Your Right Move » Overview

Sarah Beeny 19 Zoopla 10

Zanet — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:19:07 +0000

Now we it’s not a football score, but Sarah Beeny with Tepilo and Zoopla must be proud with the result of coming #19 and #10 out of 100 respectively.

That was the outcome of the annual Startups 100. This is the definitive countdown to the UK’s most innovative, inspiring and ground-breaking new companies.

This years Startups 100 list includes those who they think are the best, most exciting, promising, disruptive new businesses and entrepreneurs shaping the start-up market right now.Some you’ll know and some are less familiar, but they’re confident they’ll be a few more household names on the 2010 list by the time we start compiling next year’s countdown!

Start ups Zoopla and Tepilo success

Sarah Beeny’s Tepilo.com made the list at number 19, just beaten by Levi Roots Reggae Reggae Sauce web site and Alex Chesterman and Simon Kain zoopla.co.uk at number 10

# 19 Tepilo.com
Launched in August 2009, Tepilo is Channel 4 presenter Sarah’s alternative way to buy, sell or let your property, all for free. After realising most buyers were on the internet searching for property, and that only agents could upload property to key sites, it seemed logical to create a site that enabled sellers to upload property themselves, and save agency fees in the process. With just under 8,000 properties on the site at any time, Tepilo has already attracted 25,000 registered users, and has now launched a lettings arm.

# 10 Zoopla.co.uk
Zoopla.co.uk is aiming to become the UK’s most comprehensive source of residential property market information. With the aim of helping buyers, sellers, owners and estate agents gain an advantage in the property market, Alex and Simon set up Zoopla.co.uk following the success of their other venture, LOVEFiLM.com. The service offers greater transparency to customers, offering free instant value estimates on every UK home and enabling buyers to express interest in any residential property online. The acquisitions of Thinkproperty.com from the Guardian Media Group and the Propertyfinder group in the summer were key turning points for the company last year.

Do tenants need insurance

Zanet — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 12:14:27 +0000

Do tenants need insurance?

Renting rather than buying can be seen as a more flexible way of living: you’re not tied down to a mortgage, maintenance is someone else’s problem and it generally means you have less responsibility for the property. But having raised the “r” word, it has to be said that tenancies also carry responsibilities – and there can be risk involved.

The simple answer to the question is yes, tenants do need insurance. It is the landlord’s responsibility to have insure their own contents and and have buildings and liability cover, but don’t assume that this covers any of your possessions or liabilities. In fact, landlords can’t insure their tenants’ property because you can’t obtain cover for something you do not have an insurable interest in. So, at the very least, you need to ensure that you have the correct amount of cover for your own possessions – and that you have the right type of cover. Standard contents insurance typically does not specifically cover all the associated risks with being a tenant but specialist policies are available.

Then you have to think about your landlord’s contents. Even in an unfurnished property, there are fixtures and fittings to consider: carpets, kitchen and bathroom fittings, white goods. As a tenant you have a responsibility for those.

Many, particularly those who envisage only a short tenancy, tend to think of the deposit they pay upfront as a sort of insurance cover for any minor bits of wear and tear that need putting right when they leave. Think about it though: you are probably going to need that money to pay the deposit on your next rental and do you really need the hassle of arguing how much of it your landlord is entitled to retain?

While a landlord can’t insure your possessions, you as a tenant can and should have cover for accidental damage to your landlord’s property that you are responsible for. You may think that you are the careful sort who will take care of the premises, but it doesn’t take a party with Youtube potential to incur accidental damage that could rack up quite considerable costs. Think red wine and carpet.

As an occupier of a property, certain liabilities can fall on your shoulders. If you employ, say, a gardener or a cleaner, you should have employer’s liability cover.

You also need to be aware of circumstances that could invalidate your insurance, such as unofficial sub-letting. From the insurer’s perspective, getting a friend to house-sit for a couple of weeks while you are on holiday would probably be viewed as a sensible risk management measure. Having someone caretaking a property can mitigate damage from an emergency such as a burst pipe as there will be someone on hand to deal with it immediately. The same would not apply if, for example, you were seconded away from home for work for a month or two and decided to sub-let the property to someone in your absence. Quite apart from the implications this could have for your tenancy agreement, from an insurance perspective it would be regarded as an unofficial sub-let and cover could be voided or prejudiced.

Do tenants need insurance

There are specific risks associated with tenants that don’t apply to homeowners so it pays to look for a specialist insurance policy designed to cater for them. If you are sharing, for example, you can hold insurance in joint or individual names and tenants’ insurance will often include additional benefits such as cover for locks and keys, legal expenses and emergency assistance.

Without insurance, you are essentially gambling with your deposit and your own valuable possessions. And you could very easily find yourself in circumstances where the deposit could be insufficient to cover any costs that the landlord expects you to pay.

Nigel Atkinson, National Business Development Manager and PropertyRisks are on www.propertyrisks.com.

How to move in

Zanet — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 16:00:13 +0000

Choosing the best home and making the right move is one thing. But on the day you move, you want to avoid as much stress as possible. Lets show you how to move in.

So what can you do in preparation of the big move in day?

Beforehand, a good few garage sales and car boots will help provide a little extra cash and clear some unwanted boxes which will make it a few boxes less on the big move day. Moving house is a chance for a fresh start in a new environment and so getting rid of the possessions that weren’t needed in your old house and which only served to make a mess, reinforces this change.
Your next step is to search the local papers or the web for a good van hire company. Finding discounts and offers is also pretty easy if you’re willing to search hard enough. Once you’ve chosen a vehicle and a good van rental company place your order and head down to collect the van on the chosen day. Ask yourself whether you and a few friends do all the work or do you hire removal men? The choice and cost is yours.
Now a big choice before you move in, do you allow some time to decorate before moving? You could keep most of your goods in storage for a few weeks and use the time to get some decorating done before moving in to your new home.

