Looking to buy - rightmove / Zoopla my only options?

BMTH

I'm a FTB so very new to this. Just had confirmation of how much we could potentially borrow so going to have a look at what's on the market and get the ball rolling.

I've only ever looked for houses on Right move and Zoopla. Excuse my naivety but is this my best bet for searching? Will the estate agents just have what's on these websites anyway or is it worth popping down and speaking with them?

housebuyer219

Personally I would say these days online. Once you have know your area and you meet the agent on viewings you can always ask for a heads up for other properties coming on etc

Zerforax

OnTheMarket is another website but otherwise I would mostly use Rightmove. They are the biggest of the 3 websites and will have all the other listings there (some estate agents dont use the other 2 though).

Everything is online now - your local estate agents will not have any listings that they haven't put online. All the information you will want will generally be online too.

SprostonGreenHead

There might be a tiny, tiny minority of properties available for sale that aren't online, because the sellers didn't want the fact they're selling publicly advertised. Would think this to be a tiny portion of the market and if it was me, I'd only pursue these if my criteria was only wielding a tiny amount of results.

Enquiring with local agents to the area you're looking and giving them your criteria should identify these, but I would personally not bother and just use RightMove.

mi-key

Pretty much all agents use rightmove now anyway, but you can also look on the individual websites of agents in the area you want to move to. 

MikeJXE

Sign up for mailing list with all the agents in the area you are looking. Rightmove is about the best you can do, get on alerts with them for the property, price range and location and then you don't need to look everyday they will be emailed to you 

km1500

There is also primelocation.com

But rightmove has most stuff

youth_leader

Once you've found a house you like, I would recommend looking on Google Street View and 'walk around'.  Look for bus stops, shops etc.  

pinkteapot

In a very hot market - things selling extremely fast - there may be properties that never make it to Rightmove because the agent rings a few buyers and they snap it up. I'm not sure any part of the country - even London - is in this state at the moment?

Otherwise yes, Rightmove. Set up a search area and get email alerts for it to learn of new properties quickly. 

Doesn't hurt to pop in to or ring agents to say you're looking and are very keen, but, to be blunt, if you're a FTB and come across like you really don't know what you're doing, or are very nervous, it may actually go against you. 

Be prepared for the fact that when you ring to book a viewing, if you've not dealt with that agent before, they'll ask for (1) the sort of price house you're looking up to, and (2) what you're looking for (e.g. no bedrooms, particular area, any other preferences). 

Sunsaru

You might want to check all the main sites as I've come across a few estate agents that don't use RM due to the fees.

Murphybear

Zerforax said:

OnTheMarket is another website but otherwise I would mostly use Rightmove. They are the biggest of the 3 websites and will have all the other listings there (some estate agents dont use the other 2 though).

Everything is online now - your local estate agents will not have any listings that they haven't put online. All the information you will want will generally be online too.

I found that that most of the properties on Rightmove and  OnTheMarket were the same.