Purple Bricks

martin1959

We are looking at putting property on market in next couple of months, as soon as we get planning permission through for a property we are buying from a relative.

I used to be in mortgage market so know a bit about buying / selling, so got 4 estate agents round on one day to get up to date valuation and decide who I ‘liked’ the best and had best fees.

One of them was Purple Bricks. All agents were in my home for about 45 mins and were very professional. I ended up having to ask PB agent to leave after 90 minutes as my builder turned up to discuss our future plans. All he kept on about were their great figures, having more sale agreed properties than any other EA ( he could not give me any stats for exchanged or completed sales) and the number of their 5* reviews on Trust Pilot.

All agents valued at X, other than PB who valued at 7% more, which I know is too high.

I have tonight looked again at their TP reviews, and strangely most reviewers have only ever left one or two reviews. I may be sceptical, but if they have hundreds of ‘Property Experts’ around the Country, I am guessing they probably write their own reviews!

In the past when we have sold and used a conventional agent, they have earned their fee by continually chasing the sale through to exchange as they do not get paid if the chain collapses.

I still cannot get my head round why PB would be bothered if a chain completes or collapses, when they have already been paid a non refundable fee, with no further funds to be paid.

I would welcome any views of PB good and bad.

comeandgo

I do not look at any houses PB market. Previously I requested info from them, nothing arrived. They had adverts which showed they knew nothing about selling or buying in Scotland.

Beeper

Also do not view houses using PB. Have even considered sticking a note through the doors of houses Ive liked the look of but are using PB. I almost bought a bought a house with them. Everything, right from arranging the viewings, came with a headache/ fuss. One of the houses I wanted to view, I never managed to get into. They kept rearranging the appointment, once only giving 90mins notice.

SG27

We bought a house through PB. They weren't great. All went well until the offer was accepted. Then there is nothing no response to emails or answering phones.. we eventually complained and actually I have to say after that the post sales team were quite responsive and did a good job. So all in all probably not much different to a below agent normal agent. With PB you have to do all the leg work work, chasing etc yourself. Our vendors were not prepared to do this do our sale ground to halt on numerous occasions.

However. I would never buy a house through PB again. The reason being is they very heavily push their conveyancer premier property lawyers. These guys are awful to the point of us nearly pulling out of the sale on several occasions. The stress they caised us is not something I ever want to go through again. So any propery marketed by PB is a big NO from me.

ginger_chocolate

When we were looking at properties recently we tried looking at a few that were on with Purple Bricks - two we gave up on ever seeing because the 'local property expert' kept switching around the times of the viewings. The one we did see we were rushed around in minutes by an agent who breathed down our necks the whole time. We decide after that we didn't want to deal with them and would only view houses with conventional agents.

UraharaSteph

My husband and I were looking around properties and there were two we wanted to look around with Purple Bricks. Appointments were cancelled with little warning or rearranged to different times that didn't suit us. We tried to arrange viewings over the phone, but that still required for us to actually confirm via the email or else it would be automatically cancelled.

When we eventually did get to look around the properties, the woman showing us around couldn't answer a single one of our questions. The vendor wasn't around so all we could do was pass on our questions through the agent. We never did get any answers.

Safe to say, we straight up ignored any houses with Purple Bricks after that unless they were exceptionally nice and well priced. We didn't see any like that with them though.

ciderboy2009

Any company that boasts about their Trust Pilot ratings gets instantly crossed off of my list - Trust Pilot is far too easy to manipulate!

bobbymotors

I'd be very wary of PB if I were you.....Tepilo and Emoov both in administration, the model doesn't really work....would't be amazed ifPB were next to pull the plug.

Find a GOOD, local agent that will work hard on your behalf when selling

Davesnave

I differ from the others in that I'd view a house through Purple Bricks if it was interesting enough. After all, I'm not buying something standard, like an i-phone, so why would I cut my nose off to spite my face? Ridiculous attitude.


That said, I wouldn't use them myself, though a friend who was on the market with local agents for aeons did so.... and sold.



I believe the inside gen is that PB have yet to make a profit, so they might go pop any time soon in the current climate.

Okrib

Won't view anything listed by an online agent, and in London won't view anything on with Foxtons due to their tendency to overprice by at least 20%

MEM62

We have bought through them and they were fine but I guess as the buyer there are not likely to be too many issues.

We have never sold through them but those we know that have were not impressed. I don't think I would ever be motivated to use them to sell.