Rightmove has announced that it is building a feature that will allow agents to offer vendors the option to sell via the modern method of auction. The British portal is currently working with auctions software provider iamsold to build out the new functionality which will be integrated into the website on property listings.
Rightmove customers who are already registered with iamsold will automatically have the information around MMoA on their listings along with information around the latest bids for each listing fed onto Rightmove's listing page via an API. For those who are not already working with iamsold, they will be offered the chance to do so to expand their options for sellers.
Rightmove’s agency director Dave Anderson told British agency publication Property Industry Eye:
“We want to help give agents more choice to offer their clients, where they think this method would suit their sellers’ needs. 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."
There has been renewed outrage among agents recently as news filters through the industry that Rightmove is once again raising the prices of its listing packages. The justification from the portal giant has been that it is improving its offering and adding more tools for agents to sell their properties with today's announcement being one such tool.
Rightmove is not the first property portal to look to auctions on its platform. Several auction functionality providers have sprung up in the last few years, and Zoopla signed a similar deal with iamsold back in July 2020.