When to contact estate agents ?

[Waytoomanycoasters]

Putting my house on the market in February.

Am already looking at rightmove in the new area but I'm told it's worth also contacting estate agents and letting them know you're intending to move as not all properties go on rightmove. Does that sound right? If so, is it too early to be telling them now?

Is it like a job hunt where you tell them criteria or do they just send you everything on the books?

Likewise with my home, do I give the estate agent a heads-up or just contact when I'm ready?

Do you know which estate agent you want to use? Have you had the house valued? If not and you want to go on the market in Feb, I’d be looking to get valuations in January.

We’ve bought twice and found we got nothing useful by registering with estate agents - they just sent us all kinds of random crap, and everything went on rightmove anyway. I think it does make sense to do on the offchance, but expect to be sent listings that aren’t what you want.

Our estate agents booked people in to view before the listing hit Right Move. So it may mean you get to be amongst the first to see a property.

Also, by speaking to EAs as a buyer you’ll get a feel for ones you definitely do not want to sell with 😂

My experience with buying is that you tell the agent your criteria and then they plug you into a system which will just automatically send you listings for the budget youve said and if you're lucky, the area you've said.... nothing more personal than that! And everythings on right move anyway.

For selling, depends how busy you are with Christmas. I'd be inclined to wait until January when everythings out of the way and I've done the big post Christmas clean. Then ring a few agents to come round. You definitely want to meet them and ask questions and you'll get a vibe for who you want to go with. Also think about who your potential buyer would have a good experience with too, do they pick up the phone and know who you are, are they easy to communicate with etc

I think it's worth seeking out an amount you can get for your mortgage (obviously this is just a rough idea as you don't know what property they'd be lending on), make sure your deposit is in one place (i.e. not in various little accounts that have different access arrangements), find the contact details of a solicitor you would be happy with and finally the details of a surveyor who would survey the new property for you.

If you have all this ready to go then you will be seen as an efficient and organised buyer.

None of the above will cost you anything!

Generally I find registering with estate agents is a waste of time. All they do is to set up their system to automatically e mail you details of any suitable properties that come up. You can do exactly the same thing for yourself on Rightmove by setting up an alert.

The only house details estate agents ever sent me were ones that I’d already found myself on Rightmove.

My personal experience was that we got no value from registering with estate agents in the area we were planning to move to. We got automated alerts for places that were vaguely (but often not exactly) within our search criteria maybe a few days early. They all ended up on Rightmove anyway and given we were 250 miles away and estate agents never seemed in a mad rush to book in viewings, getting an early heads up was of no benefit. I think in a fast-moving market, this would be more of an advantage than it is right now.

Regarding selling, we waited until we were ready to go on the market. The turnaround time is very quick as they are keen to get your signature at the start. In my experience, the service deteriorated notably from that point onwards. When assessing agents, it's important to remember that whilst they send out the manager to do the valuation and smooth talking, they likely won't be the person you end up dealing with week in week out. With hindsight, I would have insisted on meeting the person who would be my day-to-day contact as I would have picked a different agent.

Leave it until January. Once EA have your details they start being annoying and everything decent is listed on Rightmove anyway.

Thanks for the responses everyone, they've been really helpful!

Insist that the person who does viewings on your house knows and understands your property. Potential buyers will ask questions and be put off if the agent can’t answer. Thats why I prefer a small, local estate agent, who has good knowledge of the area.

We’ve recently moved, after nine months and three agents. The first provided no viewings, the second, several offers and one prospective purchaser, but it didn’t come to fruition. The third sold after three days and pushed through the sale.

When we were buying during the craze of 2021, it was worth my while ringing all estate agents asking them to let me know if any houses suitable were coming onto their books soon.
I viewd 4 places not on right move that way and only 1 of those 4 went online, the rest sold beforehand.
So if it's a popular place to move to, I would try calling them or going in to get them to let you know. I had to call quite a few times before I built up rapport with the agent who dealt with the new to books listings, as in 2021 all agents just couldn't be arsed as they didn't have to try to sell property!!
Email alerts - next to useless though.