Purple Bricks
 

Has anyone here used Purple Bricks instead of a standard realtor to sell their property? If so, how has this process worked out for you and would you recommend going this route? Any issues you ran into with this process? Any information and personal experience is greatly appreciated.

If you know what your house is worth and it's highly desirable combined with having the time to show it and you won't take offers personally have at it, if not hire a realtor.

Purple bricks is just "WELIST"
WELIST couldn't make a go of it out here now this company from England has taken them over with the same Biz model.

From a Realtors stand point, my clients(buyers) have always had a tough time dealing with WELIST. Most won't bother to go see houses listed in such a fashion. If we do go see a specific house listed like this clients tend to use it as a comparable to buy the one down the street. Then add in the BS for a professional who is used to working with other professionals and you end up with a house sitting on the market. Personally, I don't care. If I can find the right house for my clients and its priced correctly, I will deal with all of the hassles.

Isn’t Purple Bricks just ComFree with a new name? Been around for a while if that’s the case.

Your right. Com free/We list/purple bricks. All the same company.

Thanks everyone for the responses. Been busy getting the house ready for photos and viewing. I ended up going with a realtor after looking into it a bit further. Might be a little more cost but also a little more piece of mind.

Neighbor has listed with purple bricks for about 2 months, I have only seen a couple people look at it in that time frame. I like Remax.

You made the best call. Good job.

Realtors have a hard time showing those properties.

Challenge your reAltor for a better rate
 

I won’t bad mouth realtors.

Actually I will. Sort of.

Try Face book Kijiji etc. If you are not in a panic to sell.
Bought and sold Comfree(now Purple Bricks) a few times. Worked very well.

Just sold a house and bought another recently. Realtors used.

For the money they charged the really did very little work.

If you know your value condition and Survey are all in order all they do is put it on MLS and conspire to make as much money off you as they can with out doing any work. They tell you they are working for you. In my deals I know and can prove they screwed me on deal playing games trying to squeeze me.

Purple bricks puts it on MLS for their fixed fee. You have to be comfortable showing and negotiating.

When I sell this place I will drive a stake In the ground with a phone number and take some good photos to email and put on face book.

I absolutely cannot justify their commission.

If you are not handy hire a home inspector for 500 and fix up the issues or price it accordingly and give buyers the inspection and written explanation of how you dealt with issues or reduced the price.

Lawyers and banks do the rest to protect you.



Good luck with your sale and move!

Please explain what happened here. Not at all cool and possibly illegal. You could be compensated for this.

One of my clients uses purple bricks and he flips houses like crazy! Not kidding he said his longest listing was 45 days! Must work as he keeps us busy!

Motivations to buy and sell were disclosed to buyer (me) and seller.
Gave the buyers a false sense confidence. Neither realtor expected me to not react emotionally and meet their price that they based on my motivations.

The deal the realtors cooked up failed. The sellers lost their deal because they counted on me just saying “yes please. I will pay more”. When I walked away they were choked and the realtors were embarrassed. Neither realtor was working for their client. They were working to get a deal done for them.

In the end I found a better deal and the sellers did sell to some one else but the deal was way less than one that was cooked up. In the end the clients were happy and the realtors were grovelling hard to not wind up answering questions.

Real Estate board has encouraged me to complain so they could investigate.

I am too busy moving.

No realtors in my future.

realtors are worst then car salesman. I've worked with hundreds of realtors and got to deal with the worst of the worst. Out of the hundreds I dealt with I'd recommend maybe 3 of them based on how they actually looked after their client.

I agree that for the most part their not worried about their clients interests.

I have bought and sold dozens of properties over the years. I have dealt with a large number of realtors on one or both sides of the transaction and done many non-realtor deals. Of the realtor involved deals, there are two realtors I respect a lot, one has passed away, and one I thought was okay. The rest were douche canoes of the first order.

The only way they sell properties faster than you can on your own is by lowballing the list price. Remember, you drop your price $50 thousand it all comes out of your pocket but only costs them $1,500 off their 6% on first 200K and 3% on the balance commission. They are well invented to sell fast and cheap. The games they will play with sellers and buyers are varied and often used. They make used car salesman look like saints.

Do you really want to pay $20,000 for some pictures, a lawn sign, maybe one open house and an advert in the paper, all of which you can easily do or hire done for far less. Outside of that what does the Realtor do to sell your home? Rarely is the listing realtor the guy that sells the house too. I can see paying 3% and 1.5% to a realtor that actually brings you a buyer and I would include those terms in the advertisements but I would never pay for a listing realtor.

Just my thoughts based on my experience with Realtors.

With out knowing the ins and the outs exactly, It sounds like you have a issue with your specific Realtor. Because you didn't do a actual deal with him, there is no way to be actually compensated. (at least if you're dealing with the Real Estate board) If he had been paid, the Real Estate board could have ordered him to refund you the commissions he was paid. I think for the sake of 10 minutes and writing a letter, the profession would be most appreciative of you. We don't need azzhats like that in our business. Send in your complaint. You will be doing the next guy a favour.

except reca is useless. I've gone the route of lodging the odd complaint. In one case it was against a realtor who helped me with a transaction. Another was one I worked with.

Reca doesnt want to hold realtors accountable. They give them so much slack that there are no real repercussions when they do something they shouldnt.

Even though my complaints were successful with reca all that happened was a simple letter of reprimand. Which means absolutely nothing.

I still remember reca telling me "Well we have no real way to know what his true intent was." He willingly deceived and broke the rules. He did so willingly and admitted.. yet reca said we didnt know his true intent so we will let him off.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Realtors have a greater responsibility than ‘the deal’ and are covered by insurance.

I bet I could get billboard space for less.

It would be interesting to see what the responsibility would be on a failed deal?
The course would ask "Who was hurt"?
We have E/O insurance for screw ups on deals that come together. I don't know if it applies to scenarios where no deal was actually done. Interesting question actually.

My Neighbour down the street put his house up on purple bricks. It has only been about a week and a half. I know that as a mortgage broker, if it is a private sale or no realtor is involved that you do need to make sure your paper work is in good order and that the purchase agreement is witnessed

It's no harder to sell on your own than selling a car. Agree on price & conditions. Write up the sale, take a down payment and take it to a lawyer. Have bought and sold on my own and would never in a million years use a realtor. Not for everyone though I guess.

That’s what conveyancing lawyer does, which you would have in either case. A Realtor brings nothing to the deal other than comm related admin. Except maybe kicking in for low cost shortfalls

Pretty sure if a Realtor ‘fouled’ a deal, and a financial loss could be proven, an award could follow. I seem to remember reading some case studies. It’s that agency thing

Well, I see why you feel that way. And if you are a real DIY'er at heart than enjoy! What I meant though was that usually when you do an offer to purchase it is not in front of a lawyer. So with out a realtor you should be having someone witnessing the contract.

I think realtors can certainly bring a service that would be otherwise non existent if it was some kind of total rip off that has been described. You could say one pays for convenience or service. Just like I pay someone to take care of my yard.

I would think at best, it would be the HURT persons Realtor. Providing it was then that did the fouling.

We don't work for the deal, or for the other side. We work for our client and our client alone.

I have my licence however I don't trade in real estate but deal with brokers all the time as I work for a company that has about 400 leases across North America and I negotiate all of our leases so I have a unique perspective. I can tell you that the there are certainly lots of decent honest professionals but way too may that skirt the rules to downright cheat the system. Unfortunately RECA just like home warranty is powerless as any governing body that is funded or managed by its members.

Unless your such an embrassement like Terry Paranach RECA does nothing but a slap on the wrist, so agents and brokerages keep bending/breaking the rules