Rightmove or Zoopla or both?

[fedupandlookingforchange]

When you are looking for a house do you
a) just look on Rightmove
b) just look on zoopla
c) look in local paper, find out the local agents and contact them directly
(how would you find the local agents)
d) all of the above
This would be in an area where you don't already live.

To avoid the drip feed I'm looking to sell my house and I'm thinking about agents and some don't use Rightmove and is this a huge disadvantage?
I have googled the hits per month for the big property websites and know that Rightmove gets 100 million hits more than zoopla. But is this just browsers not people who want a house?

Most large estate agents list their properties on Rightmove anyway as a given.

I would be more interested in the reviews of the estate agent and the selling package they are offering, their success rates etc, do they want exclusive rights and for how long, the marketing and photography package they offer, fees etc - but yes I do think a large no. of people use rightmove to look for a property- I cant see any benefits to choosing an EA that doesn't use it. It allowsprospectove buyers to easily see newly added properties in areas of interest. We found the house we are buying on rightmove by setting up an alert for the area, viewed it the day after it came on the market.

To add to your original queries, we did the same with zoopla, and asked local EA's to notify us of relevant properties while we were at viewings. We're about to exchange and still get property sheets via post, emails, phone calls, I think they just do it regardless of whether it is solicited.

I only look at rightmove

Do you live in London? Apparently Zoopla is the market leader in London, but almost everywhere is it's Rightmove. I personally wouldn't use an agent that didn't use Rightmove.

*everywhere else

I only look on Rightmove

rightmove
but agree with previous posters - look up the performance of the local agents.

I live in the rural north. Its an area where people retire to or buy a second home.

I think Rightmove is very important then, as it doesn't sound like somewhere where most moves would be local and so estate agent mailing lists/windows are probably irrelevant. If people are looking for second or retirement properties then they're going to be looking over quite a big geographic areas, not calling two or three agents that they know cover the one town they're interested in.

I look at rightmove, and only look at zoopla because it can tell you when the price was dropped and by how much (at least it did as I haven't looked at it for a while, whereas I'm on rightmove several times a week).
If I see a house I'm interested in I google the address which can bring up some interesting info.

right move VERY important, its the main site!! zoopla is area dependant really. So if I were you Id not even look at an agent that doesnt use rightmove. Most use both zoopla and rightmove.

I think Rightmove is definitely the most important one. I really like Zoopla as it tells you a lot about a house/area but I'd most likely use it to research a house I'd already seen on Rightmove.

We moved areas 2 years ago. We used Rightmove a lot, never Zoopla. The filters on RM are better.

Also looked up local agents on google (not in a newspaper!) and contacted some of them to see what else they had. But they never had anything we hadn't already seen on RM.

As an agent 99% of our enquires come via rightmove. We advertise on both and I would say I get one or two a week through zoopla compared to 30-50 on rightmove. But for our other 2 branches it it’s 95% zoopla. Ask your local agent what one they feel is most popular in your area but there’s a good chance they will advertise on both anyway like we do.

Some agents are saying it’s their mailing list that’s most important but I’m not so sure.
It’s really interesting that most people here say rightmove and that’s what people my age use locally.
Are older people more likely to contact agents directly and be on a mailing list?
There are a lot of estate agents in my area, probably too many, is it best to go with the one with the most properties?
Thanks for all the replies so far.

We’ve been thinking about moving for the last couple of years, so I’ve been house hunting all that time (not actual viewings, just trying to narrow down a big area that we don’t live in). We’re ready to move now, just waiting for the right property.

I don’t know if we’re classed as older - late 40s, early 50s, but we’re looking to downsize our house, get rid of our mortgage, and husband would like to retire early, so I’d think we’re your demographic.

We pretty much solely use rightmove, apart from when we’re in an area we like, we’ll look in estate agents windows, and then look up houses we like the look of on right move. I also have alerts on RM for the type of house we grant so I get emails as soon as a 4 bed detached with garden and parking goes up for sale in the areas we want to move to.

I can understand why estate agents are telling you that the best way is their mailing list, however I don’t think it’s true at all.

My parents are in their 70s and they mostly do their house hunting via local newspapers (they’re obsessed with them) and auction sites. Right move comes in 3rd, and they’re not on the mailing list of any estate agents at all.

My dad says to choose an estate agent, drive around your local area and see which one has the most ‘sold’ boards up. Not for sale. Sold. He has lots of properties and has made a lot of money from it, so I think it’s good advice.

I definitely wouldn't sell with an agent that didn't use Rightmove. I have always used it as my first port of call - I don't spend much time on the high street so wouldn't think of going direct to the agent.

Mailing lists have their place but again, most of the people on my mailing list came to us in the first instance via Rightmove. Either the property they enquired about wasn’t for them and they asked us to keep in touch or they’ve emailed via rightmove saying ‘let me know when you get X type house in Y area for Z price’.

Thanks for all the replies, its narrowed down the choice of agents to the ones who use Rightmove.

Rightmove only but the house we're buying was recommended to us by the agent based on our viewing another similar house with them.

I like Zoopla for its ‘most reduced’ search option, but would always check both.