Positioning themselves as the medium-sized antelope of the cash house buying market do Springbok properties live up to their promise of a fast and nimble property sale?
The Guru dons his best safari hat and braves the savannah to investigate.
Our reviews are a combination of first hand experience and thorough investigation. We make a genuine enquiry with the company and follow their process up until the point that we can no longer proceed (we can’t actually sell a house unfortunately) which we call our “mystery shop”.
We also thoroughly research the company using publicly available data from multiple sources such as the companies website through to companies house and land registry.
We then use this information to rate the company using our own criteria, based on what we believe should be the gold standard of cash house buyer services. The results against this criteria are reflected in the score that you will find on this page which is out of a maximum of 100%.
The guru has painstakingly reviewed and analysed the house buying companies in the UK, assessing them against his strict best practice criteria.
In short the hard work has been done for you, if you want a no obligations cash offer from a genuine cash house buying company with best in class service use the guru recommended service below to be matched with the right buyer for you, your house sale could be just a few clicks away.
Not sure if a cash offer will work for you? Find out what you could get in under a minute without having to enter any contact details.
Are they a genuine house buying company?
Is their offer realistic?
No contract or tie in to sign?
Can you use your own solicitor?
No fees to pay?
Are they registered with a redress scheme?
We made an enquiry on the company’s website and waited for a callback so we can rate both the speed of the response and the quality of the information and service provided.
I made an enquiry on the springbok website using the big yellow “get an offer” button. It first asks you if you currently live in the property and then goes on to ask you for your address, email and finally phone number you then hit the submit button and you would think that would be the end of the process but no.
You are then redirected to a different website altogether which is branded “We Buy Now” part of the Springbok properties group. You are then asked some further questions about the property and then finally get to the end where you have to have to “confirm your mobile number” and you are told that this is for anti-money laundering purposes. Really? They expect you to believe that they have to carry out anti-money laundering checks on a general enquiry.
This is of course absurd they obviously just want to check that it is a valid mobile number for marketing purposes, so why not just say that rather than lie to the consumer from the offset – very strange.
I received a call from an agent 15 minutes after submitting the enquiry (they were obviously satisfied that I wasn’t a money launderer). The agent was bright and bubbly and obviously sitting in a busy call centre, they asked me if it was ok to ask me a few questions to see if they could help and then asked me to confirm my own address, which I passed with flying colours. They then asked me for my circumstances around the sale and if I had had the property valued. The agent then asked me some questions about the property, type of property, number of rooms, condition of the property, gas central heating etc.
The agent then asked me about my timeframes for selling and went on to explain how they work as a company. Informing me that Springbok Properties are the number 1 company in the UK in the fast selling market (it’s funny how many fast sale companies are the number 1) and they are there to help people get a fair price and save the time and hassle that they would experience on the open market.
The agent then went on to explain that there are 2 solutions that they can offer, the first option is for Springbok properties to ‘act as the buyer’ (interesting choice of words), where they would make a cash offer on the property, I was then advised that this is the quickest method but it would get me the least amount of money for my property as they look to resell the property to make a profit.
Then if that doesn’t work there is the second option where they cut themselves out as the buyer but go directly to the buyers that they would resell it to, the agent then went on to explain that unlike agents they mostly deal with investors and cash buyers looking to do a quick deal and they will pay “quite well” and this would take 8 – 10 weeks. Interestingly the agent then explained that they take a deposit from the buyer and if the deal fell through they would split that deposit with me 50 / 50, nice!
The agent then asked me what offers I could consider at this point. Now having explained that I had not had the property valued this was impossible to answer. The agent explained that they are not a valuer and are just here to see if they can help. They then explained that if I am interested a valuer would be booked in to view my property who would then make me a cash offer reflecting my local market conditions and ‘discuss the other options’.
I then went on to ask some questions, one regarding fees, there are none to pay as on a cash purchase the ‘fee’ is the profit they make on the resale and with the investor option, the ‘investors’ pay a ‘finders fee’.
The agent then went on to explain that once they have made an offer it would be subject to survey and asked me if I wanted to book a meeting with the valuer.
The call took just over 10 minutes and ended with the agent promising to send me an email (which never came).
The Springbok Properties sales process seems fairly simple. There is an initial screening call (as described above) then if you agree a ‘valuer’ will come around to view the property and will try to sign you up to one of their options then and there.
We found some evidence online that there is a strong sales culture in the Springbok office (not that there is necessarily anything wrong with that). People generally enjoyed working at the company but described demanding sales targets and one review from an employee (or former employee) wasn’t on favour of the “misleading” lead generation. I think this could have to do with the “Get a free valuation” feature on the website which is actually just a way to capture contact details and call you back. They don’t even give you an estimated value on the phone.
Springbok properties don’t offer any sort of valuation over the phone, which is very unusual for a house buying service. Instead they rely on a ‘valuer’ that works for the company carrying out some research and then coming to your property to view it. The offer that they make is then subject to survey.
