To not put house sale on rightmove/Zoopla etc

[cookadoodle]

Basically I’ve told estate agent I don’t want house on rightmove as would like discreet sale. The EA is saying they will find it difficult to sell without it but said they’ll try but they don’t think they’ll find anyone.

AIBU to say that surely the whole point of an EA is to find me someone to buy my house and if that’s through their books and finding potential purchasers that could still be possible? Honestly I don’t know, perhaps I’m a bit old! I’m now thinking of turning to purple bricks or something rather than pay a huge fee for just putting it on rightmove.

Surely if you want people to buy your house they need to know it's for sale? You can't rely on the EA having a large bank of potential buyers in a data base.

Saying you'll either use a traditional estate agent WITHOUT making an online listing, or use an online estate agent, is the worst of both worlds.

An online estate agent may be cheaper, but IME it's a complete waste of money; judging from our house-hunting experiences this year, you'll end up caving in after 6-8 weeks and going with a proper estate agent. I've no experience with Purple Bricks, but the online estate agent we viewed one house through was awful: never picked up the phone, didn't even have voicemail, didn't contact us for feedback, was barely interested when we contacted him for feedback (we liked the house, but it was very overpriced; 8 months later, it's dropped down to what we would have offered, and has sold via a traditional agent. All comparable properties nearby sold months ago).

In contrast, the high street estate agent who dealt with the house we eventually bought really did earn their commission, doing tons of work to keep a complicated chain together, liaising with solicitors, other agents up-chain and vendors. The initial marketing is just the start of it.

The online listing is vital, though. We did get lots of emails and calls about hot new properties from various estate agents once we'd started doing viewings, but we mostly ignored them since they weren't tailored to us at all: 'look at this great studio in postcode Y!' when we were looking for a 3-bed in postcode X', that type of thing. So without an online listing, your property may disappear under a pile of annoying marketing calls and spam.

You'll reduce your potential buyers buy about 98% but if you're happy to wait for ages for the right person to just turn up at the shop one day then go for it.

I know it's a cringe OP but you'll have to lay yourself bare Let them put a neon sign up if it helps.

Seriously though. Refuse the For Sale board if you have to but online really is a must.

If there's a lot of similar properties for sale in a similar area (ie a big estate of properties built to the same plan at the same time), then you might be ok with this approach if your trust when some calls about house A round the corner, the Estate Agent will say "while you're viewing it, there's house B on Y street that's also just come on the market, similar floor plan, would you like to view both to get a range of ideas?"

Or say if you live 0.2 miles from an oversubscribed school, and certain you can be out before the deadline to apply for a school place, you might get buyers who have said "Call me if you get anything with 3 bedrooms on X road."

But generally, the days of going to see an estate agent and giving a list of your requirements, then waiting for them to give you a list of houses meeting that in your budget have gone. Now, people phone up with a short list they've drawn up themselves from Rightmove/Zoopla and ask to view just those properties. At a push, if there's something similar the EA might give them details of the other ones, but that's about it.

I doubt it'll sell and if it does it'll be slow, when I was looking for my house earlier in the year I solely looked on Right Move and only went to see the houses that I liked on there.

What is it that you want to be discreet OP? Do you not want people to see inside your home, or do you not want people to know the value/sale price?

Because if it is the latter, the actual price paid if you do sell is published on the internet, for all to see.

As long as you’re happy to potentially have a longer marketing period and achieve a lower price 🤷🏼‍♀️

So you don't want the EA to put it on line, but you are thinking of using Purple Bricks who are online based. *
*

This!!

The whole reason Purplebricks are successful is because everyone looks online now

But you still have a local agent to do everything for you.

You can't sell your house for the best price without advertising to the largest market of buyers

You can ask for no for sale board - these are more to advertise the estate agent than the property

However, estate agents rely very heavily on Rightmove, Zoopla etc to find buyers

So, excluding them wouldd not only would you reduce potential buyers by 95% -
the estate agents might charge a higher fee for the extra work they would have to do,
maybe charge non-refundable costs too.

You can do what you like, but you won't sell it if you don't advertise it.

It’s not impossible that it will still sell but you’re depriving yourself of access to a massive market. Unless your reasons for having a discreet sale are very serious I can’t imagine it would be worth it.

As PP said most people look on the internet first.

I think GDPR makes it difficult for estate agents to spam their buyer list with properties unless people have specifically asked to go on their mailing list. And given how easy it is to set up an alert from Rightmove I think most buyers would rather do that, than contact each agent individually.

IMO it's more discrete for your EA to advertise it via Rightmove but not put a board outside the house. If I see a house in my neighbourhood with a for sale sign I'm right on rightmove/EA website to check it out. Yes, I'm nosey...but other neighbours have admitted to the same so it's just as it is. I wouldn't think to look if there wasn't a sign up though, yet those looking would still be able to find it.

I found my house via Rightmove and without photos and a floorplan I probably wouldn't have looked.

YAB(a bit)U if you want to sell your house.

It all depends on why you want it to be discreet. Probably you'll be better off advertising it online so you can actually sell it, but sometimes houses come up just through estate agents. There aren't many for sale near us, so the estate agents call up when you're looking. If you decide to go online only, we thought The House Network were very good, but we were only buying through them, I think the vendors were happy with them too though.

I've never looked for a house other than RM. so, I think it will be v hard

My goodness thanks for all the replies I’ve only just managed to get on here to read them. I’m feeling the unanimous IABU! Thank you

@NotACleverName hahahahaha oh god ok You got me. I’m listing it ASAP

FWIW the house is bespoke and not a standard house but looks like we may as well go down the standard route anyway

@Gossipygirl sorry that was re the fee being a lot cheaper than local EA. If we are going to put the house online anyway may as well not pay huge fee which every EA here seems to expect

depends how desperate you are to sell.
when we bought our house wasn't listed, but when we arranged to view another house the agent gave us a tour of 4 properties, 3 of them not listed online.

People will eventually be able to see how much you've sold it for anyway, it's all at the Land Registry and can be checked online. If you won't care once you've moved, fair enough. But given that it'll be public eventually anyway, if you just don't want people knowing how much it's going for, doesn't seem much point in potentially restricting your buyer base for privacy you can't ultimately have. If someone is sufficiently interested in your business, they will be able to poke their nose into it!

if the house is unusual that's even more reason to put it on Rightmove - it might be something a buyer would be prepared to move some distance to live in, whereas if you just have it on with a local agent they can only really market to potential clients they already have.

DH and I viewed a beautiful house locally which was halfway up a hillside, made entirely from oak, hadn't been on the market in forty years. There were ten couples at the open morning, and we were the only ones from within the county. (A couple from London bought it, for asking price, that day.)

So come on then OP what's with this 'discreet sale' business?

We sold our first flat before going on rightmove as the agent had a buyer lined up. We paid virtually no agent fees though as it was done via a leaflet through the door. I wouldn’t attempt a sale without using rightmove. When we were buying I only looked at rightmove.