Estate agents and finding your next home!

[integreatmedia]

Hi All,

Seeking some feedback from both estate agents (if we have any on here) and those who have sought to purchase a property at some point (most of us I'm sure.)

For buyers: if you could register easily with multiple agents in your area for early access to pre-market properties, would that have been of interest to you? Or do you prefer browsing the portals when properties fully come to market?

For any agents: would you be keen to gain access to a database of potential buyers who may be interested in early access to properties before you add them to the usual property portals?

 

[HFE Signs]

Any estate agent will be more than happy to take your details and the contact you with 'new to market' properties. The downside is, if a property hasn't been on the market for long, you are less likely to be able to negotiate the price down. Personally, I've always done my own searching and in some cases got properties at 20% under the asking price, I've never proceeded with anything less than 10% under.

 

[DontAsk]

Local agents around me are "pre-marketing" on Facebook, so I see no need for yet another platform/portal.

Problem is they are trying to create a buzz and get offers in quickly at a high price. I've seen quite a few that change to "sold STC" in the first few days, but are back on the market quite quickly. They then linger until the normal market mechanisms take hold.

 

[tony84]

As a seller, would you want your house marketed to everyone or just a few people on a list?

How often does the list get updated? I speak to a lot of people who you tell them how much you can get and within a week they have an offer accepted.

 

[integreatmedia]

As a seller, would you want your house marketed to everyone or just a few people on a list?

How often does the list get updated? I speak to a lot of people who you tell them how much you can get and within a week they have an offer accepted.

The idea is a tool which allows buyers to register in a single place and then agents can push notifications to them of potential property matches via the platform. This would be in an anonymous fashion initially for the estate agents e.g. they would be sending a property suggestion to 'Interested buyer seeking 2 bedroom flat in x location in position to proceed' in order to stop the buyers from being spammed.

 

[fisicx]

For buyers: if you could register easily with multiple agents in your area for early access to pre-market properties...

Is this even a thing? Rightmove (and other platforms) tell me when new properties come on the market. Is it that important to know about pre-market properties?

In any case, you don't buy a house like a bag of spuds. It's something most people only ever do a few times in their lives so you would only be interested in a service like this when you were looking to buy.

Rental however is a totally different ballgame.

 

[HFE Signs]

As a seller, would you want your house marketed to everyone or just a few people on a list?

How often does the list get updated? I speak to a lot of people who you tell them how much you can get and within a week they have an offer accepted.

True but as a seller it may well put you in a position where you can say 'I'm not accepting anything other than the asking price at this stage as we have only just gone to market'

 

[tony84]

True but as a seller it may well put you in a position where you can say 'I'm not accepting anything other than the asking price at this stage as we have only just gone to market'

That happens now.

 

[BusterBloodvessel]

I don't understand. I'm looking at buying now, so I have an alert set up on Right Move.... I've drawn the exact specific area I want on a map, set some criteria around house type and values and I get emails most days now with at least 1 or a couple of properties on.

How much earlier access can I really get? Would agents want to be updating a different platform just to get to the small number of users that are on that a couple of days earlier? Would I want to register with another platform just for the same reasons? Probably not.

 

[HFE Signs]

That happens now.

Of course it does but we are discussing a pre-market situation so it is more likely, when people have been on the market for longer they are more likely to take a lower offer

 

[tony84]

I don't understand. I'm looking at buying now, so I have an alert set up on Right Move.... I've drawn the exact specific area I want on a map, set some criteria around house type and values and I get emails most days now with at least 1 or a couple of properties on.

How much earlier access can I really get? Would agents want to be updating a different platform just to get to the small number of users that are on that a couple of days earlier? Would I want to register with another platform just for the same reasons? Probably not.

Funnily enough this is what I did with out first home.
My Mrs couldnt drive, so we had to be within walking distance of a particular bus route. How do you explain that without sounding a bit mad to an estate agent.

Now we want to move to an area that is in school catchment area, within walking distance to work for my Mrs and a certain style of house we want - so we just draw the area and like you wait for updates... Its a very small area to get everything we want.

 

[DontAsk]

How much earlier access can I really get? Would agents want to be updating a different platform just to get to the small number of users that are on that a couple of days earlier? Would I want to register with another platform just for the same reasons? Probably not.

On The Market claim to have properties 24 hrs before rightmove.

As I said above, some agents are posting properties on Facebook before they appear on rightmove, but it doesn't seem to be benefitting anyone.

If you want early access, register directly with local agents. There's one in our village who has sold a number of properties that were never listed on rightmove.

 

[BusterBloodvessel]

Funnily enough this is what I did with out first home.
My Mrs couldnt drive, so we had to be within walking distance of a particular bus route. How do you explain that without sounding a bit mad to an estate agent.

