Published: 27/03/2023
A question we get asked quite often is: ‘I have a large house in a good road that I want to sell, some of my friends say I should sell this “off market” do you think that this is the best way?’Before I answer, I would like to first explain what “off market” can mean. Typically, this means the property will not be actively advertised online. For example, you instruct an estate agent to not list the property on any internet site at all, and only provide details to a select list of contacts that the agent will have. Sometimes you can also have a for sale board at the property, but without any online presence.
You may think that this way the property is sold discretely, which of course does have value. However, we find that in most cases, word spreads swiftly in any event and you find the local people to the property are always aware. The price can then be misquoted and often this leads to confusion and an unclear asking price and indeed a lower final sale price is often achieved.
You can only sell your property once and everyone wants to feel that they obtained the best possible sale price. Therefore, I almost always advise to market the property on the market with a high street estate agent that does use all three of the key property portals. The level of exposure that the three largest property portals had in the month of February 2023 was well over 100 Million site visits, Rightmove had 92M, Zoopla 28.8M and OnTheMarket 13.9M (source similarweb.com). This means that your property is seen by far more people than any agent can hold on their records, and you can always be certain that you have reached all possible buyers that are out there looking and therefore ensure the best possible sale result for you.
Roundtree Real Estate has a dominant presence on all three portals and would be happy to assist with your sale; please feel to email us sales@theroundtree.com and we can discuss this further.