Purplebricks vs local estate agent

JamesN

Hi,

Appreciate its probably been asked a lot before but can't seem to find a more recent thread. I'm hopefully going to be listing my house in the next 3 months and working out what my plan is going to be.

Last time I sold a house I asked this very question and was told everyone low balled the offers when it came to purple bricks. I ended up going with a local agent and in all honesty wasn't happy with them at all. Constantly kept trying to get me to lower the price, pretty sure he was trying to sell it to someone he knew as they seemed overly friendly when I met them. I've never trusted estate agents and that never helped. So this time i'm leaning towards purplebricks. 

I'm the type that prefers to know everything about the sale and can get decent photos done as well as make a floor plan. The house has been completely refurbished so should be an easier sell in that regard. House supply round here (South Warwickshire) is very limited other than some rather expensive new builds.

Has anyone got more recent experience of purplebricks and whether they felt they got lowballed more, as thats the only thing I really worry about. I just want access to list on rightmove and zoopla (premium listings ideally). I'd appreciate any thoughts on it.

Thanks

dinosaur66

trouble is just at this moment it is a buyers market , but here is my opinion

i use my own knowledge of selling propertys / especially similar to the one you have for sale, all refurbished, which is how i market them myself / look for a local agent who is doing deals say 1 % plus vat / make sure the clauses are all straightforward ie no tie ins after a set period say 24 weeks is standard

i always tell the estate agent the price that i want   / its not hard to work it out looking at similar propertys in and around you /in a sellers market which is the only time i put property on if i think its better than my competion then i set my price higher if now i would set it at the market rate .

then have open weekend 10 to 5 sat and same on sunday and do it yourself /you can answer all questions about neighbours/noise/boiler/area/parking etc etc better than anyone / if someone tries to lowball you at the viewing just say not making any decisions to the following weekend to see what offers come in / do not give into questions like whats your lowest price

now you can do purple bricks this way as well but i find its easier dealing with a bricks and mortar estate agent and worth the extra bit of money

JamesN

dinosaur66 said:

trouble is just at this moment it is a buyers market , but here is my opinion

i use my own knowledge of selling propertys / especially similar to the one you have for sale, all refurbished, which is how i market them myself / look for a local agent who is doing deals say 1 % plus vat / make sure the clauses are all straightforward ie no tie ins after a set period say 24 weeks is standard

i always tell the estate agent the price that i want   / its not hard to work it out looking at similar propertys in and around you /in a sellers market which is the only time i put property on if i think its better than my competion then i set my price higher if now i would set it at the market rate .

then have open weekend 10 to 5 sat and same on sunday and do it yourself /you can answer all questions about neighbours/noise/boiler/area/parking etc etc better than anyone / if someone tries to lowball you at the viewing just say not making any decisions to the following weekend to see what offers come in / do not give into questions like whats your lowest price

now you can do purple bricks this way as well but i find its easier dealing with a bricks and mortar estate agent and worth the extra bit of money

Thank you that’s really useful info. If you’re doing the open days yourself, which you can do the same I assume on purple bricks. What’s the easier bit? My house will hopefully be worth around the 500k mark. So I’m struggling to justify what the agent is doing over and above that to justify a 4K increment. 

I guess the main trick is waiting for a sellers market but that’s a luxury that may be too long to wait for.  

dinosaur66

at 500k i also would most probably go purple bricks route as well

i thought your property was about 200k so 2.4k estate agent fee

if purple bricks

get your own conveyencers and strip out all the things you can do yourself ie viewings / do not need aeiral photos /etc etc .

 

you want a nice picture of front of the house giving a good first impression for potential buyers to click onto without skipping over

and listed on the property portals

thats the main criteria to sell your house

i was a house flipper so wanted best price i could get / never had no chain and just simply turned down lowball offers flat / did not negotiate / did not worry/ you are selling a walk in .

my system has worked really well every time in a hot market and that is the only time i list as i am also a landlord and rent when its going down / currently we are inbetween going up slowly but still below 2022 / but the cheaper and WOW propertys still sell quickly    / and as an example my town in essex normally has 90 propertys listed and for the last year has 300 plus listed so harder for sellers property to stand out.

but if you need to sell you could see if any of your estate agents have a fixed 2k fee across the board price /i would not pay 8k either  .

 give 2 weeks notice for the open weekend to get as many viewings as you can / property that have a complete refurb and in a nice area with a high ceiling area price sell themselves as long as not priced out of reach or at the very top of the area price range.

JamesN

dinosaur66 said:

at 500k i also would most probably go purple bricks route as well

i thought your property was about 200k so 2.4k estate agent fee

if purple bricks

get your own conveyencers and strip out all the things you can do yourself ie viewings / do not need aeiral photos /etc etc .

 

you want a nice picture of front of the house giving a good first impression for potential buyers to click onto without skipping over

and listed on the property portals

thats the main criteria to sell your house

i was a house flipper so wanted best price i could get / never had no chain and just simply turned down lowball offers flat / did not negotiate / did not worry/ you are selling a walk in .

my system has worked really well every time in a hot market and that is the only time i list as i am also a landlord and rent when its going down / currently we are inbetween going up slowly but still below 2022 / but the cheaper and WOW propertys still sell quickly    / and as an example my town in essex normally has 90 propertys listed and for the last year has 300 plus listed so harder for sellers property to stand out.

but if you need to sell you could see if any of your estate agents have a fixed 2k fee across the board price /i would not pay 8k either  .

 give 2 weeks notice for the open weekend to get as many viewings as you can / property that have a complete refurb and in a nice area with a high ceiling area price sell themselves as long as not priced out of reach or at the very top of the area price range.

