I thought it was only boomers who were mugging off this generation?
Duanedoberman on
Estate agent boss who has been complicit causing house prices to rise through the roof over the last decades now complains of the consequences of his actions?
Disastrous_Piece1411 on
I went to rent a house advertised by Purple Bricks. It had an ‘asking price’ for rent which was already weird, but was about what we were willing to pay. There was a 30-minute group viewing – in practice that meant around 30 people packed into this 2 bedroom house (no furniture) all beavering around with brochures in their hands and looking at the rooms and saying will you take 6 months cash up front to the letting agent. There was a 2nd group viewing immediately after ours too, so probably 50 people in 1 hour altogether.
We submitted our ‘bid’ of rent at the asking price, with a max-100 words submission statement saying we are local to the area, starting a family (other half was 3 months pregnant at the time) and this is perfect for us. No reply. A few weeks later we saw the person who had moved in and we recognised them from the viewing – it was the loudest, rudest, most entitled person there who we tried to avoid because they just seemed horrible. No idea what rent they ended up to pay.
Basically saying that in my experience purple bricks have been the worst possible rental agency I have ever experienced and pit potential renters against each other to maximise profits. Certainly seemed a completely broken system, damaging for the area in pushing up rents and no help to us whatsoever. Just exploiting people!
Edit to add: This was in Dec 2016 so not due to pandemic stuff.
Dry-Post8230 on
The old housing cycle was ,
1. Ftb, hard (not as hard as today) but not accessible to a large part of the population.
2. Kids, need for larger home, move, house available for ftb.
3.kids need more space, move, forever home.
4.Die, kids get money to do steps 1/2/3.
Now step 1 is competing with btl landlords, paying whatever they want as it will be covered by the huge demographic needing their first home, eventually even steps 2/3 will die off as to go to a 2/3rd purchase will be impossible, whether this was blairs intention when he massively increased btl is uncertain, ontop of tory social housing sales its become a national travesty.
mutedmirth on
We rented from purple bricks before covid. So utterly USELESS!
I’ve been renting for years so I know landlords and such were slow to get changes or fixes but we had to go through PB. I’m not exaggerating when I say we were past onto a different agent almost every other month.
They’d message or phone all sunshine and rainbows saying yes they’ll get this things fixed or get back to us about it, It was all minor stuff that we didn’t even push, just wanted to know if it would be fixed at all.
Then radio silence after a month so we ask hey…? And suddenly a new person would reply.
One year, they were struggling to get hold of the landlord to approve the yearly gas check.
We googled his name out of curiosity he was in prison for sexually assulting 17yr old girls. We immediately looked for a new place.
Didn’t get our deposit even tho they said we would until years later when we went through official means. They didn’t even bother to reply, so court ruled in our favour and we got it all back.
We never dealt with them again and never will.
brooooooooooooke on
It’s because landlordism and rent-seeking has grown absolutely insane over time.
Corporations have generally gone insane as the single-minded drive to increase shareholder value at all costs has turned companies into narrow-minded conglomerates focused solely on making the next profit sheet have a bigger number than the last one, but landlordism has the bug extra bad. Being a landlord is like a super investment; we all seem to be utterly convinced that investing in property is more of a job than an investment, and so it should be a guaranteed money maker no matter what.
If I live to see the day where renting is fully socialised I will be crying ectoplasmic tears of joy from the spirit world.
magneticpyramid on
If I were asked to name a business I’d absolutely never transact with again under any circumstances, it would be purplebricks and it’s not even close. Scummy bastards.
small_horse on
What a weird nothing article… it’s just pretty much a single quote and then a load of ramble about how you should listen to their podcast ??
Blackintosh on
If the government really wanted to solve the struggle for first time buyers, they should act as guarantors for the amount equal to 10% deposit, for people who can provide 3 years proof of consistent rental payments at or above the monthly mortgage payments they’ll be making.
But I don’t trust this government really care about anything more than propping up the current model of housing market.
9 Comments
I thought it was only boomers who were mugging off this generation?
Estate agent boss who has been complicit causing house prices to rise through the roof over the last decades now complains of the consequences of his actions?
I went to rent a house advertised by Purple Bricks. It had an ‘asking price’ for rent which was already weird, but was about what we were willing to pay. There was a 30-minute group viewing – in practice that meant around 30 people packed into this 2 bedroom house (no furniture) all beavering around with brochures in their hands and looking at the rooms and saying will you take 6 months cash up front to the letting agent. There was a 2nd group viewing immediately after ours too, so probably 50 people in 1 hour altogether.
We submitted our ‘bid’ of rent at the asking price, with a max-100 words submission statement saying we are local to the area, starting a family (other half was 3 months pregnant at the time) and this is perfect for us. No reply. A few weeks later we saw the person who had moved in and we recognised them from the viewing – it was the loudest, rudest, most entitled person there who we tried to avoid because they just seemed horrible. No idea what rent they ended up to pay.
Basically saying that in my experience purple bricks have been the worst possible rental agency I have ever experienced and pit potential renters against each other to maximise profits. Certainly seemed a completely broken system, damaging for the area in pushing up rents and no help to us whatsoever. Just exploiting people!
Edit to add: This was in Dec 2016 so not due to pandemic stuff.
The old housing cycle was ,
1. Ftb, hard (not as hard as today) but not accessible to a large part of the population.
2. Kids, need for larger home, move, house available for ftb.
3.kids need more space, move, forever home.
4.Die, kids get money to do steps 1/2/3.
Now step 1 is competing with btl landlords, paying whatever they want as it will be covered by the huge demographic needing their first home, eventually even steps 2/3 will die off as to go to a 2/3rd purchase will be impossible, whether this was blairs intention when he massively increased btl is uncertain, ontop of tory social housing sales its become a national travesty.
We rented from purple bricks before covid. So utterly USELESS!
I’ve been renting for years so I know landlords and such were slow to get changes or fixes but we had to go through PB. I’m not exaggerating when I say we were past onto a different agent almost every other month.
They’d message or phone all sunshine and rainbows saying yes they’ll get this things fixed or get back to us about it, It was all minor stuff that we didn’t even push, just wanted to know if it would be fixed at all.
Then radio silence after a month so we ask hey…? And suddenly a new person would reply.
One year, they were struggling to get hold of the landlord to approve the yearly gas check.
We googled his name out of curiosity he was in prison for sexually assulting 17yr old girls. We immediately looked for a new place.
Didn’t get our deposit even tho they said we would until years later when we went through official means. They didn’t even bother to reply, so court ruled in our favour and we got it all back.
We never dealt with them again and never will.
It’s because landlordism and rent-seeking has grown absolutely insane over time.
Corporations have generally gone insane as the single-minded drive to increase shareholder value at all costs has turned companies into narrow-minded conglomerates focused solely on making the next profit sheet have a bigger number than the last one, but landlordism has the bug extra bad. Being a landlord is like a super investment; we all seem to be utterly convinced that investing in property is more of a job than an investment, and so it should be a guaranteed money maker no matter what.
If I live to see the day where renting is fully socialised I will be crying ectoplasmic tears of joy from the spirit world.
If I were asked to name a business I’d absolutely never transact with again under any circumstances, it would be purplebricks and it’s not even close. Scummy bastards.
What a weird nothing article… it’s just pretty much a single quote and then a load of ramble about how you should listen to their podcast ??
If the government really wanted to solve the struggle for first time buyers, they should act as guarantors for the amount equal to 10% deposit, for people who can provide 3 years proof of consistent rental payments at or above the monthly mortgage payments they’ll be making.
But I don’t trust this government really care about anything more than propping up the current model of housing market.