House Selling - Yopa? PB?

[Matty]

Putting the house on the market.

Local EA have quoted £2400, which seems pricey. Has anyone used one of the many web based people like Purple Bricks or Yopa? Or are they all cheap for a reason?

[dinny_g]

*Grabs Note pad...*

Standing by...

[scotta]

Selling houses is fucking expensive!

[Sundayjumper]

I used PB a couple of years ago to get rid of my flats. The local PB chap was great and with everything online you could communicate with buyers and negotiate directly if you wanted, or leave it to PB to do the back & forth. So all of that was great.

The conveyancer they push you to use though...... utterly useless. I ended up making two formal complaints about their ineptitude.

[240PP]

The conveyancer they push you to use though...... utterly useless. I ended up making two formal complaints about their ineptitude.

I’ve no direct experience with PB, but my parents were in a chain this year where one party were using them and the PB conveyancers were utter shite and the whole thing nearly feel through more than once due to those wankers.

[duncs500]

We used HouseSimple last time, at the time it was around £900 I think, and appealed to me because you didn't pay in the event it didn't sell unlike PB. It was really good actually and worked well for us, no hidden charges or bullshit and we didn't use their conveyancer or anything.

I see now they've changed their name to Strike and now don't charge at all, which is a bit suspicious I suppose, but they're clear on their website about how they make their money with partners and it is optional. I'd need to read the small print to see how optional it really is, but assuming it's all legit I'd probably give them another go next time.

[Jobbo]

As a rule of thumb I'd expect to pay a traditional estate agent 1%+VAT, with no extra costs for taking photos, a for sale board, etc on top. I've just put my rental property on the market and have incentivised them with 1.1%+VAT. Generally I'd say a proper agent who knows the area is worth their fee; they'll get you that extra; but a chain agent staffed by young people doesn't add that sort of value and you may as well go with Purple Bricks or whoever.

At the moment conveyancers are snowed under and I've heard people saying they won't take on new work, so you may end up being forced into using an unknown conveyancer when you sell.

Don't be tempted to go with the iamsold 'Modern Method of Auction' or other deals where the buyer pays the agent's fees; in my experience those operators' fees are far higher and any buyer will reduce their offer accordingly.

[Delphi]

People we bought our current house with were with PB and they were utter shite. I get the impression that it's very much pot luck. You might get a good one, or an utter bell end.

[Sundayjumper]

As the buyer, you'll only experience the conveyancers, not PB directly.

"Premier Property Lawyers" were the ones they encouraged me to use. First sale went quite badly. Well, not *bad* as such, just slow and didn't seem to know what they were doing. Astonishingly I used them again on the next sale, I thought maybe I'd just been unlucky with the specific conveyancer I was assigned, but no, still awful. Stupid mistakes made that I had to keep correcting, and then right at the end they rushed the final account through without letting me see it and had forgotten to include about five month's maintenance charge I'd paid and should have been collected from the buyer. After several months of arguing they reimbursed me from their own funds. It was painful though.

[Rich B]

From my experiences, all conveyancers give the impression it's the first time they've ever done conveyancing and make a meal of what must occur on every single house sale/purchase.

[duncs500]

From my experiences, all conveyancers give the impression it's the first time they've ever done conveyancing and make a meal of what must occur on every single house sale/purchase.

We went with one in a solicitor practice in the town we were moving to, and she was excellent. Probably a couple of hundred quid more, but worth every penny.

[Rich B]

From my experiences, all conveyancers give the impression it's the first time they've ever done conveyancing and make a meal of what must occur on every single house sale/purchase.

We went with one in a solicitor practice in the town we were moving to, and she was excellent. Probably a couple of hundred quid more, but worth every penny.

Its one of those irritating things where most of us do it so infrequently that all you can do is ask for recommendations (and lots of the people you can ask are potentially biased - estate agent/lender/etc but by the time you find out if they are actually shit, it's way too late!

[duncs500]

From my experiences, all conveyancers give the impression it's the first time they've ever done conveyancing and make a meal of what must occur on every single house sale/purchase.

We went with one in a solicitor practice in the town we were moving to, and she was excellent. Probably a couple of hundred quid more, but worth every penny.

Its one of those irritating things where most of us do it so infrequently that all you can do is ask for recommendations (and lots of the people you can ask are potentially biased - estate agent/lender/etc but by the time you find out if they are actually shit, it's way too late!

Yeah, we were lucky I guess. She's the only conveyancer they have with a couple of other solicitors I think. Our buyers had the worst ones ever, and I know she chased them as hard as she could. The new place is a new build, and I feel like she was very thorough because we were one of the last to move into the development and she was making the developer provide documents that they had never had to dig out before... which means that the other solicitors had clearly never asked for them.

[Jobbo]

For anyone complaining about conveyancers, just bear in mind how much less they cost than estate agents who don't need qualifications, much in the way of PI insurance, any regulation from a professional body etc. I don't understand how conveyancers make any money; there is only so much you can streamline and automate when you're dealing with a unique property worth six figures upwards.

I don't do conveyancing generally because it doesn't make any profit, but I do the odd residential job for existing clients. I had one client for whom I was buying a house for £1.5m at the same time as I was buying a business park for £1.5m. The fee for the business park purchase was 10x that for the conveyancing job, but the amount of time spent was greater on the house purchase because he was emotionally invested; he rang every day to talk about it.

Basically, if you were to pay a proper solicitor their normal hourly rate, the fees would be so prohibitive nobody would ever move house

[Matty]

I see now they've changed their name to Strike and now don't charge at all, which is a bit suspicious I suppose, but they're clear on their website about how they make their money with partners and it is optional. I'd need to read the small print to see how optional it really is, but assuming it's all legit I'd probably give them another go next time.

Just looked at Strike - seems too good to be true, TBH. Tempted to give it a shot though seeing as there is no cost....

[Carlos]

seems too good to be true,

Well normally in that case it will exceed your expectations

I've worked in financial services for over 20 years and estate agents are the biggest shysters I have to work with. As Jobbo mentions there is no regulation or accountability. I've seen doctored or forged paperwork and lies about previous sales falling through and surveys etc. I've had a few where the same surveyor has carried out a new survey for a new buyer and the issues have been cosmetically dealt with as recommended by the agent .

But if I was selling a property i know who i'd want on my side.

[duncs500]

I see now they've changed their name to Strike and now don't charge at all, which is a bit suspicious I suppose, but they're clear on their website about how they make their money with partners and it is optional. I'd need to read the small print to see how optional it really is, but assuming it's all legit I'd probably give them another go next time.

Just looked at Strike - seems too good to be true, TBH. Tempted to give it a shot though seeing as there is no cost....

Even when it was a paid service I was half expecting there to be some hidden costs somewhere, but there wasn't, and in truth they were relatively responsive and helpful given we had a difficult chain. Whether that has changed now it's free is anyone's guess!

First of all I was expecting them to undervalue our place to shift it quick, but if anything they overvalued and in the end we asked them to reduce the price to drum up more viewings.