Yeah our area is a bit unusual. There are hardly any houses on the market and so that also creates the problem of where we move to.  As you say it’s all about the timing. I kind of like the idea of purple bricks as I get direct contact with the buyer so don’t get an agent filtering or misrepresenting something. 

I’m quite good with negotiating so won’t have any worry turning low ball offers down. Good tip on the open house though. 

Any signs we might get closer to a hot market again? I think people are waiting for a couple of rate reductions. 

dinosaur66

with trump its impossible to tell and what he does will make a direct effect on us.

TBH it is with selling property as well / area makes a big difference .

your property will be aimed at property climbers not FTB  that helps with equity they have .

last year just 2 drops in interest rate when i think about 5 were predicted

this year was predicted 3.75% by end of 2025 but who knows what the meglomaniac will do that will effect us intrest rates and house prices.

its more about confidence of buyers in the housing market

it picks up / buyers think they will miss out on a property if they do not act fast , it snowballs and prices take off

look at after covid prices just shot up for no economic reason and the increases did not reflect the economy or wages at the time so its hard to pin point the reason why bar people wanted houses and not flats after being couped up.

uk economy that i have seen watching all the political podcasts is predicted to be a flatline this year completely accross the board.

JamesN

dinosaur66 said:

with trump its impossible to tell and what he does will make a direct effect on us.

TBH it is with selling property as well / area makes a big difference .

your property will be aimed at property climbers not FTB  that helps with equity they have .

last year just 2 drops in interest rate when i think about 5 were predicted

this year was predicted 3.75% by end of 2025 but who knows what the meglomaniac will do that will effect us intrest rates and house prices.

its more about confidence of buyers in the housing market

it picks up / buyers think they will miss out on a property if they do not act fast , it snowballs and prices take off

look at after covid prices just shot up for no economic reason and the increases did not reflect the economy or wages at the time so its hard to pin point the reason why bar people wanted houses and not flats after being couped up.

uk economy that i have seen watching all the political podcasts is predicted to be a flatline this year completely accross the board.

All true. It’ll be interesting to see if they change tact with reeves getting a lot of pressure. Or whether they just ride it out and hope next year is better as a result of the foundations they have laid. 

I never understood why prices went up given all the job insecurity from covid. Very strange. I think we’d be lucky to go below 4% this year but would absolutely take it. I guess the main risk then is to make sure if I sell I buy at the same time. That hedges the risk of prices rocketing back up and me falling behind affordability. 

It’ll be interesting to see if there is any rush with the Ftb stamp duty changes coming in April. 

jackieblack

From the experience of friends/colleagues, a lot of potential buyers will just scroll past any listing being sold through Purple Bricks without a second glance. 

A friend tried to sell through PB a couple of years ago. Accepted an offer only to be ghosted by ‘buyer’ a couple of weeks later, this happened 3 times. Eventually they gave up and sold through a local agent.

FlorayG

Maybe you just had a bad experience with the EA you chose. I only have experience of one house ( this one that I bought and live in now) it was with Purple Bricks for the whole of 2021 (when houses were commonly selling in 24 hours) and had been 'sold' three times and fallen through. The vendors didn't do any selling work themselves and really didn't do any work on making the house look nice (it was empty). Eventually the put it with a local EA who put it on their website on Friday, I saw it on Monday and bought it with a discount which the EA pressed for for me. He was able to do this because he knows me, he was selling my other house for me, he was fully aware of my financial situation and that I wouldn't 'fail' the sale, also he had conducted the viewing himself and had seen how much I liked it.
So I think if you're going with PB then you need to do ALL the work yourself which it seems you are prepared to. The people who fail with them are those who go with them because "It's cheap" (didn't turn out cheap for this vendor, it cost them 12 months CT and utility bills)

JamesN

jackieblack said:

From the experience of friends/colleagues, a lot of potential buyers will just scroll past any listing being sold through Purple Bricks without a second glance. 

A friend tried to sell through PB a couple of years ago. Accepted an offer only to be ghosted by ‘buyer’ a couple of weeks later, this happened 3 times. Eventually they gave up and sold through a local agent.

Thanks. It’s these sort of stories that make me weary. To get ghosted 3 times is pretty bad luck. But not sure why having an estate agent would stop ghosting. I don’t get why you’d scroll past a listing with purple bricks. Especially when supply is so low. If the first picture is good enough I assume you’d pull people in.  

I’ve had some friends buy and sell locally with estate agents and some of them have been dishonest with potential buyers (not telling them about subsidence issues for example). So inevitably have had people pull out several times. 

mills705

I sold my flat through PB. I got them out and 2 local estate agents, they all valued my flat at around the same value.

However as PB had the flat rate of £999 or whatever to market the property upfront it was more beneficial as it was cheaper and the App used made it a lot easier for me to arrange bookings etc. 

I sold STC within 1 week of it being up. Went live on the Thursday and an offer at asking price was made on Sunday. 

I used solicitors the PB EA recommended which were a local company and they were brilliant too- a year later I used them to buy the house I had.