Purple Bricks

Do sellers complain when their market goes backwards?

Are vendors offering greater commissions to agents when the price achieved is below expectations as the agent is getting a % not a fixed amount?

What if the market is stagnant, like areas which are cf+ but no growth. Have these agents increased their % commission?

 

I think your position is clear here, so this will be my last one. The incentives for agents are not to maximise price but to sell a property and most agents act like it, in my opinion. Every hour spent on getting a higher price is wasted compared to an hour spent finding another listing.

ps Why on earth would anyone pay an agent more for achieving a below expectations price? I would think that a good agent would be helping to set realistic expectations. Is this seriously something you would advocate?

 

So if we all support Purple Bricks we all win. Right?.
The same number of properties are sold for the same price , so the vendor wins.

The only ones who lose are the vendor crunches.

.

 

Josh, i'm really intrigued by the concept of FSBO auctions. Did buymyplace organise the auctioneer for you , or did you source on your own ?

 

They sourced the auctioneer and flew them up from Melbourne. The only thing we had to do was hold the open for inspections. We are thinking of going down this path again for our ppor. I think the fees are now $950 plus auctioneer of $1k or you can source one youself locale for $750. We used them around 7yrs ago.

 

Cheers

 

Out of interest, did they give you coaching on how to handle price enquiries at the OFI's ?

 

Hey Josh interested to know how recent your experience with BuyMyPlace was as I'm selling soon and going through all the private seller options. I have used them before but as it was almost a decade ago, I'm hoping for a realistic update on their services and how you found them. My main concern with the DIY third party sites are who picks up the phone for the initial enquiry and how fast you can contact the potential purchaser. Did you search the other providers?

 

I have seen it happen. I inspected a duplex half in Carlisle. Great agent, presented the property well, started negotiations with me even though I wasn't that interested in the property. That agent could not move the property. The owner switched to another company and the property was sold in a few weeks.

 

I think they do go online and have a look or give them a call they are very happy to chat They've been call my misses every 2 days to see if we are ready to sell. She's been getting a bit annoyed. Hehe

 

As soon as you sign up you will not hear from them.

 

Hi Jacque, I haven't used bymyplace.com.au in about 7yrs but from memory we had our phone number in the description and any email or phone call they received they handed it over asap. Our experience with them at the time was great and the price we got was what we wanted. We didn't search any other providers. We potentially might be using them soon after the renovations on our ppor have finished. Hope this helps.

 

Haha your right, but like I told them as soon as the renos are finished I'll consider it ☺

 

Media watch didn't give them a good rap or channel 7 for their reporting.

Media Watch: Purple puff (05/09/2016)

extracts;

50 of a promised 250 agents have so far been hired, and the company’s not yet operating in Sydney, Hobart, Darwin, Adelaide, or Perth.

And no mention that almost 1-in-4 UK customers rate Purple Bricks a lousy one star out of five on its Facebook page, which has this comment right at the top:

LAURA SPURWAY: Other websites offer more competitive fees, this one just $700 if sellers are prepared to run the campaign themselves.

— Channel Nine News, 30 August, 2016

I read somewhere that they say they have a majority market share in Britain but it is of the FSBO and less than 5% of the total market which would leave more than 90% still going down the traditional path (REA firm).

Real estate agents will get a big wake-up call with arrival of Purplebricks

Purplebricks was launched just over two years ago and says it is now the third-biggest estate agent in Britain by client instructions, with a total market share of about 5 per cent. It boasts a 62 per cent share of the non-traditional estate agent market

The old story if something sounds to good to be true then it is.

If you believe agents are cleaning up you will be presently surprised, RE sales is one of most if not the most cut throat industries. Everyone is a lone wolf including in businesses as you don't want someone to cut your lunch and with very little start up cost (agent licence, mobile and maybe laptop and suit), you are ready to go.

An agent is typically will lose 60% of the total commission to run the business (or pay employer) so from a 12k commission which is 2.2% inc GST commission 2k to government, 6k to overheads (office, admin, marketing, overheads) 4k to agents (2k listing + 2k sale).

An agency is likely paying 30-60k p.a. for an office (some more) so you need to sell ~5 houses just to pay lease. Roughly speaking an agent would need to sell 2 properties per month just to have a decent life. However you have 1 man bands that may charge 1% commission or 1.5% it really just means you need to sell more.

Again if you think the agents are running around clearing 100k+ each for doing 5 hours of work you are sadly mistaken

 

2.2%? The agent in Melbourne where we just sold agreed to a commission of 1.5%. He personally attended every home open, spent a lot of time on the phone following up each and every interest in the property, went through his customer database, bailed up every agent in the business to see if they might know of anyone interested in the property and called us every freakin' day to give us a very long and very detailed update on the progress of the marketing campaign. Put it this way, when we turned up for the auction, he wasn't driving a flash car or wearing a fancy suit

Also, in terms of FSBO putting real estate agents out of business, we were in Perth and selling a property in Melbourne. That's not a feasible FSBO scenario. FSBO will always be a niche market IMO.

 

I picked 2.2% as it made maths really easy and rounded on a 500k sale (which I didn't mention).

Commission is negotiable and plenty of things can influence it from Price - a house at 250k will usually have a higher % commission than 3M property, how high their overheads are, how many listings on your books, how marketable the property is, what the market is like (sellers market lower commission as they sell quicker, but buyers market will be typically higher as they need to do more work) and even things like personal relationships.

Sounds like you found a good agent and yes FSBO will be a niche market same as a BA - it is niche here but in the states it is very common (talking about local buyers not international).

 

I hope the new model works it seems Ludacris to me that in the days of the Internet we are paying Agents such massive fees

 

What a con job. How come 70% of Italians sell their own home? They are smart.
It ain't rocket science . .
One agent in Sydney could make all the sales in Sydney for less than 5k a sale and make a fortune. Easy and you would get rid of the vendor crunchers.

 

Purplebricks to quit Australia