I would definitely not sell off-market nowadays. You just get taken advantage of.
In the middle of last year, I sold my parental home. In the end, we got 25,000 EUR more than the listed price – and it was already listed at a cheeky price. Ultimately, 6 interested parties wanted to buy the house at the listed price. We then decided on a blind bidding process.
The house was bought by a well-earning couple. Still, the financing bank had doubts about the purchase price in the end, as they thought it was too high. The end of the story: loan from the family + a seller loan of 20,000 EUR and the deal was done.
We would definitely do it that way again. From my point of view, what’s really important is putting together a complete digital exposé that you can hand out to serious interested parties. This should contain all the property documents relevant to the bank. Then the financing approval goes quickly.
Of course, you also have to invest a bit of time for the listing, exposé, and viewing appointments. We scheduled viewing appointments every hour on two weekends, so within 9 days 40 interested parties could view the property. 10 of them came a second time that weekend. After that, everyone could name their personal price.
Using an agent is worthwhile again when you have difficult properties (condition, layout, location). In my opinion, those should be sold by a professional.