Engaged an estate agent who doesn’t use Right Move

[Cheeseismymiddlename]

Selling a property in Cornwall. It seems to be priced about right for what it is, where it is . A little on the high side but so is everything around it iyswim.

Using a local estate agent who all seem lovely . Very personal service . However, they use On the Market / Zoopla and not Right Move .

Property has been on the market since June. Maybe 7 to 8 viewings. One lowish offer which we turned down as it was very early days.

I understand there reason for not using Right Move. They said they were having issues trawling through the number of enquiries that resulted in a dead end . On the Market / Zoopla leads , whist fewer were usually from more serious buyers.

Other issue, house was 3 bedroom. Now 2 . We were going to reinstate the third bedroom ( cost 3500 pounds so not an issue). Estate agent said leave as is as the open plan floor space it’s left behind is on trend at the moment.

I’ve no experience of selling in the last 20 years. In this current market , would you have expected an offer by now or is this an expected pace despite all the hype regarding an over heated market?

Just looked , it’s on Prime Location too . I only just realised .
We get a zooplankton report and it really does look like people are scrolling right past it. No many in depth looks . It’s not a classic Cornish retreat . It’s rather boring to look at but in good location, excellent transport links and close to the coast.

We're looking at properties at the moment and I'm checking Rightmove several times a day. I look on Zoopla maybe a couple of times a week because I don't find it as user friendly as Rightmove.

an agent literally telling you they can’t be bothered to follow up leads from the UK’s most popular property marketing website in order to get you the sale you’re paying them for is basically telling you they’re useless, aren’t they?

This. To a large degree the main point of an EA is to get on Rightmove, every other channel together is dwarfed by them. They might as well be saying they use fax instead of email because they don't get many junk faxes.

Now is probably a good time to put that 3rd room back since you will look new to market when you go on RM. It's not going to do any harm and might make a big difference, depending on specifics.

We were going to look at a four bed that had been made into a two bed....it never got onto the A list for us to go and see cos the photos were dire, and there was no farking floor plan, (and we found somewhere before we had to start trawling the B listers! ) however the agents had it in their blurb that it was possible, so maybe your lot could do that

...along with a floor plan of how it is, vs how it was? I know I get mad when there is no floor plan!

@Cheeseismymiddlename well as I said above, I’m like you, searched out everything, all sites, and local agents, but I was on a tight deadline when looking.
On Zoopla I like the ‘recently added’ scroll bar, although everyone else seems to say Rightmove has more properties I didn’t really find much difference, but maybe it was because I was looking in a relatively small area of London, ie within 1 mile, maybe if looking within 10/20/50 miles it makes a difference and Right Move does show more?
Regarding the 2/3 bed thing I expect being 2 beds does rule out some people, as even if you are only a couple you might want a spare room and now a small office?
May be worth considering putting back to 3 bed if it will get you a sale? You do have to think about selling with your head not your heart and try to reach as many possible buyers you can, that said you only need one person to buy it.

@WeAreTheHeroes. Thanks . I’ll see if I can post the floor plan . Traditionally our buyers would likely be local and retired, however it seems that as property is at a premium it could be bought by anyone . A similar property on the street has been bought by a young family . It’s pretty much all locals from what I can tell. We are a good 20 years to young for the street which is one of the reasons for selling . Our target buyer may well still be looking at the local newspaper property pages.
Price wise, it’s probably similar to the price of a 3 bed due to having similar square footage.
The third bedroom will be small and likely used as an office. However, the hallway is super light and airy and much more welcoming than the passage way that would be left behind.
Think we need to put in the bedroom and change agents .

They don't want to pay the Rightmove insertion fee.

People only look on Rightmove...

Are you able to share the property for more help?

There is a floor plan . The hallway looks spacious in proration to the bedrooms . The first line of the blurb mentions it used to be 3 beds . If I was retired and buying it I probably would knock quite a few walls out to open it up. But yes. I should probably put the bedroom in, sell it more easily and then let the new owners knock the place around to their own satisfaction.

Kithic, temping but probably outing. I use Mumsnet a lot. Mostly for moaning about my lovely but often infuriation DH.

Is it priced as a 2 bed?
Or priced like a 3 bed but without being a 3 bed… if it’s the latter then probably best to stick it back in
And unless there is a compelling reason not to why wouldn’t you change agents to one that uses rightmove? Many people would change anyway if there hadn’t been many viewings.

I work for an EA and agree with PP, the only reason not to use RM would be due to cost as RM cost a lot of money. We compared the data from RM to Zoop and got far more leads from RM.

We can't sell/rent properties quick enough at the moment, they are inundated with viewing requests as soon as they go on the market.

As for getting too many leads blah blah blah, if somebody really wants to view a house they will ring and make an appointment, so we don't get huge numbers of time wasting emails.

If I were you I would give notice and sign up with another agent when you can, and make sure that they use RM. It's generally the first place that people look when they want to buy or rent.

Floor plan .

Try again.

Definitely change agents. Rightmove has the highest number of high quality leads of all the portals. But apart from that, they have made a ridiculous excuse for not using Rightmove - you don’t get hundreds of pointless enquiries, you get enquiries from people hoping to move in the area or to the area. which they need to speak to and encourage to view your property. Their excuse is nonsense and I’d find it hard to trust and agent that said this.

Look at the number of properties they have listed and how many of them have sold, and compare that to other agents, to give an idea if they are actually good at selling the properties they list

Something like over 90% of buyers use Rightmove, their excuse sounds lazy, it’ll be cost driven.

I use Rightmove.

I occasionally look on Zoopla, but always get frustrated that I can't open the map to be full screen as I can on RM. Just looked at On The Market. Don't like it - can't select e.g. 2-3 bedrooms only 2+, big red bar across bottom of screen so can only see 4 properties on a page, can't add key word, can't full screen map, have to accept cookies repeatedly. Maybe I'm just used to how RM works ....

I've looked at your floor plan and can't actually read the room sizes. If I enlarge it, it just blurs. Might be different on the app.

Change your agent. We only looked on rightmove, I think this is common!

I am a serious property buyer , I look at right move constantly, occasionally look at zoopla , never on the market , but I do look at auction sites as well , Zoopla and on the market are neither good or popular , everyone looking is going to go straight to Right-move , I would sack your agent and get one that uses Right move , you have been with him long enough that the property should have sold by now providing its price is sensible

I can't really see as the picture blurs, but is the hallway about 4x4?

Around here I would suggest changing it to a 3 bed (you'd get many more viewings) but your local market (if it's a lot of retired people) might suit 2 bed more? I think the first thing you need to do is change agents. Our agents did a LOT to get leads - all the portals, emails out on a Wednesday- Friday for people on their database, bringing people from similar properties straight round to ours too. We were on their database for a while and they put a massive effort into getting leads so I don't understand why any agent wouldnt bother with them!

Thank you for everyone’s input. May try a different agent before reinstating the 3 bedroom. The house definitely looks more appealing without it . Having said that , if it’s stay on the market after a change of agent we will probably put the bedroom back in. It’s a matter of a couple of stud walls. It’s against similar 2 / 3 beds.

I’ve seen a house this week on Zoopla that isint on RM it’s only a small local agent so it must be the cost, perhaps they think it’s such a sellers market they don’t need to spend so much on advertising🤷‍♀️

Would the third bedroom be where the window in the hallway is? As it's a bungalow, there are options for improving the natural light in the hall if you restore the bedroom - light tubes can be very effective.

I can see the bathroom is a wetroom on the floorplan - I think they have limited appeal, but as it's a bungalow could be seen as a plus for some potential buyers.