Newcastle company iamsold has launched a partnership with online estate agency giant Rightmove.
iamsold, which was formed 12 years ago in a Tyneside front room by Jamie Cooke and Ben Ridgway, has pioneered the Modern Method of Auction (MMoA) after seeking to fill the gap in the market for an online property auction company that could bring benefits to estate agents and buyers.
Last year the firm, which now employs more than 200 people, moved a step closer to seeing auctions become a mainstream way of moving when it announced a deal with 海角视频 property giant Zoopla.
Now the Gosforth business will become Rightmove’s first provider of the Modern Method of Auction, through the development of a new digital feature to help agents who would like to offer the method of sale as a choice to their sellers.
Technical work is currently under way with iamsold and will launch in the spring.
The innovative new feature is designed to give agents an additional route to market to offer to their existing and prospective sellers, and to help differentiate Modern Method of Auction listings on Rightmove.
The Modern Method of Auction allows buyers to use a mortgage to fund their purchase, and buyers and sellers are pre-vetted. To ensure a higher completion rate reservation fees and agreements are put in place too, and iamsold has a 95% completion rate on sales agreed. Fixed timescales are also outlined to deliver faster completions.
In an industry first, Rightmove customers who are part of iamsold’s partner network will benefit by automatically having all of their relevant Rightmove listings enhanced with information explaining how the MMoA process works, and real-time information about the latest online bids on the property added to these listings via an API from iamsold.
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Agents who don’t have an auction service have the option to sign up to iamsold to offer it to sellers.
Further information explaining the MMoA process will also be promoted on Rightmove with the aim of helping educate buyers and sellers on the option.
iamsold’s managing director Jamie Cooke added: “It’s our goal for the Modern Method of Auction to become a mainstream way of moving, allowing buyers and sellers more freedom of choice when it comes to the method best suited to their circumstances.
Working with Rightmove is a huge step in the right direction for MMoA and will introduce it and its many benefits to the site’s vast audience.
“The volume of MMoA transactions is increasing every year. More agents are offering it and benefitting from faster and more secure sales, while movers are choosing MMoA for its speed, security and transparency, which have become more important than ever in today’s market.
"As the category grows and through our Best Practice Guide, we continue to champion transparency. We’re highly passionate that all consumers should be given a fair and consistent service, giving them a positive experience of MMoA.”
Rightmove’s agency director Dave Anderson said: “We want to help give agents more choice to offer their clients, where they think this method would suit their sellers’ needs.
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"We’re excited to be working with iamsold as our first auction provider for this feature and hope that by differentiating these listings on site it will help educate buyers and sellers about the Modern Method of Auction, so that they know there are different purchasing and selling routes available to them from agents.
“We also hope this may 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.”