purplebricks

Kathy2312

Edit to my last post - Purplebricks website definitely says you DON'T have to pay upfront. Obviously, you will have to pay the £798 (or more in some London areas) whether or not they sell - but the contract is for 10 months, so plenty of time!

I still can't see too many reasons to use a traditional agent these days.

Innys1

DJ_Mike wrote: »

I think you have a misguided view on how much incentive estate agents really have to get you the best price - an extra £5k is only worth an extra £50-100 to them, whereas getting you off their books as soon as possible and earning their full commission is worth a great deal more.

So what happens if you sign up, happily pay the fee up front and it doesn't sell, whether or not they have actually made any effort to sell your house? Your fee is gone.

Let me ask you a different question - if a builder were to quote, say £50k, to build an extension to your house, would you be happy to pay any of it up front? Not for materials, you understand, just so he'll charge you £45k instead.

Innys1

DJ_Mike wrote: »

I think you have a misguided view on how much incentive estate agents really have to get you the best price - an extra £5k is only worth an extra £50-100 to them, whereas getting you off their books as soon as possible and earning their full commission is worth a great deal more.

I know exactly what cashflow is, I just chose to ignore it. If your cashflow in buying and selling houses worth hundreds of thousands of pounds was fragile enough to be affected by an upfront £800 fee, frankly I'd think you were in the wrong business.

Cashflow affects all businesses, no matter how large or small they are. It's typically the reason they go bust, by not being able to pay their suppliers.

What's your advocating is to pay in advance for a service to secure a lower fee. There aren't many businesses that do as you suggest - indeed, most delay paying their suppliers by up to three months. Why do you think that is? They can't all be "in the wrong business", can they?

DJ_Mike

Innys1 wrote: »

Let me ask you a different question - if a builder were to quote, say £50k, to build an extension to your house, would you be happy to pay any of it up front? Not for materials, you understand, just to so he'll charge you £45k instead.

You're not really offering a fair comparison, are you? One is a charge for work yet to be completed, the other is a charge for services immediately rendered (i.e. the advertising of your property).

lessonlearned

What do you wAnt from an EA.......

A full bespoke service, then you need to pay a full bespoke price, and the average 1 to 2 per cent won't buy you that.

Most EAs are basically just "Introducers" they introduce prospective purchasers to prospective vendors.

They will market and advertise your property for you but as we all know some are far better at it than others. Don't expect much more than a few photos and a bit of blurb on rightmove. That's it as far as marketing goes these days.

Some EAs will then introduce the purchaser to solicitors and lenders, via either their own in house broker or an affiliate and attempt to offer a full "buying package"

Some EAs will offer a full progress the sale service, some won't.

Some on line agents will just offer the basic introduction, some will will also offer the progressing sale option for a further fee.

Whichever option you go for, other than the full bespoke package, which very few EAS in this country offer, then be prepared to put in some work yourself.

I have not yet used an online service, other than to book viewings so cannot comment.

Would I use one. I doubt it.

I still think that a local EA is best placed to know the local market. Whether or not they will know your house or immediafe environment is debatable.

From what I have seen recently when viewing properties most EAs use part time or casual staff for weekend viewings.

These people, bless their hearts, know nothing about the property and are unable to answer any questions. sometimes they cannot even get the keys to open the door, Ive had to help more than one of them to gain access..

They stand around like lemons whilst I walk around the property and have a poke about. Not once have I had a successful viewing and come away with all my questions answered.

Vendors, you are paying for this appalling service.......

View during tne week with a full time member of staff from the eAs office?? tbh they are rarely any better.

Whichever method you choose, on line or high street, for goodness sake stop throwing money away and do your own viewings. No one can sell, a house better than its owner.

Those who recognise me from previous posts will know that I speak to you and advise you as an ex EA with over 30 years selling houses.

If you think of the EA as purely an introducer you can then decide which offers you the best return for the fee they are charging.

Now you might think that obviously the online agent is best because it's cheaper. No necessarily, do they know the area, do they know the local market conditions.

A local EA might get you a higher price. If they get you an extra £5 or £10k over the online agent then that 1 per cent is a good investment.

A locall EA may have a useful contact book of prospective purchasers interested in the type of property you are selling.

Most of the houses I sold were to purchasers from my little black book. I never sat around waiting for a prospective purchaser to pick up the phone to request a viewing or step in off the street. I worked my contacts.

A good EA will do what I did, they will be proactive in finding purchasers. That's where they add value, that's what you should be paying for.

