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Estate Agents Countrywide & Foxtons in financial difficulties

If you were looking to sell a property in Woolwich, which estate agent would you use & why ?
For example, I'm not sure I'd want to use an agent in financial difficulty.
Has anyone used Purple Bricks ?

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/news/countrywide-shares-dive-more-than-60percent-as-estate-agent-bids-to-stay-afloat/ar-BBLopro?li=AAnZ9Ug

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/finance-marketnews/foxtons-slides-to-£25m-loss-on-slowing-london-market/ar-BBLfwss
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Comments

  • Was working with Mann in Woolwich on a place I was close to buying last year. By far the worst experience I’ve ever had with agents. Truly dreadful.
  • purple bricks whilst seem great, they are extremely lazy and everything comes at a cost a bit like flying ba or ryanair
  • CE don’t know that neck of the woods property wise I’m afraid, but I’d normallly look on Rightmove and see who seems to have the market estate agent wise in terms of listings, I’d probably steer clear of countryside, could be hassle.
  • Heard nothing but good things regarding Burple Pricks.

    Still a hell of a lot cheaper than the 1% most agents charge.
  • Addickted said:

    Heard nothing but good things regarding Burple Pricks.

    Still a hell of a lot cheaper than the 1% most agents charge.

    of course they are going to be cheaper they are a relatively new business and agents do have overheads such as an office to go and walk in and sit and have tea coffee, a person to face to face talk to, if you are in a purple bricks chain you will have hold ups as all of there clerical stuff is outsourced to data centers etc, and a lot of sales fall through because of this, purple bricks are fantastic if your the seller and you have no where else to move on to, which is not a luxury most have.
  • Purple bricks keep posting massive losses though, so I guess if you are concerned about foxtons and countrywide you may want to be concerned about them too. Unless they are trying to 'do an uber'.

    I'd have a look at Google reviews and also see if there's a local Facebook group, it will likely have come up in there.
  • We discussed this a few months back on here. I said at the time the next industry to suffer on the high street will be Estate Agents. We used emoov the last time we moved house, saved a fortune, sold within 7 days and they placed us on all the main online portals.

    Does anybody drive to a high street and look in Estate Agents windows for properties?
  • Addickted said:

    Heard nothing but good things regarding Burple Pricks.

    Still a hell of a lot cheaper than the 1% most agents charge.

    of course they are going to be cheaper they are a relatively new business and agents do have overheads such as an office to go and walk in and sit and have tea coffee, a person to face to face talk to, if you are in a purple bricks chain you will have hold ups as all of there clerical stuff is outsourced to data centers etc, and a lot of sales fall through because of this, purple bricks are fantastic if your the seller and you have no where else to move on to, which is not a luxury most have.
    They only have themselves to blame mate, for years, Decades they have taken the absolute piss and mucked people about and then collared massivley disproportionate fees in relation to the tiny bit of admin they do. Most of that's done by conveyancing solicitors who have been also taking the piss for years too and are now also suffering by being undercut by call centres.

    Same as the taxi firms round my way thinking they were above competition and only wanting to hang about outside Chatham station taking people home rather than actually drive to collect someone for a fare. Along came uber and are blowing them away. I don't agree with massive, almost invisible corporations doing this but the attitude towards change in some industries has led them down the path they are being flushed down now. I was late to the pub for one of the England games because a cab I'd booked with a local firm over an hour before the gane kicked off decided they weren't going to pick me up. Even after me chasing the bastards twice they left it until 15 minutes before the game to tell me they had changed the drivers job. Fucking thanks, I'll get an uber then, turned up 4 minutes later. They don't help themselves

  • Purple bricks have been censured by the regulators at least 3 times in the past year due to misleading statements in their ads.
  • Addickted said:

    Heard nothing but good things regarding Burple Pricks.

    Still a hell of a lot cheaper than the 1% most agents charge.

    of course they are going to be cheaper they are a relatively new business and agents do have overheads such as an office to go and walk in and sit and have tea coffee, a person to face to face talk to, if you are in a purple bricks chain you will have hold ups as all of there clerical stuff is outsourced to data centers etc, and a lot of sales fall through because of this, purple bricks are fantastic if your the seller and you have no where else to move on to, which is not a luxury most have.
    Ah, but it's my ma in laws, so we would be a seller with no where else to move to.
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  • I would avoid on line agents.

    We've finally sold our house which was in a chain of 4. One of the chain had used Tepillo and it caused no end of problems. Our agents could never get hold of them and their solicitor was hardly ever available. The whole thing took 6 months and nearly folded at the end because of a last minute cock up.

    I generally find dealing with Estate Agents awful. However, we used Wards ang they were superb.
  • Bought my current property that was advertised via Kings estate agents. Dreadful company.
  • Addickted said:

    Heard nothing but good things regarding Burple Pricks.

    Still a hell of a lot cheaper than the 1% most agents charge.

    Been quoted 2% on our place ancient argued down to 1.5, is 1% more common at the moment?
  • 2% - bloody hell.

