Purple Bricks

Squirtle17

I recently bought a house advertised through Purple Bricks. I liked being able to arrange the viewing online. The viewing was conducted by the vendor (which seems unusual in our area as every other house we viewed an estate agent showed us round). Pretty much all communication throughout the process of buying the house was direct with the vendor through the messaging on the Purple Bricks app.

The only time I spoke to anybody from Purple Bricks was when they phoned me to say our offer was accepted (a while after the vendor had already messaged me to say the same) and then pressure quite hard for me to use their partnered conveyancing service. We refused, but the vendor used them, and they were so, so, so bad. There was no chain and very few complications came up during conveyancing, but it still took 4 months just because they were so unresponsive.

I have heard that you have to pay extra to sell your house through Purple Bricks and not use their conveyancing service, which means that I would never use them to sell. I would still view houses advertised through them as it's a big enough purchase in my mind to not be put off by a couple of months of frustration.

ironmanjason

Okrib wrote: »

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%

I concur with you on this. PB are terrible in communicating with the buyer as well. Another to add to the list is KFH - again better than Foxtons but they tend to overprice by 10% at least and therby inflating everything in the street at times.

TamsinC

we sold with PB, didn't use their conveyancing though, and they were brilliant - constant communication etc. And yes, I left a trustpilot review (only one as only had one house to sell)

es5595

My house is going on the market imminently, I had three bricks and mortar estate agents, and two online estate agents, emoov and PB.

Well, emoov never got back to me and now I find they’re going into administration/being bought out. One bricks and mortar was horrifically pushy, him and his back office team called me over 11 times in four days!!! The other one is who we’ve put an offer in with and were totally unwilling to neogotiate their fee at all.

So, PB. The local property expert came over and was really quite good. I explained the issue I’d had with emoov and she was really on the ball ans great. I knew how much my house was worth and what I wanted so I explained I wasn’t too fussed and just needed the sign up details. The online portal etc all looked really good. Then came the issue, they wanted £899 up front.

Err, hang on, if you’re so confident in what you do, what do you need to be paid upfront? And then I checked trustpilot. I’ve never seen so many fake reviews in my life. Literally, pages and pages of the same spiel, you can spot the genuine ones! Some also allude to being offered incentives to provide reviews. They currently have less than 3000 properties on Rightmove, but over 56,000 reviews on trustpilot, the most recent twenty all in the last 14 hours...

I decided I couldn’t trust them so I went with a bricks and mortar estate agent instead, who was prepared to neogotiate their fee, and it was no-sale-no-fee

Surrey_EA

bobbymotors wrote: »

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.

Same company, Emoov and Tepilo merged earlier this year, which clearly hasn't gone well.

bobbymotors

Surrey_EA wrote: »

Same company, Emoov and Tepilo merged earlier this year, which clearly hasn't gone well.

And I think PB are next.

Where's the incentive when you pay up front?

flawed business model if you ask me.

LadyL2013

Avoid like the plague.


As soon as they've got the sold sign up they do not care. They caused nothing but trouble in my house exchange. 2 days before exchange, they suddenly revealed to everyone there was in fact another 2 people in chain despite saying al along there wasn't. All solicitors were chasing them for ages and were never replied to. Suddenly they show up again demanding everyone exchanges the next day despite everyone still being in the dark about the other 2 buyers. They ended up delaying everyone for ages and costing some people money. My solicitor hates dealing with them.


The problem with them is that they look like a good deal, but their after sales is dire and sometimes non-existent.

Robinette

Although we have sold through Purplebricks, I wouldn't use them again. As someone else said, they are great until the SSTC sign goes up, then there is no communication at all. If you want good old-fashioned service, use a good old-fashioned estate agent.

Grenage

Sold through PB and had no real issues; I don't believe that someone who likes the look of a house would disregard it due to the EA.

ginger_chocolate

Sold through PB and had no real issues; I don't believe that someone who likes the look of a house would disregard it due to the EA./QUOTE]

I would. Maybe not if I was looking for something very specific and hard to come by, but looking for a standard 2-3 bed of which there are many, I would definitely not view with certain agents.

Allthough with PB I *wanted* to view, it was them that made it difficult with their stupid appointment system.