Anybody sold using Purple Bricks or Other Internet Agents?

S

srhutch

Legend
 East Sussex, UK
Looking to move as our twin girls go up to Senior School in September which is 10 miles away.

Not that far but if they take the bus it's an hour and car is going to be at least a 45 minute round trip twice a day. Also will make after school activities easier and their new friends will all be nearer. We are in no rush, just seems the sensible thing to do.

So estate agent options seem to be use a local company and pay around £4,500 or use one of the Internet companies like Purple Bricks, Sarah Beeny's Tepilo or similar.

I have a relative who has just accepted an offer on their flat using Purple Bricks but anybody on here used them and completed?

Would like to know what the experience was like. I know there are many factors to take into account but I think our house will sell easily and paying £4,500 for an east sale seems steep.
 
I havnt myself but know of them. Virgin have also enterest this space at around £1500. PB have a small number of properties for sale on their site and none that I can tell of on Rightmove / Zoopla. If you want a good / quick sale I would suggest those are the places to advertise. Agree that £4500 is steep. If we sell ours it will be in excess of £2mill and so the equivalent will be horrendous for us!
 
I haven't sold, but I've recently bought a house through PB and they are really good. The estate agent and mortage advisor were well presented and you could ring them anytime of the day.

Also the house was advertised on Rightmove. :)
 
So the requirements for the new place are:

- Triple garage
- Large drive
- Work pit in garage
- No speed bumps in area
- Oh, near the school


Is that about right? :D

If your place is easy to sell, I would definitely use an on-line method as I think that most people will look on right move and don't care about agents. A historic method I feel of getting sheets of paper from various agents, time to move on.
 
srhutch said:
Would like to know what the experience was like.
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I just sold with an 'online' agent having bought and sold many properties in the past with traditional agents. The only difference apart from saving £7000 was the viewings. They build a book over two weeks and do an open house viewing as a one of. After that they did one single viewing whilst we were considering the other offers we received. I would never go back to the shiny suited, big knotted tie wearing gimps again, their days of ridiculous fees are numbered. :evil:
 
If you're confident it'll sell easily why bother with an agent? Do it yourself, only drawback is doing the viewings but hey, you'll save a packet. You just need a solicitor then.

Estate agents are like solicitors, do you ever see a skint one?
 
mattwaltersz4m said:
ronk said:
I sometimes wonder what estate agents do for the money they charge !
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Not a lot in most cases, in the same category as recruitment consultants!
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They price the property on similar places in the area , then add a bit so there's no real science to process !
 
pvr said:
So the requirements for the new place are:

- Triple garage
- Large drive
- Work pit in garage
- No speed bumps in area
- Oh, near the school


Is that about right? :D

If your place is easy to sell, I would definitely use an on-line method as I think that most people will look on right move and don't care about agents. A historic method I feel of getting sheets of paper from various agents, time to move on.
Click to expand...

Looking at one at the weekend that does have a pit in the garage :D
 
john-e89 said:
If you're confident it'll sell easily why bother with an agent? Do it yourself, only drawback is doing the viewings but hey, you'll save a packet. You just need a solicitor then.

Estate agents are like solicitors, do you ever see a skint one?
Click to expand...

I have no issues using somebody like PB in the sense that it gets it on Right Move.

Like all house moves I guess it all comes down to the number of parties involved and how easy the transaction is. It's when problems appear you might need the help, but even then dealing with the buyers and sellers direct can often help.

Always done our own viewings, but wouldn't do an open house, I'd be to worried about things going missing.
 
srhutch said:
john-e89 said:
If you're confident it'll sell easily why bother with an agent? Do it yourself, only drawback is doing the viewings but hey, you'll save a packet. You just need a solicitor then.

Estate agents are like solicitors, do you ever see a skint one?
Click to expand...

I have no issues using somebody like PB in the sense that it gets it on Right Move.

Like all house moves I guess it all comes down to the number of parties involved and how easy the transaction is. It's when problems appear you might need the help, but even then dealing with the buyers and sellers direct can often help.

Always done our own viewings, but wouldn't do an open house, I'd be to worried about things going missing.
Click to expand...

On our last house but one, before rightmove etc, we did a deal with the agents where we did the viewings and they effectively did the advertising, we paid 1%, not a bad deal but the viewings we're a total PITA, it was a cottage and 80% of views we're nosey timewasters just nebbing. However like you say we refused to do 'open house' for the same reasons.
 
Had a PB valuer over on Thursday, was very interested in my X4 as her RR Sport is drinking fuel. Not impressed with her ball park figure when pushed (£1.4m) but to be fair to her she said she needed to go away and do more research and come back with a real valuation. We've had 2 local reputable estate agents value it at £1.8-2.2m and yesterday a slightly larger property came up on the road adjacent to ours for £3m (6125 sq ft vs ours at around 5050 ish).

Still presumably when you sell with PB you can set the value and if theres no sale theres no cost? £798 all in to sell a £2.2-2.4m place is a no brainer..
 
I think you should tell them what you want for your property - these people are often un- qualified

I know that Purple Bricks sell a franchise - I have a copy of the deal (don't ask but suffice to say I was not considering a career change) it seemed that if you have the gift of the gab and can act in a confident / bullshit manner you could be an estate agent overnight ( apologies to any professional and qualified estate a agents)
 
ooh interesting - any chance I could message you to have a look at it?

(EDIT: Just to clarify, yes I've only joined because I wanted to ask that - am thinking about different agents at the moment but am sceptical about Purplebricks's claims to offering local experts/making sure they're qualified etc. Hope I haven't breached forum etiquette in just jumping in with a question!)
 
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