Four new online conditional auction providers have signed up to Rightmove’s digital feature for agents.
SDL Property Auctions, Pattinson Auctions, GOTO Group and Bamboo Auctions join existing provider iamsold in enhancing agents’ listings on the property portal’s platform.
The digital feature enhances listings with more information about this method of selling, to help home-movers better understand it when looking for their next home.
Agents who are already customers of these online conditional auction providers will automatically have the information added to their relevant listings.
As many of you will already know, online conditional auction, also known as the Modern Method of Auction, is a process of buying and selling property that allows a longer timescale for exchange and completion than at a traditional auction, designed to open it up to more home-movers.
Managing director at Pattinson Auctions, Caroline Pattinson, said: “Property auctions give buyers and sellers more choice when considering the best method of selling to suit their circumstances, and have been growing in popularity.”
“This method of selling has the potential to significantly reduce fall through rates compared to private treaty sales, and ultimately opens up more routes to property transactions for agents,” she added.
Most of the legal and conveyancing documentation is prepared prior to the auction going live, and buyers can expect to pay a non-refundable reservation fee of about 5% of the purchase price.
Agents can choose to partner with an online conditional provider and offer this additional route of selling to prospective vendors if its suits their circumstances.
Originally going live in April with iamsold, listings contain near real-time information about a property’s latest bids, alongside more information on how online conditional auctions work, and a prompt for people to contact the agent marketing the property to register their interest.
Rightmove’s agency director, Dave Anderson, said: “We’re really pleased to add four new Online Conditional Auction providers to Rightmove, to increase the number of agents who will have their listings enhanced and to offer more choice to agents interested in partnering with a provider.
“We hope this could open up more routes to property transactions for agents who may not currently be using an auction provider or who do not have their own auction service.”
The onboarding of four new providers is set to significantly extend the visibility of this digital feature and will be supported by further educational content on the Rightmove platform for both buyers and sellers.
Commercial director at SDL Property Auctions, Louise Moss, said: “We are confident our Estate Agent partners will see the benefit of these enhancements, and it will encourage others to look at selling and buying this way.”
Comments (4)
The fact that Rightmove is endorsing these companies who charge buyers an extraordinary amount of fees, which are also totally disproportionate to the value of the property, is very sad. The modern method of auctions, whatever that means, is synonymous with high costs to the buyer BUT also don’t forget that these charges come out of the buyers budget which means the sellers receive far less money by using these companies!
They don’t all get away with it. I’ve acted successfully for a number of buyers who have been misled by the so-called Modern Method. The problem for more than a few practitioners is the amateurish way a lot of their properties are marketed and the way the contracts are treated. A serious complaint over one factor, such as the seller not exchanging within the given time period when both buyer and seller are similarly bound and refusal to return the buyer’s reservation fee, often exposes other actionable discrepancies such as inaccurate or misleading property particulars. The reason most Modern Method agents get away with all this is because the main players are brilliantly good at persuading buyers and sellers that they are in the right and that they will not have a chance against them if they make a complaint. One letter I saw to a client puts Boris in the shade! The bubble is now a hot air balloon and when it bursts, the media will make it clear exactly what has been going on and that will hopefully be the end of this licence to print money.
Conditional auctions definitely have a part to play as a recognised method of sale and there are practitioners out there who do not charge high buyer’s reservation fees and who do not encourage all and sundry to sell their properties this way. They are the future.
Just when you thought RM could not sink any lower they start endorsing this horrendous way to sell a property.
How are these companies getting away with it? This isn’t ‘modern’ and it isn’t ‘auction.’ It’s daylight robbery and should be banned.