How estate agents can get the most out of Rightmove listings

I read a story in the latest Negotiator email newsletter on Saturday about advice Rightmove delivered as part of their national roadshow series in Bournemouth, that agents must sell the sizzle, not the sausage in order to generate more enquiries.

This is good, universal sales advice. It's also something that Julian O'Dell has blogged about for us previously: people don't buy features, they buy benefits.

However, along with suggestions of highlighting key features using capital letters and rotating the main photo occasionally (good advice), Rightmove suggest that you hold something back. That you show enough information to show a property off, but not so much that buyers have no reason to contact you.

I can see the logic of this. Getting people to register in order to receive the full details of a property helps you build and qualify your contact database, helps begin a relationship with people ready for future properties. But is this an old fashioned attitude from Rightmove? I can't see Google taking the same approach.

Aren't we in an age where house hunters simply expect better access to more information?

A couple of months ago, there was a discussion on PropertyOwl about whether estate agents need to bother matching applicants anymore, or whether property portals have effectively taken over that role.

Do people buy property or do estate agents sell it?

I suspect that the truth is somewhere in between. The answer to Rightmove's suggestion probably is too.

I did like the advice of trying an image rotation as a pre-cursor to a price reduction though. Anything that helps clients understand that you are trying to market the property appropriately, not just force the quick sale, must be a good thing.