    So for them to market your £500k house, that will cost you £12k including VAT, then tell you to accept £450k because the market's slow (or they got the valuation wrong in the first place) so you end up with £50k less than you'd budgeted for and still have to pay them £10.8k including VAT.

    Can private individuals put their own property details on sites like RightMove and Zoopla? I can do my own conveyancing as it's fairly straight forward, so can I do my own marketing using the big house selling platforms?

  • Sadly they've been struggling for years now. Slag them off all you like but you wouldn't do it yourself would you? There's some really good, genuine, knowledgeable and passionate people in the industry.
  • Sadly they've been struggling for years now. Slag them off all you like but you wouldn't do it yourself would you? There's some really good, genuine, knowledgeable and passionate people in the industry.

    Last time I moved, I did the viewings myself, actually found the buyer myself, negotiated the price myself, chased up everyone who needed chasing up (which is fucking everyone!) and ended up knocking the actual agent as even they agreed they did Fuck all. I've got no doubt there are people who give a shit in that game but I haven't found them
  • edited August 2018

    Bought my current property that was advertised via Kings estate agents. Dreadful company.

    Agree totally. We had our house on with Kings and Wards. Wards got a good number of viewings and offers. Kings took shite photos with a mobile phone and we had one viewing in 6 months!
  • Addickted said:

    Heard nothing but good things regarding Burple Pricks.

    I’ve heard they’re just a load of wind
  • Purple bricks have been censured by the regulators at least 3 times in the past year due to misleading statements in their ads.

    An estate agent misleading, whatever next?
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  • You have to pay purple bricks even if you don’t sell the house
  • edited August 2018
    I work for a medium sized estate agent. I’m not an estate agent though so don’t hate me! ;)

    Purple bricks are the single biggest cause of sales either falling through or taking forever to go through, mostly because their sales progression is nonexistent, they basically get paid on instruction, so as soon as your property is on the market they couldn’t give a shit.
  • Yet people are flocking to them in their droves.

    They must be doing something right.
  • Addickted said:

    Yet people are flocking to them in their droves.

    They must be doing something right.

    because they are internet based......therefore must be good. stands to reason, innit.
  • I do see the money saving appeal if, say, you’re selling a 500k house.

    Where I live the average house is about £250,000, so the savings from using them isn’t really worth the risk and most people acknowledge that.

    But people do need to take into account the fact that you pay even if your house doesn’t sell.
  • Addickted said:

    Yet people are flocking to them in their droves.

    They must be doing something right.

    Massive brand awareness, constant TV advertising reinforces the idea that using an old fashioned estate agent is expensive and unnecessary.
  • loads of competition .. the 'old school' estate agents are struggling against the online upstarts .. same problems as general retailers .. high rents and overheads
  • I would avoid on line agents.

    We've finally sold our house which was in a chain of 4. One of the chain had used Tepillo and it caused no end of problems. Our agents could never get hold of them and their solicitor was hardly ever available. The whole thing took 6 months and nearly folded at the end because of a last minute cock up.

    I generally find dealing with Estate Agents awful. However, we used Wards ang they were superb.

    Agreed. We had our flat on with Tepilo initially, and after nearly two months we'd only had three people round to view it. We gave up and put it on with a local agent (at the same price), and we had loads of interest and an offer after a week.

    I think it's easy to underestimate the value of local knowledge and contacts. We found Tepilo surprisingly awful to deal with – they constantly told us to drop the price and provided "evidence" by showing us details of other flats that were completely dissimilar to ours – whereas the local agent was great.
  • Example of the industry being unwilling to change -

    They persist with a largely mon-sat 9-5 schedule

    Ridiculous to put the inconvenience of finding time to view properties onto the prospective buyers, rather than do viewings until 8pm, for example and tweaking their working hours

    Purple Bricks make viewings MUCH more convenient.

    Adapt or perish
  • My neighbour says Purple Bricks are a rip off. They charge you hundreds per viewing and lock you in and do nothing. My neighbour even suggested those viewing are in cahoots and get a kick back.
    I have not moved for about 25 years, but if I did it again I would use an estate agent BUT before the process write my own contract/agreement with them. A fixed fee, not a percentage but based on sale price, and expectations regarding viewings, follow ups, and work to oil the wheels and communicate, then monitor the buggers like a hawk.
    What actual work do estate agents do beyond advertising your place and collecting the money? Make them earn it or don't pay. Surveys are equally bad, they say 'yes the place exists, but we recommend you use specialists electricians, plumbers, roofers, flooring experts, stonemasons, window specialists, structural engineers, tree surgeons etc to check things out they won't vouch for.
    Agree a fixed fee with solicitors too.
    The way to sell is anticipate everything and be well prepared to do everything yourself, you end up doing it anyway.
    Don't let the parasites surrounding the house moving industry rip you off. You never get what you think you're paying for, and Purple Bricks are bloodsuckers according to my neighbour.
    How do you think they afford those adverts?
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