Now we want to move to an area that is in school catchment area, within walking distance to work for my Mrs and a certain style of house we want - so we just draw the area and like you wait for updates... Its a very small area to get everything we want.

I have a similar but different situation. There's a particular area I'd like to be in a specific area - within walking distance of some shops, and most importantly a pub that I particularly like. How do I explain that to an estate agent without sounding like an alcoholic?

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

For buyers: if you could register easily with multiple agents in your area for early access to pre-market properties, would that have been of interest to you?

Presuming your object would be to have as many people as you could sign up for this service there will surely come a point where so many are registered that 'early' doesn't mean earlier than other buyers.

For any agents: would you be keen to gain access to a database of potential buyers who may be interested in early access to properties before you add them to the usual property portals?

See above........

 

[integreatmedia]

Thanks for all the input guys - really appreciated.

How about if as a buyer you could just register in one place with all the local estate agents, and set your preferences, buying status, budget etc.? Without having to repeat yourself to every agency/ find every agency.

Noting that not all agencies publish to Rightmove/ Zoopla.

 

[fisicx]

Thanks for all the input guys - really appreciated.

How about if as a buyer you could just register in one place with all the local estate agents, and set your preferences, buying status, budget etc.? Without having to repeat yourself to every agency/ find every agency.

Noting that not all agencies publish to Rightmove/ Zoopla.

All the local estate agents list on rightmove and others. If there was one that didn’t nobody would use them to sell their property.

Suppose you set up this registration thing, why would all the estate agents want to sign up? How are you going to interface with the many databases to set preferences? Consider also when searching we often changed the filters, budget, location etc.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Thanks for all the input guys - really appreciated.

How about if as a buyer you could just register in one place with all the local estate agents, and set your preferences, buying status, budget etc.? Without having to repeat yourself to every agency/ find every agency.

Noting that not all agencies publish to Rightmove/ Zoopla.

This has the feel of a solution looking for a problem.

However efficient they are, this is precisely what Rightmove etc are aiming to do - and they have big budgets and lots of traction.

Your chances of rolling this out nationally are slim and any advantage you gain will be met by the big boys.

As is usually the case, what you need to do is to find a niche too small for them to bother with and create a solution to a real problem

 

[fisicx]

We are looking for assisted living places for aging parents. The filters for these properties are very poor. If you could develop a really good search engine for these sort of properties you could get some traction. Especially if you could list properties still being built.

 

[Nathanto]

The filters for these properties are very poor. If you could develop a really good search engine for these sort of properties you could get some traction.

I was literally about to post the exact same thing. I've been considering buying in the Cotswolds and an absolute deal-breaker for me is "listed" buildings but of course it's not in Rightmove's interest to exclude properties so you can't easily filter those out.

I'd definitely use a site that could better filter properties although unsure how you'd monetise it; adverts I guess.

Back to the OP and I think the fundamental flaw in "early access to pre-market properties" is that it's a tiny sector of the market and I'd have thought rarely in the best interests of the seller...

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

This has the feel of a solution looking for a problem.

My thoughts, along with 'doesn't this already exist?'.

 

[DontAsk]

I'd definitely use a site that could better filter properties although unsure how you'd monetise it; adverts I guess.

Use Zoopla, which has free-entry filtering, much like Google search. I just tried and adding "-listed" to the filter excluded quite a few properties. How accurate it is, I can't say. That would depend on the listing stating that the property is listed. I think most do.

 

[Paul Norman]

I hope never to be looking for another house, to be honest.

But when I last did, in 2013, I did two things.

1. Drove around the areas I thought I might like to live to look out for sales boards. Proper old school.

2. Did a bit of online searching. This came up with relatively few results, actually, but not zero. I then drove to look at the outside of the properties that caught my eye before arranging a proper viewing.

I did register with a couple of estate agents. All of them pretty much ignored the spec I gave and just pulled out details of random properties. No viewings arrived from this source.

I ended up buying after option 1.

Personally, getting first dibs on new stuff coming onto the market might get my attention, though. Depending on how that worked. Rightmove do this, and so do Zoopla, but it only works if the feeds from the agents are up to date.

 

[BusterBloodvessel]

Thanks for all the input guys - really appreciated.

How about if as a buyer you could just register in one place with all the local estate agents, and set your preferences, buying status, budget etc.? Without having to repeat yourself to every agency/ find every agency.

Noting that not all agencies publish to Rightmove/ Zoopla.

What % of agencies don't publish to Rightmove/Zoopla, or OnTheMarket being the other big one i believe. The % must be absolutely miniscule. And if they've not been persuaded to join any of those platforms, what makes you think they'll join yours?

This has the feel of a solution looking for a problem.

This, basically.

 

[integreatmedia]

Appreciate all the input, thoughts and reality checks.