And, as far as I am aware, that is not a service that an online EA will provide.

A good EA will also progress the sale, keep a chain held together etc. A local EA is much better placed to do this. I always advised clients to use a local agent and a local solicitor and if possible a local broker.

Why?? Because ive lost count of the times ive ran around delivering documents for clients at the last minute to meet exchange deadlines and save a chain from collapsing. Yes I know you can now do some of this online, but face to face is always best.

Use local people, they are an incestuous lot,:rotfl: - not literally of course - but you get the gist. They will all know each other and have good working relationships.

They will pull together to,get you your sale.

Personal service, when it is good, cannot be beaten.

wiggles85

I've also use purplebricks to both buy and sell recently and they've been really great! Our LPE was very knowledgeable about the market and we sold ours for the asking price within 10 days. (The price was also a collaborative decision based on his research of the area and our own input). We were also given all the information upfront before our LPE even started looking at the property so no hidden facts. His photos were also amazing - although can't guarantee all the LPEs would be as good! It's also been a breeze dealing with the paperwork side of things as there's no medalling EA adding another link in the communication chain.
Another plus is I've dealt with shady EAs before who will push people because they are using their advised mortgage brokers (extra commission!), and just been complete idiots when showing people around. Doing it like this gave us much more control over viewings (we chose to do them ourselves) and who we accepted an offer from.

This is my first post so it looks like I'm someone from purplebricks but I promise I'm not!

Innys1

DJ_Mike wrote: »

You're not really offering a fair comparison, are you? One is a charge for work yet to be completed, the other is a charge for services immediately rendered (i.e. the advertising of your property).

Wrong - one is a charge for work yet to be completed, the other is a charge for selling your house, which is also, work to be completed. Unless you're saying vendors put their houses on the market, and pay in advance (if your approach is the best), just for the fun of it.

That being so, it is a fair comparison.

DJ_Mike

Innys1 wrote: »

Wrong - one is a charge for work yet to be completed, the other is a charge for selling your house, which is also, work to be completed. Unless you're saying vendors put their houses on the market, and pay in advance (if your approach is the best), just for the fun of it.

That being so, it is a fair comparison.

Still wrong - all an EA does is find you a buyer. I guess if you restrict your definition of selling to 'marketing', then you can possibly make that comparison, but since the majority of Purplebricks' work is done up front (measuring up your house, photos, setting up your listing, etc.) I still consider that a reasonable service to be worth paying less for up front. That a continuing after-service exists to work with you in finding a buyer is nice, but that alone is not justification enough to spend thousands in commission to get that from a local agent.

Where your analogy still falls flat is that you're simply trying to appeal to fear by bringing the huge cost of building work into the mix and trying to use that to justify that paying up front for work yet to be completed is somehow bad. If a builder only promised to reduce the cost by 10% on a £50k bill by paying up front, that would not be a significant enough saving to offset the rather substantial counterparty risk (as previously discussed) of that builder going bust before the work was done.

A charge of £800 vs thousands of pounds? Much more worth considering.

We live in an age where upfront subscription charges for other services are fast becoming the norm. I paid my phone line rental up front for a year to get a discount - is there a risk I could lose out? Sure, but the cost is not enough to make me think that is a risk worth worrying about.

roje

densol wrote: »

When I look at houses for sale - I look on Rightmove - I rarely pay attention to the estate agent. It's the house that appeals. I've no plans to sell ( hopefully ever ) but I've just worked out I'd pay £11,000 odd to a traditional agent including VAT at 1.5% and just £798 to Purplebricks. If your house value would produce substantial savings against a % cost - then online must be the obvious choice ? Perhaps if the savings were far less it's more of a conundrum?

Yep it does depend on house value. I paid my EA a flat fee of £2k including solicitors. Purple bricks wanted £798 up front and then I'd have to find my own solicitor and pay them fees too. For me, the local EA was a cheaper option as they got me more for my house.

lessonlearned

roje wrote: »

Yep it does depend on house value. I paid my EA a flat fee of £2k including solicitors. Purple bricks wanted £798 up front and then I'd have to find my own solicitor and pay them fees too. For me, the local EA was a cheaper option as they got me more for my house.

This......

A flat rate is usually the charging mechanism on both expensive properties and low priced properties.

An EA is not going to work for 1 per cent on a £40k property, it will most likely be £1k flat rate.

Similarly a Vendor would not be happy to pay 1 per cent on £10m:rotfl: