Would you use an Estate Agent to sell your home who doesn't advertise on Rightmove?

[RavenHouse]

Would love your opinion. Is this a good idea?
I've been an estate agent for a long time, have worked for a number of companies and most recently for myself.
Rightmove have of course cornered the market and agents pay monthly fees to them now, in the thousands to have the privilege of advertising on their site.
Would you use an agent who cut their customers fees down by thousands but didn't advertise on Rightmove/Zoopla etc? and instead used social media and word of mouth?
This would be in a village setting, it wouldn't work for cities. Only a local agent within a small area.
There would still be a sale board at the property and the process would be exactly the same. It would just mean it would cost the customer much less in fees, a small flat fee instead of a costly percentage.
I'd be interested to get your thoughts?

We only bother looking on rightmove

No, I wouldn't. To my mind (born of recent experience) if its not on RightMove its not for sale.

No I wouldn’t

No.

If I wanted to sell in any sort of time frame - no I wouldn't

If I didn't care about time frame at all - maybe if it was significantly cheaper.

But the reality is i would say most people care about timeframe.

So you'd be limiting your potential purchasers to only the people from the village who happen to walk past, rather than the entire country/world?

Interesting, was it a private sale or up with an agent?

Depends where you live. Where i live there is already a local version of Rightmove that is more widely used. So yes I would not mind not being on Rightmove.

I wouldn't.

What I find fascinating about the replies so far is how the market for a house is perceived - that the entire property market for a house, is "people browsing on Rightmove".

In some parts of the UK, houses change hands without ever being advertised. Imagine how mind blowing that must be for some.

No. I exclusively used RightMove when looking to move. And my last move was 400 miles so I wouldn't have known of my house through word of mouth or local ads.

I wouldn't, no. Paying more to have a house marketed to the max is a good use of money imo. More potential buyers = higher chance of selling for a price that covers that cost.

I wouldn’t use them. When we looked to buy we didn’t search all the state agents separately we just did one search on rightmove.

No, I would want it on Rightmove as I think a wider audience would ensure the best sale price

In my village, I guess the market for this would be the people who sell their houses privately to save on agents' fees. So I guess if you were cheap enough you'd attract those sorts of clients. Typically they're also concerned about incomers pricing locals out of the market, holiday homes etc., so if you were also able to find them buyers who were local families actually wanting to live in the village full time, that would make your service more attractive. But on the other hand lots of people from elsewhere want to move into the village and those people are using rightmove, so I'm not sure this would be a viable business model here.

But nobody is saying that Rightmove is the only way; just by very far the most popular one.

You can have your house on Rightmove and still end up selling to somebody who only found out about it exclusively of RM.

I think if you have a niche property/location it isn’t outside of the realms of possibility. But for 99% of people it just doesn’t make sense not to be marketing your property adequately.

Estate agents are very unregulated in this country as it is, I wouldn’t be impressed by someone trying to cut even more corners.

I'm in a completely different demographic from what you're describing but my pov still might be relevant. I'm looking to move and currently can't deal with RM. I'm not getting anywhere - I ring the number, nobody answers. Or they take details and nobody returns the calls. On the other hand, I ring the agent directly and get the answers/viewings. I don't see the point of the middleman so I cut him out. I wonder how many vendors would feel if they knew potential purchasers weren't being introduced

We have a couple of local agents who operate like this. I think it really does limit buyers to those who already know the area, at least well enough to know those agents exist and be on their mailing list if not be on local social media. Otherwise you’re cutting out anyone from further away and/or not on social media (and a lot of people I know are no longer using FB for example).

As a seller looking to list it would depend entirely on what I thought the market was for my home and how quickly I wanted to sell it, to save on the fees. You’ll lose a percentage of potential sellers.

Advertising usually encourages more interest which in turn makes a higher offer more likely. My parents’ house is currently on the market, and advertised through Rightmove and other platforms. Last year’s unadvertised, private sale fell through at the last minute and the offers received so far after advertising have been far higher than the figure agreed with the private buyers.

I might use them as part of a multiagency contract or if the contract was really short- 2 weeks head start for example. I think its a business strategy (not one I'm convinced by) and so the agent should take the risk here, not me. There's no way I'd be signing a three month sole agency on this.

Surely, even if people do walk by a house they like and see a for-sale board which sparks their interest, they would then go to Rightmove for photos and details? Or would people prefer them to knock on the door and ask the householder?

I know you could make a note of the specific estate agent and look on their website - but they're usually much less user-friendly than RM; and some will just link straight to RM on their own websites anyway.

Who are you calling?! Rightmove is a platform for agents, not a middleman.

Definitely not.

The point of rightmove is that it shows everything; from all agents, in one place. I'm confused about why you're calling rightmove to arrange viewings / get information.