Traditional Estate Agent or Purple Bricks or similar

babyblade41

I find PB highly over value properties for some unknown reason..Paying a fee up front and as I understand it that fee is owed to Close Brothers so no comeback with PB on getting it back or withholding if you are not happy

My BIL stupidly is using them, his property was extremely over priced , he has a relatively nice house but in an awful location and has already dropped 25 k since September and quite honestly it's worth dropping 50 k more

He has had one viewer who was just passing time

My agent who sold mine within a few hours isn't local to me , he and his partner are a small independent EA and majority of people just browse right move at first

It's after the offer stage that counts and they have gone above and beyond to keep the deal progressing .
I can't see PB doing any of that and why would they when they have been paid

maisie1234

Traditional EA every time. Our previous sale would not have concluded without our fab EA. He stepped in time and time again to calm things down. We picked very carefully when we sold our house and this agent had one branch but knew the area back to front (just outside London and over £1m) He had over 25 years in the industry.


Its funny - being online is often such an advantage in some things but with something like buying and selling definitely a 'proper' EA

Davesnave

Diddydot wrote: »

. I know local estate agents get a bad rep for squeezing and lying but once a bid is accepted it honered.

Really? Where is your evidence of this?

I agree it ought to be, and there's usually very little advantage to the agent in complicating things with a late bid, but personal experience shows it still happens.

It's also the decision of the vendor whether to accept a gazumping bid, not the agent's. Further, unless they've been instructed otherwise, agents must pass on all bids.

When you buy/sell a house, you don't enter a world of absolutes, regardless of whom you employ.

thebigstillmeister

we used PB 3 years ago when we sold ours. Couldn't fault the sales guy, he was local so knew the area and was superb. We got full asking price.

The after sales is pretty much non existent. If you call they are helpful, but they aren't proactive at all. The after sales lady from the EA we were buying our new house from was really good and did alot of what PB should have been doing for us,

Also, If you don't pay upfront you have to use their solicitors, definitely would advise against doing that. Fine to start with, but any issues then suddenly they are impossible to get hold off.

MobileSaver

antilles wrote: »

Sold 2 previous houses using House Network (online agent) after several recommendations on MSE.

+1 Another vote for House Network from me. I sold a £400k four-bed with HN; the service was excellent, the process was much more transparent and easier than any Hight Street EA I've used and I saved over £3,000 in fees.

However that was a great family property in a desirable area and I had a friend more than happy to do the viewings for me. Another property I sold recently in a rural area was more niche and doing the viewings myself would not have been convenient so I paid through the nose for a local EA to sell it.

The bottom line is it depends on the property and your ability to do your own viewings but if it works for you then an online EA could save you a serious amount of money.

MobileSaver

thebigstillmeister wrote: »

If you don't pay upfront you have to use their solicitors,

Are you sure about that? I thought the solicitor's code of practice meant that the client had to have chosen the solicitor of their own free will and it was a breach of the code to pressure the client to choose them?