Hope it does turn out to be the right move (RightMove.co.uk)

Member Name: yukkibear

Product:	RightMove.co.uk
Date:	22/07/07 (337 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: free sevrice

Disadvantages: not all agents are listed

We're in the process of moving to a bigger property at the moment. During this, we have had to put our one bedroomed house on the market, and are looking for a three bedroomed property.

Our house is on the market with an independent estate agent, but is also marketed on the rightmove website.

*What is rightmove.co.uk? *

Rightmove.co.uk is a website containing property for sale from all over the UK, with a small section with overseas property. They also host property to rent.

When we first put our house on the market, we were very confused as to where to go next. In Bournemouth, there are absolutely loads of Estate agents, and we spent a whole day travelling round to different ones, signing up with them to ensure we would receive all properties to suit our requirements.
This was really tiring and by the end of it I couldn't remember where I'd been and where I hadn't. We knew our property was going to be posted onto the rightmove website as well as the estate agents, so I thought I'd check it out that evening. Since then until the day we sold and found another property, I was on the site every single day, sometimes more than once per day.

*How it works *

There are several ways to search for properties on the site. You can enter the town/ region you are looking to buy in, or do a wider search by area of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England etc.

Using wide search can take a long time to get to somewhere where you may have an idea of where you want to live.
Example choosing England then takes you to the North, west, south, categories etc. This in turn takes you through a long process of all the counties within your chosen area.
For me this way of searching gets me no where fast.

We weren't entirely sure of where we wanted to live, but had a few areas in mind. I always choose the option of entering the town into the search bar. If you are renting then the option is here to look for properties that are for sale or rent.

The next step consists of breaking down your criteria so only the properties that meet your requirements will be shown.
These choices include -
your maximum price (ever useful as there's no point in finding the perfect property that is way out of your price range)
minimum bedrooms
type of land you want i.e. a house or bungalow etc.
Whether you want to search exactly within your chosen are or whether yo are willing to look a couple of miles outside the area.

I find this option invaluable as I know I can put in my three bedrooms, with the top choice and the website will do the rest for me.

As I mentioned we are looking at a few different areas, I have the option to keep my choices but just change the area. This saves a lot of time as it's just a couple of clicks and all my choices are saved.

*A useful service?*

In my opinion yes this is a useful service. Instead of trawling round all the estate agents either on foot or online, I can search most of them in one place.
Remember not all estate agents will be linked with rightmove.co.uk, so your perfect property can still miss you if you only search here.

*Finding a property / how they make their money*

We found a few properties using rightmove. With research I found that all the properties were provided with the same information attached to them on here as they were in the relevant estate agents sites.
The estate agent linked to the property is clearly labelled on the page each time, so there is no confusion as to who is marketing the property.
Upon phoning a couple of times, we were kept on hold a while longer than if we phoned the agent direct, as there is a low cost phone number to call which obviously directs you through rightmove, as this is the way they make their money back.

*What else does the website provide?*

There are sections attached to the site for buying and renting as I have already covered above. There is a section for buying a new property. I did search through this but soon found that most brand new developments were way out of our price range.
You can also browse properties abroad. This doesn't interest me at this time in my life, but you never know in future years it might, and then I'll know where to look.

One fantastic resource I have found by using rightmove is their help guides. They have provided lengthy instructions on the step by step guide to buying and selling, what to do next etc. I have found this fantastic, as both myself and my partner were very naïve when it came to buying and selling and weren't sure of what was going to happen next. With these guides, we at least have a bit more of a clue.

I would recommend the site even for these guides, as they are independent of any particular estate agent.

There is also a good section of finding houses that have already sold within your area, and how much for. This is a good comparison for you if you are looking to sell in the future. For this section of the site you do have to register your details and log in each time you use it.
For the rest of the site however no registration is required and it's free to use.

An option of receiving email alerts each time new property in your criteria is added, can be done. I have never chosen this as I find it just as easy to do a quick search each day.
It's tragic when I can spot a new property in my chosen areas straight away.

The site itself is not too cluttered with information, but still loads quickly considering there are gazillions of pictures to view.

*My situation*

We sold our house within two weeks, and managed to have an offer accepted within another week. It was all systems go until our buyers decided to be time wasters and miss three mortgage appointments. This has resulted in them being taken off the estate agents books and our house going back on the market. Luckily we have some interest so hope not to lose our house we want to buy.

Result = It's not fun buying a house and can be expensive. I don't want to do it again once we have gotten through this experience - well not for a couple of years anyway.

Summary: a place to sell your home