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?

No I wouldn’t. The rightmove listing is the main way to sell your house. The estate agent is secondary. I also don’t understand why people use two estate agents. When you see the house on rightmove you then have to decide arbitrarily which agent to call.

Rightmove for me for sure.
I don't go onto our local estate agents website because their cookies policy means i am apparently accepting them if I continue. Bang out of order. Sod that. I can't be bothered fannying about with my phone settings either.

Rightmove means i can sort my cookie preferences quickly and easily.

If I lived on a coveted street such that money was changing hands under the table from prospective buyers bribing estate agents to get my house before it was advertised then I wouldn’t mind not being on Rightmove. If your village is somewhere like that then it could work?

unless it’s an unusual house I’d immediately assume there’s back handers somewhere. There’s a couple of agents near me who have not shown houses properly or advertised them properly because they are making big on a back hander

No, when we were looking for a house I looked up on Rightmove and Zoopla every day, several times a day.
How else can you get the info? There is no other way realistically.

we are selling our house - we have not been asked to pay for Rightmove

Nope

We purchased our property via a friend that knew the seller, we wanted to move they wanted to sell...job done, no EA involved.

I'd still look in EA windows, Facebook market place and if I knew the area I wanted to live in I'd do a drive round noting any for sale boards that were up.

Equally I'll look up an EA's own Web page and have a browse.

The estate agent pays out of the amount you pay them. It’s why the OP is suggesting this - if she doesn’t have to pay the Rightmove fees, she can cut her prices.

It’s the same as 20 / 30 years ago, the estate agent didn’t bill for printing details of your house or doing an advert in the local paper. It’s part of the cost of doing business,

You absolutely are paying for it, the estate agent just doesn’t break down their expenses when they quote.

Edited to say: Unless you are in the very rare areas (more common in Scotland, apparently) where for some reason Rightmove hasn’t taken hold. Otherwise, Rightmove is so ubiquitous that I’d expect you to be told if your house wasn’t going to be on it.

Only if I was in the billionaire market and using a really specialist agent.

No

Well how else do you know it’s for sale

What happens if you are new to an area and want to look within 30 minutes drive of your work. That’s an awful lot of time and money driving around on the off chance you see a for sake board for something that isn’t on right move

Not where I live, no. Here it’s the only place worth advertising.

That's not how Rightmove works. It's just an advertising platform, you see a house you like then contact whatever estate agent is dealing with it directly, as usual. You don't arrange the viewings through Rightmove .

No. I only look on Rightmove

Yes I'd give it a go if they're not your exclusive agent. Some independent agents are great at promoting on social media.

I vieweda house a couple of years ago that was lovely and unusual. We knocked on the wrong door first of a neighbouring house that was similar, and the door was answered by a child who told us their house was also for sale 'and we really need to sell, do you want to come in?' (We didn't). I couldn't immediately find it on RM but eventually tracked it down on a very posh agents website. Searching on the agents' site was so painful - for a start you couldn't define what price band you were looking for so had to look through page after page. The house was on the market for a good chunk more than the one we were looking at. Not surprising that it wasn't selling. Rightmove has a market stranglehold for a reason.

Not unless I was selling a luxury mansion and wanted to remain anonymous. So my buyers don't look themselves, they just ask someone to research for them then view and choose. But there will not be many houses like that in your area I presume.

Tbh we sold our last house privately. No board. Little point as very few people knew the road (tiny country lane) However it was on Rightmove
We went with an online “EA” who just got in touch with us if someone wanted to view.

We supplied all the pictures, the blurb, floor plan etc that they put on RM. We did all the viewings, negotiating etc

Flat fee of £99

Sold to the first person who came through the door

I also wouldn’t go with a non-RM agent. And your “in the wings” buyer would have to make a seriously good asking-or-above offer before i’d consider not testing on the open market for a few weeks at least- in fact it would make me concerned you had undervalued my house or were just desperate to flip it for a quick commission.

That sounds like an easy sale and, of course, some people want that as they can then start looking themselves.

But did you get them the best price? If these homes were so sought after, might you have been able to have an open day with the buyer you had lined up and a stint on rightmove. Then the seller might have achieved a higher price?

It maybe they wanted speed and, probably better surety, over a potentially better price but just a thought.

I don't think so.
Last time we moved I sold via an online agents. Because I knew the house would sell the same day it went on the market. And it did.
In the tiny rural town I live in now there is a recently set up independent agent that I would chose but they are on rightmove too. It sucks that they have a monopoly but it is what it is!

I always assumed the 'in the wings' buyers were just EA bullshit tbh, like when letting agents say that 3 other (fictional) potential tenants are just about to sign on the dotted line, to try and pressure you to commit.

To answer the OP, no I'd want my house listed on Rightmove and the EA's own website as a minimum. I wouldn't buy a house that was only listed on social media either.

I'd definitely want my house shown on Rightmove. If an EA had a 'ready made buyer' and didn't want to advertise I would suspect they are trying to rip me off.

I'd go to Rightmove to check prices for my area before calling in and EA.

I would also go to Rightmove when considering selling

I'm sure there are other ways of buying and selling but I suggest 90%+ are going to do it this way.

Are you keen to avoid it? Or coming up with some alternative approach that you hope to market?