Purplebricks, Yopa or private

Davesnave

I think what you've written makes you a prime candidate for selling via purple Bricks. I should go for it!

Gwendo40

My most recent experience of PB was you couldn't even make an initial, informal inquiry about a property they were marketing (in this case leasehold and ground rent fees)... without first booking a viewing or actually making an offer.

lookstraightahead

Ok I'm looking at houses st the moment.
Two are on with purple bricks and I won't step foot in them:

1. I assume they are overpriced and that the vendor has already been told a price they don't want to hear.

2. The process of purchase will be a nightmare

3. I will hold tight til they change to an agent

4. It's been in the market for ages and hasn't sold.

Whatever your situation and your reasons op, these are my first reactions when I see a purple bricks sign.

Mickygg

When I last sold I negotiated down to a smidge below 1% and used a local EA.

It turned out I needed over 20 viewings until I sold. It was worth the money alone not to have to do all the viewings. In total it was about 25 viewings.

The EA was constantly keeping me up to date, pushing the conveyancing along and helped negotiate a slightly higher sale price than I would have accepted!

My advice is if you have a property that sells itself (in demand, sought after area, good local schools etc etc) then maybe give PB a try to save the fee, but otherwise use a local EA.

OP if you give the EA an option of say 0.85% plus vat or you are going to PB take it or leave it, then what have you got to lose? If you still think that’s too much then go with PB and pray.

PeggyMay

When we bought our house the seller’s used Purple Bricks, it was a horrendous experience for all of us. They hid problems with the chain from us, and we were left literally for months not knowing what was going on, every week being promised we’d exchange by the end of that week and then being told that for some unknown reason there would be yet another delay. Nearly killed us and we very nearly pulled out, which caused the sellers much stress as well as us. When we finally exchanged keys (which PB make you do directly with the seller, they don’t even show up themselves on the day) we noticed how much weight she’d lost and how unwell / haggard she looked. An awful few months for us all. Avoid PB like the plague.

Vicki1990

We currently have a property for sale with purple bricks but after advice on this forum have decided to go with a traditional EA too.
Our PB agent was recommended to us and I must say he has been great, we also had a good experience renting through them but that will probably depend on what your local agent is like.
We like them because we are in control of our own viewing diary, we do all the viewings, so can choose when and any messages offers etc come to us so they don’t have to deal with our agent!
We’ve decided to get a traditional EA as we’ve learnt (from this forum and another) that a lot of people’s experience with purplebricks hasn’t been as good as ours! What their after sales experience is like I have no idea, but wish you the best of luck!

JamesN

Thanks all. What are people’s thoughts on doing it privately? Having a brand felt like an advantage to me but given they aren’t being so well received maybe I’m better off going privately? I would find the website and functionality of purple bricks useful.

warby68

Seen plenty of DIY sale boards over the years . They are often replaced with a professional one after a few weeks. Suspect that says it isn't overly successful, at least round here.

Cheapo options seem to have their place (not for me at all though) and if you're not bothered when you sell you could give them a go but beware - buyers will have a certain expectation of getting a bit of a deal if you are selling without a normal agent. So what you save on fees, you could lose on actual price achieved.

I'm 100% for a decent local agent after 30y or so of buying/selling various homes.

Its usually your biggest asset - counter intuitive to me to cheapskate dealing with it. As a buyer I'd stay away from all your options as long as I possibly could.

haras_nosirrah

I think the difficulty is where people think an ea's job is just to get an offer. That is the start. The bigger part of the job is to negotiate the best available offer from the best available purchaser and then keep the chain together to get it through to completion as fast as possible.

Purple bricks themselves admit they are reactive rather than proactive. They won't chase anyone unless they are pushed to do so. I have known solicitors charge more if they are in the chain as it means more work. One of my clients is buying from them. His mortgage offer has been out since the beginning of May. Only just got the contract pack to start the conveyancing a couple of days ago as the other side are using purple bricks conveyancers. The vendor had to get involved in the end.

While I am all for saving money there are some places where it isn't the best idea and this is one of them. There was a study done by the advisory which showed that using a traditional agent increased viewing numbers by 48%, increased offer numbers by 64%, generated a more secure buyer 73% of the time and secured a 5% higher sale price over their online competitors.

https://www.theadvisory.co.uk/estate-agents/online-vs-high-street/

gaz_moose

I don't think I would entertain a house that was being privately sold. if you do wish to go down that path maybe look at the £100 pound estate agents, that way your property will make it onto rightmove/zoopla etc..

although i viewed a property listed by one of those £100 specials and it took over a week for them to get back to me to arrangle a viewing.