Guidance from industry bodies states that properties should be withdrawn from Rightmove once the sale has completed, or the property is tenanted.

 

We remove Let Agreed stock after 6 weeks of being unavailable and SSTC / Under Offer stock after 8 months of being unavailable, as the transaction will usually have completed within this timeframe. This is for residential and commercial properties.

 

This helps agents maintain their stock in-line with the industry guidance as well as maintain the quality of content on Rightmove to keep home-hunters engaged with their stock.  



When are unavailable properties removed?

  • Let Agreed – after 6 weeks of being unavailable   
  • SSTC and Under Offer – after 8 months of being unavailable 

 

We used to remove SSTC and Under Offer stock after 6 months of being unavailable but have extended this due to the longer transaction times currently being experienced. 


Why 6 weeks / 8 months?


Most sales will complete within 8 months of being Under Offer or Let Agreed and most rental properties will be tenanted within 6 weeks of being Let Agreed. We know this isn’t always possible, so we offer the option to restore property listings if they’re removed by this process before the transaction has completed, which resets the clock. Covid has also played a part in the time frames for this:


Pre-Covid:


  • 98% of properties completed within 6 months of being sold STC, so this was the time frame we used.
  • This is the same time frame that Trading Standards advise - properties should be removed within 6 months of being marked as sold STC, and this is still the guidance now


Post-Covid:


  • Market slower than before, so we have extended the time frame from 6 months to 8 months
  • 95.8% of properties are now completing within 8 months
  • 1/3 of DQ complaints are about sold STC properties remaining on site after completion, which is why we have the job in place


Can this be switched off for a branch?

To ensure a consistent experience for agents and home hunters this process applies to all branches. If an agent has a property that still needs to be advertised beyond the 6-week and 8-month thresholds, we’re happy to restore them for the agent upon their request. 


How will an agent know that a property has been removed?

When a property is removed via this process, the agent will receive an automatic notification email, which is sent to their main branch email address. Here is an example of the email received:



Why do we have this job, isn't it our agents responsibility to remove their stock?


When we are looking at data regarding our decision around the batch job removals, we have used data provided from Data Services and Land Reg to see how long properties are taking to complete once being marked as sold STC.

 

1/3 of complaints for DQ are about sold STC properties remaining on site after completion. We also help keep agents stock fresh and up to date by doing this cleanse for them. 


How can we reinstate a property, if an agents sends in a request via email?


The most efficient way of reinstating a property is via a BOT that we have in Freshdesk. If the customer has replied to the removal notification email with '#UNDO' then the BOT will auto triage the email and reply back to the customer. If the auto triage does not work, we can do this. Currently, the bot can only process 1 property per email, so for multiple properties these need to be done manually.  


  • Set the category as Property > Appearance on site > reinstatement
  • Add in the property ID
  • Set the status as 'Ready for Bot' - This will automatically assign as Daryl
  • Click update on the ticket and leave 


The bot will then reinstate the property and also email the customer back, once complete.


What if the agent calls requesting the reinstatement or I need to manually reinstate the property?


If an agent was to call of the back of a property being removed, then the Bot will not be able to process this and we will need to do so manually. Follow the steps below in order to re-instate the property if the agent has confirmed the sale/let is still proceeding and they received the removal email:


  1. Take branch postcode/branch ID & search for correct branch in siteadmin
  2. Go to their property list in Rightmove Plus
  3. Go back to Freshdesk to get property ID from email/ask agent for the property postcode
  4. Go back to their property list to search for the listing in branch's not live list.
  5. Once you’ve found the listing go through into the Edit Property Page.
  6. Change the listings from Sold STC/under offer/Let agreed to Available (keeping it as ‘Not Live’)
  7. Click Save & View
  8. Change the propery list visibility to 'all', then go back in to edit the property
  9. Update the property status back to Sold STC/Under Offer/Let Agreed (you can check which status it was in the email/the agent can confirm)
  10. Click save
  11. Click view 'live' properties in the property list to make sure the property is visible and showing the right status


How does the bot work?


The bot works in 2 stages.


1. Triage 

The 1st is to triage new tickets, if successful it will extract the Property ID for the subject of body of the emai and set the status to 'Ready for Bot'.


To be successful the ticket needs to pass 3 tests.

  • Has Property ID in subject, and can be extracted
  • Has #UNDO in 1st 250 characters of email
  • Has 3 phases from original batch confirmation email


If it fails on any of these tests, it will set the status as 'Bot Processed - Needs Attention' and add the tag 'Bot Triage Failed'.


2. Property Reinstatement

For January 2021 the bot has processed 330 tickets, and failed on 25 of them - (7.58%)

The highest failure reason is 'Cannot find property', which can be caused due to slowness in RM+.


What if the bot fails?


Both stages of the process will set the ticket status to ''Bot Processed - Needs Attention' you need to look for the 'Bot Triage Failed' tag, and process these manually, by adding the Property ID and setting the status to 'Ready for Bot', or you will have to manually reinstate the property using the steps above.