The Off-Market Myth
There is a question that comes up constantly in property sourcing, usually posed as a challenge.
"If you are just finding properties on Rightmove, what am I paying you for?"
It is a fair question on the surface. And the assumption behind it — that a serious sourcing agent should only be finding deals that never touch the open market — has become so embedded in how the industry talks about itself that many sourcers have started to believe it too.
I want to challenge that assumption. Not because off-market deals are not valuable. They absolutely are. But because the obsession with off-market as the only legitimate source of good deals is causing sourcers to miss opportunities that are sitting right in front of them.
What Off-Market and On-Market Actually Mean
Before anything else, it is worth being clear about what these terms actually describe.
An off-market deal is one that never reaches the open market. It will not appear on Rightmove or any similar platform. The transaction is agreed and completed privately, typically through a direct relationship between the sourcer and the seller, or through a connection that has not been publicly advertised.
An on-market deal is one where the property has been publicly listed and can be found by anyone searching in that area for that type of property. The assumption is that this creates more competition, potentially more bidding, and therefore less opportunity for the kind of deal that works for an investor.
That assumption is where things get more complicated.
What We Told Our Investors From Day One
From the very beginning of running our sourcing business, we were clear with every prospective investor about how we worked.
We would source potential deals from wherever we could find them. Direct to vendor. Via estate agents. Via lettings agents. Any legitimate route that produced a deal that worked for our client's brief.
We said this because we knew something that the off-market mythology tends to obscure. Most of the best deals we ever did did not come from direct to vendor work alone. They came from the relationships we had built with local agents over months and years.
And here is the key point that changes everything.
When you build a genuine relationship with a local agent — when they know you, trust you, understand exactly what your investors are looking for, and know that you can get a deal over the line without drama — they bring properties to you before they market them to anyone else.
That is an off-market deal. It just came through an agent rather than directly from a seller.
The Relationship Is the Strategy
The distinction that actually matters in property sourcing is not whether a deal is on-market or off-market. It is whether you are seeing it before everyone else, and whether you have the relationships in place to make that happen consistently.
An agent who knows you and values your business will call you on a Tuesday morning about a property that will not go on Rightmove until Friday. They do this because it saves them time and marketing costs, and because they know you will deliver. You get the deal before the competition exists.
That is not a compromise on the off-market principle. That is exactly what the off-market principle is supposed to achieve, just through a different route than most people describe.
We have done excellent deals direct to vendor. Some of the most creative and satisfying transactions in this series came from working directly with sellers and solving problems that no estate agent could have addressed. That route has real value and should absolutely be part of any sourcer's approach.
But if you are dismissing deals because they involve an agent, or telling investors that agent-sourced deals are somehow a lesser product, you are artificially narrowing your pipeline based on a distinction that does not hold up in practice.
Off-Market Deals and On-Market Thinking: Getting the Balance Right
The sourcing agents who consistently find the best deals are not the ones who have drawn the hardest line between off-market and on-market. They are the ones who have built the broadest and strongest relationships across every available route.
Direct to vendor campaigns. Leaflet drops. Probate enquiries. And right alongside all of that, strong, maintained, regularly nurtured relationships with every relevant agent in their patch.
One question worth sitting with: how many good deals have you missed because another agent already had the seller, and you had not built the relationship that would have brought it to you first?
Build those relationships. Keep them warm. Keep your investor brief front of mind for every agent you work with. And never dismiss a deal simply because it came through an agent rather than directly from a seller.
The best deal you ever do might be sitting in an estate agent's office right now, waiting for the right sourcer to call.
If you are an investor looking for a sourcing agent who already has those relationships in place, find a NAPSA member in your area here, or join our private Property Connect group for free and connect with credible agents directly.
If you want to learn how to build the kind of agent relationships that bring deals to you first, our Complete Sourcing Agent Programme covers exactly that.