Further Reading: How do cash house buyers value your house
This is unknown as it required a valuer coming around to the property, they would not even give me an idea of what percentage of full market value to expect, which is highly unusual but is a theme that is carried throughout the website. The policy seems to be to keep their cards close to their chest until someone comes out to sign you up.
If I were to speculate for a second, I would guess that the offer they make would be on the high side. This would mean that you are more likely to sign up with them which would be the only way to make it worthwhile to send someone around to every property that they are valuing. Although from our own research into their purchase history they are averaging around 80% of the properties resale price so if they do offer more then they are likely to reduce the amount at a later stage.
If you are planning on booking a Springbok valuer to come around, and you have no idea of what your property is worth, it would be a good idea to ask 2 – 3 local estate agents to value the property first. You can then take the average of these valuations (bearing in mind that agents have a tendency to slightly overvalue properties to win business) and use this as a yardstick to measure what percentage the valuer is offering. If the offer works out at more than 80% you know that it is unlikely to be genuine.
Further Reading: Find out more about how much cash house buyers can actually pay
On submitting the lead I received an email from Springbok which explained that I would receive a callback in the next 10 minutes (it was actually 15 but close enough) and went through what I was to expect on the call. They even explain that you will not get a valuation on the phone. The email included a 9 page guide on their service and reviews from past happy customers (I guess they are not going to include bad reviews in their own brochure). This was a very useful and informative email professionally done.
I was promised an email after the first call but this never arrived.
Here we ask our 4 key questions that you should always ask yourself when dealing with a cash house buying company.
Yes. Springbok are a legitimate company with evidence that they do purchase properties.
Further Reading: How to check that your are dealing with a legitimate cash house buyer
Unknown. Although if it works out at more than 80% of your properties value for a cash purchase then it would be, have a good idea of your properties value before engaging with them and be weary of any offer that come in at much over 80%.
Further Reading: How much do cash house buyers actually pay?
We would also advise caution with the ‘investor’ option as the evidence that the majority of the sales they make are not to investors and they are just actually trying to sell the property on Rightmove is fairly overwhelming. A quick search on rightmove shows Springbok Properties as a registered agent and at time of writing they have over 40 pages of properties currently listed for sale on Rightmove. Also many of their reviews from buyers (who have paid the deposit described by the agent on the first call) are obviously from private buyers and not investors.
It is likely that what they are doing is agreeing a reduced price for an ‘investor’ to purchase the property at which point you sign a contract agreeing that you will sell at that price but this is actually known as an ‘option agreement’ giving them the option to buy the property at that price. They then market the property on the open market at full value or just below and if they agree a sale at a higher amount than the contracted price they merely pocket the difference so in essence you are paying a very high estate agent fee.
Further Reading: Shady Practices Used By Cash House Buyers
Yes. The agent confidently told me that legally you would have to sign a contract with any company looking to purchase your property. This is of course not the case, there is no legal reason to sign any contracts on a house sale until the “exchange of contracts” when the sale is essentially complete.
Further Reading: Why you should never sign a contract with a cash house buyer
No. If you are using their house buying service you have to use one of their panel of solicitors, they do cover the costs of this.
My overall experience with Springbok Properties as a customer was one of frustration. Not receiving any feedback on what my property might be worth or what an indicative offer might be at least in percentage terms is frankly a bit annoying, why did they ask me so many questions about the property if they are just going to send someone out to it anyway? It is just a waste of everyones time. It doesn’t take much to train someone to take a look at recent sold prices or use one of the plethora of valuation tools that are readily available these days to give an idea so that they are not wasting anyones time.
The only reason that I can see to not give some sort of idea of an offer (even on a second phone call with someone that has done a bit of research) is because they are more likely to get someone to sign up in the heat of the moment face to face, especially with a bit of flattery and a valuation on the generous side.
The guru has painstakingly reviewed and analysed the house buying companies in the UK, assessing them against his strict best practice criteria.
In short the hard work has been done for you, if you want a no obligations cash offer from a genuine cash house buying company with best in class service use the guru recommended service below to be matched with the right buyer for you, your house sale could be just a few clicks away.
Not sure if a cash offer will work for you? Find out what you could get in under a minute without having to enter any contact details.
Are they a genuine house buying company?
Is their offer realistic?
No contract or tie in to sign?
Can you use your own solicitor?
No fees to pay?
Are they registered with a redress scheme?
Springbok Properties Ltd, trading as Springbok Properties is a UK based house buying and estate agency company with head office in Manchester and another office in Glasgow, they appear to be named after a medium sized antelope for some reason. The company was incorporated on 19th May 2014 so have been trading for nearly 10 years. According to their accounts they currently have around 70 staff so they are a substantial operation. They offer a range of services which are all sold under the guide of a faster house sale, although it would seem like their main service is marketing and selling properties in the same way as a traditional estate agent.
They have evidence of property purchases in the form of registered charges on companies house and also evidence that they are holding property stock and have outstanding mortgages in their most recent accounts.
Along with Springbok Properties they also operate Yellow Springbok and WebuyNow.co.uk which states on its website that it is part of the “Springbok Group”.
