Your anecdotes of how EA early access (before RightMove listing) gave you a real advantage please!

lizards

We've recently sold our house and are now in the process of seriously looking. Of course, there's nothing worthwhile for us to view right now, after so many possibilities last year. 

All the agents we've registered with (in person - I suspect it helps for them to put a face to a name) have said they'll give us a heads-up on stuff before it hits RightMove. But realistically, does that ever truly work out as an advantage? We're viewing in a price range where I'm guessing, despite demand, that there won't be so many viewings that we don't have the opportunity to view by the time it's on RightMove.

We recently put an offer on at asking, we were the first ones to view having phoned as soon as the offices opened when it popped up on RightMove one evening, but unsurprisingly (as it's the sensible thing to do), the vendors allowed for a week full of viewings, and then best and finals and two weeks after we made our offer, we lost out to an overseas cash buyer with money to burn.

Even with the "off-market" homes, I can't see that it helps. My mother's house sale recently fell through, and before it was relisted she had half a dozen viewers, and a cash offer at asking price. Not unreasonably, and we've recommended she do this, she's allowing more viewings over the next few days now it's on RightMove again, though cash buyer only as they'd need to beat this offer and she needs a quick transaction now.

We sold ours "off-market", we were resting it over the winter for a fresh RightMove listing in the Spring and two viewers came along and started a bidding war. We're sick of viewers, having had a dud EA fail to sell our house before (clearly our new one is much better!), so for a desperately-needed quiet life (especially as I'm having temporary health issues right now, and we have four children with SEN) we didn't bother to relist and took a reasonable but not great offer from a chain-free buyer. Maybe we could have got more if we'd hung on another month and relisted, who knows... our buyer got lucky here I think.

So I guess that's my question - I'd love to hear your stories of how registering with an EA gave you a clear advantage (besides the ability to actually get a viewing to begin with!) as I'm wondering if most likely it's a waste of time getting an early heads up and offer in if those insanely rich overseas cash buyers swoop in later anyway? How many sellers just take that first early off-market offer for a quiet life? We have to be pretty rare?

Also, any tips on what to offer if you do get in early? Offer under, asking, over? Delay the offer?

Thanks!!

propertyhunter

It does mean you get to see some properties that others don't, and usually its the best houses that are sold in this way. 

I'm buying one off market, but it still had lots of offers and I still had to pay over asking, so not sure whether there is an advantage or not in terms of the offer process. The market is too hot right now. 

youth_leader

I was a cash buyer and had seen several properties with my EA when they said their valuer was out at a bungalow compiling the details.  I was able to view it first, and was lucky enough to purchase it.  

jkrbec

I think it can depending on how big the EA is - I'm currently buying a house and the EA is a startup, so they shared the house on social media so we managed to get an offer accepted before the house was posted on Right Move.

gwynlas

Our EA helped negotiate our seller accrpting our offer in order to move into their desired flat. We could not stretch our budget much further and the property was not of interest to families as garden small.It was less than 15years old but had been had obviously been built to suit an older age bracket. We could see the potential changed possible to make it our ideal home.

Drawingaline

We did it, but back in 2020 when the market was just waking up. Had EA out to value, normal chat, what you looking for etc, then he said they had a house hitting the market that eve and he could get us in to see it right away. We did that and offered asking price the next day, EA obviously wanted the fees, we marketed with them to sell (put it on 10k under valuation) and sellers have us two weeks to get an offer. They were moving abroad so no chain, worked out ok, even when we lost our buyer three months down the line!

But I don't think this would work now. We were fantastically lucky to have arranged the valuation just before the original stamp duty holiday was announced, and we are probably one of the few that genuinely saved on it as the house was valued before that and we didn't offer over asking price.  

Right time, right place.

newsgroupmonkey_

There are some parts of the market where houses aren't even going on rightmove.

An estate agent I know has at least 20 proceedable people already interested before most houses hit the market.

lizards

Thanks all - keep them coming!

newsgroupmonkey_ said:

There are some parts of the market where houses aren't even going on rightmove.

An estate agent I know has at least 20 proceedable people already interested before most houses hit the market.

That's an excellent point (and one others have alluded to as well) and one I hadn't considered - sometimes by the time they're on RightMove they have already had enough offers for them to not bother with more, so we wouldn't have stood a chance. I guess it's not just about booking in the viewings - if ten people out of ten viewings offer, why keep the hassle of more viewings even if you could fit them in?

benson1980

We bought a house in this way. It had an unresolved boundary dispute that we were told was in the process of being finalised, so I think they were delaying before listing it formally. We got a deal/all turned out well- to be honest we arranged some viewings on houses we weren’t really massively interested in, partly to bend the agents ear about anything they had coming up, and this is exactly how we found out about the house.

in summary- no harm in asking/pestering them. Just don’t expect them to come to you, necessarily, to give an early heads up.

lizards

One of the agents we saw yesterday said to keep pestering them (and other agents) and gave a similar sort of anecdote. As well as calling them regularly, maybe just going on random viewings gets them more familiar with us AND they'll be more likely to mention at those viewings about their other houses - that's definitely the feeling I'm getting from this thread!

Having been on the receiving end of 20+ viewings that were almost certainly never going to offer and shouldn't have happened (as we later found out when we finally got a list of feedback from our dud first EA) I always feel bad about viewings if we're not certain on a property, as they were such a hassle for us to receive ourselves. But it seems maybe that's the game that needs to be played.

Mahsroh

We registered with an agent to arrange a viewing (we actually ended up buying through the same agent in the end but a different branch)...... they rang me a day or two after said viewing and said "we've just had another come in that fits your criteria... we haven't got anything to show you yet in terms of photos or floorplan, but do you want to arrange a viewing?" 

We did view it (the house wasn't for us) and the lady who did the viewing said they'd had back to back viewings all day. I believe the house sold to someone who viewed that day. It never went online (not on the EA's website or the portals such as Rightmove). From conversations with them and other EA's, it sounds like this is very common at the moment.