Purple Bricks V EA

Credit-Crunched

All,

Looking at selling for the first time. What are peoples experiences v EA and PB?

Yes PB is cheaper, but is that at the detriment of a lower Purchase Price?

Your personal experiences would be good to hear, both good and bad.

Cheers

Guest101

Who do you think sets the selling price? Just curious

Surrey_EA

Here you go:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4973625

Credit-Crunched

Guest101 wrote: »

Who do you think sets the selling price? Just curious

I would like to think the PP is set by a combination of what we think versus what the professionals think it is worth.

Guest101

Credit-Crunched wrote: »

I would like to think the PP is set by a combination of what we think versus what the professionals think it is worth.

- it's what the buyer thinks it's worth.

Surrey_EA

Credit-Crunched wrote: »

I would like to think the PP is set by a combination of what we think versus what the professionals think it is worth.

I suppose the asking price is whatever the vendor wants it to be, and the selling price is whatever can be agreed between buyer and seller, subject to agreement from the buyers mortgage lender, if applicable.

Branchini1979

Quite simply i was happy with Purplebricks.......to an extent.
Follow these key points and you'll save money and be ok

1) Get at least 3 valuations. I did an amateurish thing here and just used PB valuation and she valued it £15K under. I wondered qot inundated with viewings straight away.
2) Save some more money and do viewings yourself. Saves £300 and you know the area, you know your house and can answer the questions the best.
3) DO NOT, and i mean DO NOT use their solicitors!!! I fell for the pay later and use our solicitors which will be either eZIE conveyancing or Premier Property Lawyers and these are the ones that are causing me to be 16 weeks into a fairly simple transaction. Please pay upfront and use your OWN solicitor.

Follow this and you can save money and have a fairly easy experience

kinger101

^^^
Have to agree with the above. The PB valuation is likely to be poor, as their agent won't have the same local knowledge of the market.

I've attempted to look at houses where people have used PB's agent for viewings, and it's nigh on impossible. Two cancelled because of their inflexibility. If you don't want to do the viewings, use a proper agent.

Most agents will try and recommend conveyancers (I won't call them solicitors. They're not). For a kickback. They are invariably terrible. They'll also try to sell these services to buyers. It's really stupid, as for the £50 or whatever they get, they just spend several hours chasing up whichever dimwit is dealing with the sale.

Check out other online agents too. I used Emoov, and was happy about everything except them selling PCS Legal to my buyer. Premier mentioned above are just as bad.

R&C

We had the same predicament a couple of months ago. We decided against using PB & I'm so glad I did. Main reasons being..

1. I was advised by a friend of a friend that if we were to offer on a property & someone else (who was using a traditional agent) was to offer the same amount, the vendors agent would advise their client to go with the buyers with a traditional agent. Possibly aslim chance of this happening but still, I didn't want to risk it.

2. I liked how my agent kept me informed re feedback from all my viewings. I was always given an update either the same day or the day after a viewing. With PB you are relying on your viewers filling out the online form. Which they may never actually do.

3. You're paying PB upfront - it really doesn't matter much to them if your house is going on the market for too much or indeed not enough. Or how long things drag out for. They have their money, so there's no incentive.

Now in my area, most of the traditional agents have rolled out packages that are in a way similar to PB to try to compete with them. The agent I used offer only 2 packages no matter your house price - £1200 incl VAT but you have to do all the viewings yourself, or £3000 incl VAT & they'll do the viewings for you. No payment upfront. I chose the former & really enjoyed doing the viewings. Might be worth asking around to see if there's similar in your area.

kinger101

R&C wrote: »

We had the same predicament a couple of months ago. We decided against using PB & I'm so glad I did. Main reasons being..

1. I was advised by a friend of a friend that if we were to offer on a property & someone else (who was using a traditional agent) was to offer the same amount, the vendors agent would advise their client to go with the buyers with a traditional agent. Possibly aslim chance of this happening but still, I didn't want to risk it.

High street agent protecting each other's backs.

2. I liked how my agent kept me informed re feedback from all my viewings. I was always given an update either the same day or the day after a viewing. With PB you are relying on your viewers filling out the online form. Which they may never actually do.

The only useful feedback is an offer. Mostly it's a soft inoffensive reason given to maintain face when it's solicited by an agent.

3. You're paying PB upfront - it really doesn't matter much to them if your house is going on the market for too much or indeed not enough. Or how long things drag out for. They have their money, so there's no incentive.

Can't speak for PB, but I used Emoov, and they're sales progression was every bit as good as the high street.
I paid on completion as well.

Now in my area, most of the traditional agents have rolled out packages that are in a way similar to PB to try to compete with them. The agent I used offer only 2 packages no matter your house price - £1200 incl VAT but you have to do all the viewings yourself, or £3000 incl VAT & they'll do the viewings for you. No payment upfront. I chose the former & really enjoyed doing the viewings. Might be worth asking around to see if there's similar in your area.

Great they're finally changing their model.
Experience agents say relatively little during viewings anyway.
I have actually had one hard sell from a vendor (or more accurately their brother) with an online agent. My feedback was he needed to !!!!!!. If I'd have given honest feedback, I'd have also said it was an overpriced dump. There's a reason you don't say this to local agents. They'd never give you another viewing.

R&C

kinger101 wrote: »

Great they're finally changing their model.
Experience agents say relatively little during viewings anyway.
I have actually had one hard sell from a vendor (or more accurately their brother) with an online agent. My feedback was he needed to !!!!!!. If I'd have given honest feedback, I'd have also said it was an overpriced dump. There's a reason you don't say this to local agents. They'd never give you another viewing.

Disagree that only useful feedback is an offer. It's helpful to know if there is one particular thing putting people off, if there's anything you need to change or improve etc.

In our case we had 3 people wanting to buy, the first 2 had their own houses to sell though. Having an actual agent involved meant that he could keep on top of their sales to see how they were getting on & feeding back to us. We ended up selling to people a couple of weeks later who aren't in a chain in the end but one of the original interested parties who sold just in time helped push the price up. You really wouldn't get to know all these ins & outs if people are just offering via an online form.

Also, although I don't necessarily agree with high street agents covering each other's backs - it is something to be concerned about if you are going to choose PB.