Purplebricks, Realtor's perspective. TLDR - Shop around; there are less expensive ways to sell your property. Purplebricks employs agents who only act as Realtors, which means you get what you pay for. The advertised savings offered by Purplebricks are misleading. First, a little bit of background on Realtor's commission, and while we are at it, let's define some terms. In Alberta (this is true for other provinces), a typical commission, which is negotiable, is 7% on the first $100,000 and 3% on the remainder. This commission gets split evenly between the Buyer's Realtor - the Realtor who brings the buyers - and the Seller's Realtor - the Realtor who lists the property and does the conveyancing. If you didn't know, conveyancing is the preparation of documents to help with the sale (e.g. making sure both lawyers have the contracts, handling of deposit, etc.). The important part is that all Realtors, Purplebricks included, recommend that the Seller pays the Buyer's Realtor 3.5%/1.5% commission. Now that you have the basics down, let's look at how Purplebricks misleads. Let's use an example. If you are selling a $200,000 property, their website claims that you will save $7,352. The website has a caveat stating that these savings do not include the Buyer's Realtor commission, only the Purplebricks fee of $2,998. This means that if you use a Realtor who changes the typical fee of 7%/3% to sell a $200,000 property, you will pay $10,000. (It's implied, not stated, that half ($5,000) will go to the Buyer's Realtor and the other half ($5,000) to the Seller's Realtor.) Conversely, if you use Purplebricks and "you" sell the same $200,000 home, you will only pay the $2,998. Now, this next part is important. It is unlikely that "you" will sell the home. Most likely than not, a Realtor will show your home to a potential buyer and, in fact, sell it for you. Using the Purplebricks calculator, to get $7,352 in savings, you will give $2,998 to Purplebricks and $0 to the Realtor who brings in the clients. Yet, Purplebricks themselves recommend that the Seller pay the Buyer's Realtor 3.5%/1.5% commission. If you missed the sleight of hand, the Purplebricks calculator pays $0 to the Buyer's Realtor, yet it pays the full Buyer's Realtor commission (3.5%/1.5%) when using a Realtor. We can go even a step further. Suppose you, as the Seller, use a Realtor who charges 1% to list your property (there are many out there, such as 2% Realty), and you also omit the Buyer agent commission, just as Purplebricks does in their calculation. In that circumstance, you will lose money by using Purplebricks. They charge $2,998, whereas 1% of $200,000 is only $2,000. Even if your property is worth more than the $200,000 used in my example, you can, and all Realtors do, negotiate the listing fee. Let's explore what you are paying for. The term "Realtor" is trademarked and identifies real estate brokerage services and related professional services provided by the Canadian Real Estate Association. The Alberta Real Estate Act governs all Realtors. Purplebricks has this small print - "members of our team are not registered under the Real Estate legislation unless specifically mentioned." This means that Purplebricks agents do not have to abide by the same rules as Realtors unless specifically mentioned. This point is significant if you consider the mandated training, licencing, fiduciary duty, etc., that each Realtor needs to comply with to maintain their accreditation. Since Purplebricks "agents" are not Realtors, there is no legislative oversight, and they can do what they please. Time for some anecdotal evidence. I'm a Realtor, and I recently dealt with Purplebricks. First, there was no way I could present the offer to the Seller; I had to send it to a generic email. I was assigned to three different Purplebricks agents (none of them were Realtors) throughout the negotiations. We finally agreed on a solid deal, and all that was needed was the sellers' acceptance. I, once again, emailed it to the Purplebricks conglomerate for the final signatures. Twenty-four hours later, I was assigned a different agent who made multiple changes to the contract (i.e., negated the initial offer and created a counteroffer) and made the offer expire in 4 hours. Most of the changes were for the benefit of Purplebricks (e.g., changing one Purplebricks agent for another, asking me to handle conveyancing, etc.). This confused me. All the Seller had to do to make the sale was to accept the terms of the contract. Why would he, as the Seller, care about who does the conveyancing, it has no impact on him. Conversely, it's financially beneficial for Purplebricks to pass off conveyancing onto the other Realtor. That is why, in my opinion, I believe that without implied consent from the Seller, they add their own terms into the Seller's contract. They also add the time constraint to pressure the Buyer to agree to Purplebricks' terms. A better way to deal with a term that does not impact the seller/buyer is through a separate agreement. Or, and this is crucial, each "Offer to Purchase" contract has section 3.1 (m) that states "the (seller's or buyer's) brokerage will provide this contract and related documents to the appointed lawyers for the purpose of closing this contract." In the end, the deal did complete but was made more complicated than it had to be.