Springbok properties have been a member of the National Association of Property Buyers (NAPB) since November 2017 (source: NAPB website), although they don’t actually feature the logo prominently on the website for reasons unknown. Springbok properties are also registered with the Property Ombudsman.
Springbok properties currently have an overall rating of 4.0 out of 5 on Google reviews and 4.4 on Trustpilot. They also have reviews on an estate agent review website called “allagents.co.uk” but since they are specifically for estate and lettings agents we won’t be counting them.
Although on Trustpilot they have 74% 5 star reviews it is actually difficult to find one that is actually related to the cash house buying service. The majority of the positive reviews are actually from people buying a property, where presumably Springbok is the selling agent. Some don’t even seem to have bought the property and have only booked and attended a viewing, which I deem pretty strange. Why would you even ask them for a review? After a lot of scouring however I did find one that I am confident to say came from a cash purchase client.
As with the positive reviews there is a bit of patience required to find one that relates to the cash buying service, although admittedly nowhere near as hard as it was with the positive ones. Similarly many of the negative reviews are from buyers not happy with Springbok’s policy of requiring buyers to pay a deposit to secure the sale of a house.
It is clear that Springbok are getting reviews from people that are not actually customers, mostly from buyers of properties that they are selling and even people who have just viewed properties. These reviews are inflating the number of 5 star reviews and masking the bad ones.
Springbok are also very aggressive at ‘flagging’ their reviews, which means trying to get them removed. In fact on trustpilot they have flagged 72 1,2 and 3 star reviews in the last 12 months and have been successful in removing 64 of those bad reviews. Now some reasons could be valid but almost 12% of total reviews being flagged is a very high amount.
Outside of the reviews I couldn’t find any complaints about Springbok Properties. There was one odd article in the Sun about them advertising a property with some fairly questionable photos.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/property/19687487/four-bedroom-house-could-be-yours-for-just-170000/
For me the website is a bit busy and many of the elements do some sort of pop out of nowhere thing that I find off putting but they are more down to personal taste. Although the website as a whole could do with a bit of updating it functions fine. The little slider at the top of the homepage for “how quickly would you like to move or have money in the bank?” seems pointless as it doesn’t actually do anything. The actual enquiry form that you get to by clicking the “get an offer” button is a basic data capture form.
There is also a “guides” section on the website where you can find information on various property related topics such as “if I sell my house can I still claim benefits uk”. I read through a few of the guides and did find them informative and for the most part well written.
There is some confusion on the website around how fast Springbok can actually buy your property, on the homepage for example they say “sell in 21 days or a date to suit you” but elsewhere on the site they say that they could sell your house in 7 days. Which although technically possible in certain circumstances is definitely not achievable in most cases.
Springbok Properties is a large sales operation. The agent that I spoke to was very pleasant but the fact that they don’t offer any idea of property valuation over the phone and rely on sending someone to ‘value’ the property in person and sign you up to a contract there and then is a big red flag. This leaves the process open to inflated offers and pressure selling. It is clear that they have a strong ‘sales’ culture where people are rewarded for getting sign ups and while this is not necessarily a bad thing it can lead to sales being put ahead of securing the best outcome for the individual.
Another red flag is their ‘investor’ option where they are perhaps being a bit misleading about being able to find an investor for your property so easily when in fact it is likely they are just advertising the property on Righmove and are looking to secure an open market sale, bagging themselves a large fee in the process.
If you are considering using the service it would be advisable to get an independent valuation of your property from several local estate agents beforehand so you have a realistic idea of what your property is worth. Also always seek advice from a legal representative before signing any contract, it is our opinion that contracts have no place when it comes to house buying companies due to their one sided nature and often misleading terms.
You can find a list of our top rated house buying companies by clicking the button below.
The guru has painstakingly reviewed and analysed the house buying companies in the UK, assessing them against his strict best practice criteria.
In short the hard work has been done for you, if you want a no obligations cash offer from a genuine cash house buying company with best in class service use the guru recommended service below to be matched with the right buyer for you, your house sale could be just a few clicks away.
Not sure if a cash offer will work for you? Find out what you could get in under a minute without having to enter any contact details.
Are they a genuine house buying company?
Is their offer realistic?
No contract or tie in to sign?
Can you use your own solicitor?
No fees to pay?
Are they registered with a redress scheme?
Click the button to get an idea of what an offer from a cash buyer would look like in just a few clicks.
If the offer could work for you we will match you to a Guru approved buyer.
All of the companies have passed our rigorous 16 point checklist.
We have mystery shopped all of the companies and got feedback from past customers.
All of the companies have signed up to the guru best practice guidelines for house buyers.
If you have had a different experience with the company, either positively or negatively, we’d love to hear from you. Tell us your experience by emailing us at reviews@cashhousebuyerguru.com.
While we make every effort to ensure that the information included in this article is as accurate as possible at the time of writing and subsequently revisit and revise the information in light of any changes it is always recommended to carry out your own due diligence before engaging with any company. The views in this article represent our own experiences and opinions and individual experiences may vary.
