Every agency now claims to have off-market houses. Most of the time what they mean is a house that has not been listed yet, and will be listed in three weeks if nobody bites. That is a marketing sequence, not a private sale.

What a private sale actually looks like

A genuinely private sale has an owner who does not want a campaign, for reasons that are usually personal rather than commercial. A divorce that is not public. A death in the family. A house that staff and neighbours would recognise instantly from two photographs. In those cases the owner does not want a brochure; they want two or three buyers who have already been vetted.

Roughly two thirds of the sales we conclude never appear on a portal. That figure is not a boast. It is simply what happens when you work in six markets and take on a small number of searches.

How to tell the difference

Ask when the house will be listed if it does not sell privately. If there is a date, it is a soft launch and you are being used to test the price. Ask who else has seen it. If the answer is vague, the answer is probably everyone.

The useful question is not whether a house is off-market. It is whether the owner has any intention of ever putting it on.