Sold Prior to Marketing

Nature_Lover74

Hi all, a new newbie here!  Hope you're all well.  I'm an avid reader of the forum but now I'm posting my first post!  Here goes.....
We've sold our house (STC) - hopefully!  Our buyer is in a rental property.  Trouble is, there's very little coming on the market for us to buy now; quite a lot less since we first launched online.  What I'm noticing online - in our area anyway - is more and more 'Sold Prior to Marketing' properties, in particular one specific EA (hereafter known as 'Agent A'!).  We tried to sell our house with Agent A in 2019 and weren't very happy with them overall, sadly, and we didn't manage to sell our house with them.  (We took a break from the process for a while - for the sake of our sanity! - but then went on to sell our house this year with another local independent EA - Agent .  I've registered with Agent A for pre-market properties but I can't help but feel they're not going to let me know about any upcoming suitable properties because we've now sold our house with another agent and not them.  (I noticed one house that we would have been interested in has come online this week but 'Sold Prior to Marketing' - but I didn't hear anything from them about this house, despite it meeting our criteria/budget, etc).  Or am I being unfair to Agent A and they wouldn't think like this at all?!  I honestly don't know what to make of things anymore; it's been such a rollercoaster ride of emotions since 2019!  I'd be interested to hear if anyone else is seeing more of this in their area and just having a chat about it really.  Thanks.    

Nature_Lover74

P.S.  I don't know how the 'sunglasses' emoji has got there sorry; that should be a 'B', for Agent B.  

user1977

Nature_Lover74 said:

P.S.  I don't know how the 'sunglasses' emoji has got there

It's a shortcut if you put "B" and ")" together, but it does seem to appear by accident more often than it's intended.

moneysavinghero

I doubt Agent A care too much that you dared sell your property with another agent. The commission they get will be the same whoever the buyer is. 

thriftytracey

I am house hunting and I haven't encountered the "sold prior to marketing" (yet)  
Add it to "Guide Price", "Offers in Excess of".   Sigh.
Quite refreshing when a property just states the price!

dimbo61

It does happen but sometimes there is a reason.
An unmortgagable house due to lack of kitchen or bathroom !
Properties requiring major renovations with bulging walls and subsidence which require cash buyers 

Nature_Lover74

Thanks @user1977; you live and learn!  And when it comes to technology, I *do* have MUCH to learn!  

Nature_Lover74

Thanks @moneysavinghero; that's what I thought really.  But I just wonder that Agent A may prefer to let people who *are* selling/have sold their house through them let them know before they'd alert the 'likes of me', who's dared to sell through someone else?  I'm afraid I wouldn't put it past Agent A, unfortunately; they really weren't great with us (too lengthy and boring to go into!).  Oh, I don't know; perhaps I'm getting too cynical about all this?!  Anyway, thank you for your reply.  

Nature_Lover74

Hi @thriftytracey; thanks for your reply.  I actually *did* see a plain, simple price online the other day; I kept having to check in case I'd misread it!  It was the only property that did though.     

Nature_Lover74

Hi @dimbo61; thank you for your comment.  As far as I can tell, there's no major issue with the houses that have 'Sold Prior to Marketing' (SPtM).  Well, there isn't any mention of it on the online particulars anyway.  I've lived in our area virtually all my life (not far off fifty years, gulp!) so I know almost all of the areas in the town fairly well and for the prices stated it suggested to me that none of them with 'SPtM' have got any particular or major issues; they seem fairly priced for a generally well-maintained house.  I can understand EAs have people 'on their books' as it were - I'm registered with Agent A myself now because there's nothing becoming available and I thought it was the thing to do to stand half a chance! - but I do worry that it's a bit 'inner circle', so to speak - and not giving everyone a fair crack of the whip, especially as it seems more common these last few weeks; even more have come online with this SPtM since I registered with Agent A.  As I mentioned previously, I'm not particularly convinced Agent A will do us any favours but I'm probably being too cynical.  Ah well, I'm sure the right house will come along for us....soon?!  *prays to the housing gods*.  Thanks for your reply.  

Nature_Lover74

I've just remembered (how did I forget?) that our buyer sold her previous house earlier this year through Agent A and that was SPtM as well.  (I saw her a couple of days ago; she's actually a friend and she also said she'd never go with Agent A again and that they've "been awful").  Anyway, there seems to be a slight trend for SPtM in our area at the moment (with this agent at least).