agent who came round has been in the game for 25 years so is no blagger.

Likely to instruct them this weekend with a view for an open day next Saturday with half hour slots. I will be doing the tour, which is my preference anyway as a lot of work has gone into the house and I do not want the small details forgotten about.

It is quite cool in that when a viewing has finished, I click a button on the webpage and it emails the viewer who gives the house marks out of five for certain things and is invited to make an offer. I get to see it immediately and anyone else who has viewed the house also gets an email that an offer has been made, though only I see how much it is. Drives up interest a little like Ebay.

House will be going up for offers over a certain amount so it will cut out anyone going under.
 
The deal sounds good I wish I had gone through someone like this last time I sold. What the high-street agents charge to put a photo on the internet and show a few people round is ridiculous especially in areas that well/correctly priced houses sell themselves.
 
How do the online agents do with progressing the sale once offers have been accepted?

We've just sold using a traditional high street agent. I would agree that unless they have a waiting list for your area, the majority of promotion is about getting on RM, Zoopla etc. I do chuckle at one of the TV adverts for another on-line agent which claims they list your property on over 500 websites though.

Where I thought our agent earned their money was chasing down the chain, pushing and prodding for completion dates. Is that something that the online players do? Do you get a nominated contact or is a call centre?

We were with our solicitor to sign our contracts and he was being very non-committal about exchange & completion dates. I rang our agent, they made a phone call and rang me back (inside a few minutes) to say everything was good beneath us. I just gave my mobile to our solicitor and he went from being vague to expecting to exchange contracts the next day (which we did).
 
For me it would actually be cheaper to use a highstreet local estate agent. 1.25% at the current market value of my 2 bed here in the deep north would only see me paying <£700 in EA fees which is still probably negotiable further.

They will also list on Rightmove & OnTheMarket and do any viewings on my behalf all included.

But I would be interested in Tepilo if they send Beeny round, She's a MILF :)
 
I like the sound of this. I'll definitely be considering using purple bricks or similar next time we sell a property.
 
Instructed them online last night. Email received that sales board is on the way. Agent came round for a chat and took photos earlier. Emailed me the advert to vet (you can change what you want basically, but his was perfect). Vetted that advert and gone live straight away on Purple Bricks, Rightmove and all the others.

I have set availability next Saturday with 14 half hour slots. :eek:

I will be doing the tours and have been advised that I will get offers.

They also told me that I will get direct messages though their website from people saying they are interested but cannot make the open day. This is apparently a common issue as demand is so high they will want to try and persuade me to let them see it before the open day.

Been advised to politely refuse and tell them that if it does not sell on the day, then I will hold another for them. They will then always come on the first open day. :D

I'm excited!
 
PapaLazaru said:
Instructed them online last night. Email received that sales board is on the way. Agent came round for a chat and took photos earlier. Emailed me the advert to vet (you can change what you want basically, but his was perfect). Vetted that advert and gone live straight away on Purple Bricks, Rightmove and all the others.

I have set availability next Saturday with 14 half hour slots. :eek:

I will be doing the tours and have been advised that I will get offers.

They also told me that I will get direct messages though their website from people saying they are interested but cannot make the open day. This is apparently a common issue as demand is so high they will want to try and persuade me to let them see it before the open day.

Been advised to politely refuse and tell them that if it does not sell on the day, then I will hold another for them. They will then always come on the first open day. :D

I'm excited!
Click to expand...

Dont believe all the crap from agents. Hope all goes ok
 
Late update but got 10 appointments booked on that Saturday, got 5 offers and took two at £10k over asking. Took the offer from a single guy over a family, none of who had seen the house apart from the mother.

So sold in 4 days (had a couple of second viewing in the days afterwards).

So my experience has no doubt been made easier by the market in Reading but being told by all the traditional agents, who's cheapest quote was 1.4% IF we got £10k or more over asking (sliding scale), just saved me just shy of £4.5k in fees.

Easy peasy.
 
At what point do you pay the money? Upfront or when it sells?

That's the only benefit I can see of estate agents if its upfront rather than at point of sale.

Sounds like it's at sale though.
 
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