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 and also I'd never hear or know about your company, so I'm unlikely to know to approach you directly should I want to hear first about properties you offer in future.

There's a big market for people looking to be in with estate agents before the properties get listed on RM - that's the USP there. A VIP email list.

If I am actually marketing my house, I do think I would be hesitant to limit my potential market to people.

Im curious how people who aren’t local would be able to find out about the house? Would the house be included on a website that shows up if I Google “houses in X area” for example? I do that sometimes when I’m fantasizing about moving to specific places. I look for agents that are highlighting specific locations.

Do you call up Gocompare for your house insurance?

Rightmove is a platform for estate agents to advertise what they have

Just to let you know what it was like pre Rightmove (the internet, mobile phones (that worked))
We sold a house in 1997 and moved 100 miles south. We ideally wanted a 4 bed detached with an under an hours commute into Central London. So basically London and the Home Counties

We were visiting areas on train lines and spent our time in call boxes phoning estate agents that we had got the number to from the yellow pages in the library. All the EA said either they had nothing on their books or only had 1 place which wasn’t suitable

For some reason there was nothing for sale

We were in holiday cottage accommodation, our furniture was in storage in France (UK ran out of storage facilities) and every other holiday cottage on the complex was occupied with people in the same position

At one point we sat in a lay-by outside a train station wondering what we were going to do. I remembered an EA that only dealt with properties with stables. Knew the name and it was in the SE. Called 192 and managed to track down the EA.

They had one property for sale, it was in our price range and was incredibly 5 miles from where we were parked

Drove passed the house, it had a roof and 4 walls. I called from another pay phone asking to view. Waited in the call box for their reply. No one was in so offered immediately a price without viewing. Called back the next day and found we had bought the house.

If Rightmove had been available I wouldn’t have wasted 4 months of my life and £000’s trying to track down a property for sale. It would have taken a few clicks

I've found our local estate agents to be not very proactive. Registered with several and they rarely if ever send me anything. I would love it if an estate agent would tell me of properties that meet my criteria. Presumably that kind of personalised service would be quite time consuming though. Might end up costing more that Rightmove. And would exclude people from further away or who didn't realise the service was available.

I used Rightmove but I kind of assume everything is on there. I don't look anywhere else. If one popped up on a local FB page then I'd have a look.

The advantage of an estate agent is they give you the package of valuation, pictures, floor plan , information, viewings, fielding the phone calls, viewings and negotiation. If you're happy to do all that yourself then that's great (you will probably do it better than some estate agents) but it's the same as anything, it takes time and will be difficult for someone who has no experience or they simply may not want to. It's a bit like saying you can cook your own dinner for less than restaurant, well obviously...that doesn't mean there's no point in going out for dinner.

I don't think estate agents are any use for advertising in this day and age as everyone uses Rightmove.

The problem with the very cheap estate agents is that the service tends to be shoddy and will probably put buyers off. I.e. they don't answer the phone, have no local knowledge, can only arrange viewings 1 Tuesday a month as they cover the whole of the north of England...

I think you’re using RightMove wrong. You’re supposed to call the estate agent, and they have no idea whether you’ve seen it on RM, their website, a board outside their house or in their shop window until you tell them. Finding it on RightMove will have absolutely no bearing on whether they answer the phone or have viewings (unless they’ve neglected to take a sold property off RM).

TBF many a picture of a property can look really nice on Rightmove or any other web site, there are times, and more than a few in our case when viewing that the actual property/area wasn't all that the photos made it out to be, so for me personally I didn't find it as time wasting as making and attending viewings for times that suited everyone involved only to find that the property/area/surroundings weren't what we were looking for.

Oh @Yalta ... 😃

Google "selling off market".

There are plenty of us who don't need to see a digital noticeboard to know something is for sale.

https://www.hortonandgarton.co.uk/blog/selling-off-market/

I never let an EA put a board outside my property as a) i hate them b) it clutters c) it s free adverstisement for the EA who already charge way too much for what they do and I would absolutely want to be adverstised on rightmove.

i am sorry OP, you ve got to make that investment especially in a village setting word of mouth and SM not enought especially for those who want to relocates.

Yes, indeed.

Most house sales are a kind of slow auction process, even those that aren't sold officially via an auction.

If you just want to sell your house and are perfectly happy to find one person who wants to buy it and then arrange the sale straightaway, great; but most people want to know that they're practicably getting the best price, hence advertising widely on the open national online market, to maximise your reach and your chances of achieving the best proceedable price.

Nobody would put their valuable jewellery or antiques into an actual traditional auction and then state that they'll only accept bids from people who arbitrarily happen to be wearing red trousers, which is effectively the same thing in severely limiting your potential buyer base: anybody who is interested and has the money to buy is considered, with the highest offer usually accepted.

I'd never use an estate agent that didn't use Rightmove. You'd be completely limiting the customer pool.

It's not mind-blowing at all. Lots of people find buyers privately.

We did when we weren't even looking to sell but they made an offer and we decided to accept.

Have been searching for a house for sometime now. We are looking to move approx. 3 hours away. Thus your mode of advertising a property wouldn't reach us. Rightmove allows me to save properties, I can see if they are reduced etc, see when they come back after they've been removed with a different Agent at the same price and as is often the case a higher price. It's quite useful information