Simple guide to how to move in

But its now the day to move in, so what do you do?

Depending on whether you already have the keys or not, try and set out as early as you can in the day to avoid unforeseen issues. Try and have realistic goals. Realistic is knowing its probably going to be fish and chips round the corner for tea.
Try and get a few friends to help out and buy them a takeaway that evening. Many hands make light work and that is never a truer saying on this particular day.
Aim to at least get your bedroom straight enough to sleep in that night.
If you have the rooms then use one room for a dumping area from which you can draw from over the coming days.

There you go, it probably wasn’t too bad now you know how to move in - but where is the remote control for the television?

Estate agents keen to price property

Zanet — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:39:10 +0000

How easy is it to get an estate agent to provide a price estimate?

For the best part of the last year I’ve received an endless amount of leaflets politely offering a free valuation for my property. You know the type that claim that they have a Mr and Mrs X in their office waiting to buy our property, so pick up the phone and they will instantly provide us with an estimate of what the property value is and allow Mr and Mrs X to view at our convenience.

Last week i decided to find out how quickly can out local estate agents provide us with a free estimate of the value of our property, knowing that is all we wanted of course Tepilo and Zoopla offer an online guide, but its not quite the same.

How many Estate agents are keen to price property

To some degree it would give us an idea of how busy the market is and asses how keen the local agents were to take on new property.

After getting through the 10 to 15 minutes of providing all sorts of details we eventually get down to the main question, can you send someone round tomorrow?

The Outcome

We chose 5 local agents, of those 5 we managed to book 3 agents in the following day and two others could make it the following week. So it seemed quite easy to get them round and to give them credit they were able to give some helpful tips on where they felt the market would fall over the coming weeks.

If you do decide to select an estate agent then i suggest its worth using those with local knowledge and ones who have been recommended to you personally or an estate agent who you have used previously. Don’t worry to much about their fee as this is always negotiable. A great service, one that keeps you informed and gets a good number through the door is just as important as it increases the likelihood of a decent offer that could out-weigh any difference in fees.

Are Estate Agents needed

Zanet — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:30:20 +0000

I’ve been weighing up over the last year as to whether estate agents really are needed.

With Tepilo providing an estate agent free way of selling along with zero costs it has to be a consideration.
So i decided to invite some estate agents round to value my property at the weekend.
One estate agent from a national company and tow independent estate agents.

The purpose was to decide an answer to the questions:

Are Estate agents needed?
What value do Estate agents have?

Are Estate Agents needed?

Before hand i had used the excellent Zoopla app that we reviewed last week on Yourrightmove .co.uk but disappointingly the valuation of my property seemed exceedingly low. The reason being is the Zoopla application could only base its valuation on the fact that i bought the property 4 years ago for £250k. What it the Zoopla app doesn’t realise is this was a bargain price and the property was actually worth in the region of £265k. As you are aware, few people will offer £265k when the bulk of that figure will require a 3% stamp duty. Whereas £250k brings the stamp duty down to a sensible 1%.

In the Estate Agents Favour

The estate agents could easily see this as their valuation is based on what they see with there own eyes, in the same way a buyer will make an offer and purchase a property based on what they see. So Zoopla estimated a value of around £250k whereas all three estate agents estimated between £280k to £289k a hefty 50k difference. Even paying 3 or 4 k for an estate agent gives me good reason to justify that.

So as much as I’m not a massive fan of estate agents, and as keen as i am for something like Tepilo or another on-line estate agent to succeed, I suddenly realised there is a real value in another set of eyes viewing my property based on what is seen. Additionally they could take into account my rewiring , my double glazing of 4 bay windows, my reinforcing of the roof and the new decking area, new guttering and new fireplace with a log burner, additions that Zoopla could never know.

At the moment the question stands : Are Estate Agents needed? – Yes

Zoopla Vs Rightmove App Final Round

Zanet — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 08:21:08 +0000

ZOOPLA V RIGHTMOVE PROPERTY APPS FINAL ROUND

The apps are just pocket store fronts to the main web site and company
If the app works great but all communication via the web site or estate agents fail then the app has served little purpose

So which web site and company have the greater stability? Which one claims the highest visitor traffic in the UK and thereby is most likely to have proportionately more buyers viewing?

the final round for the battle of the apps

Already the apps get their own ratings on itunes – current scores:

Zoopla
version 1.0
18 ratings 4.5 stars

Rightmove
version 1.1
17388 ratings 3.5 stars

We felt that this isn’t a true reflection as the numbers for Zoopla are minimal at this point.

So we decided the main site would serve as another good barometer.

According to Alexa
Zoopla.co.uk On line since 21-Feb-1997
Alexa traffic rank for Zoopla.co.uk: 197 in the UK

Rightmove.co.uk On line since 07-Sep-1999
Alexa traffic rank for Rightmove.co.uk: 29 in the UK

Verdict: Rightmove is likely to have more UK buyers using the app as it still has a large monopoly over the others in web traffic.

Final Result: Draw
3.5 Zoopla
3.5 Rightmove

FINAL CONCLUSION

The Rightmove app would of easily lost if it didn’t address the bugs in version 1.0. Since 1.1 the app is stable and still offers the most properties for sale and rent.
Zoopla however is a much easier app with some beautiful extras tucked away in the background.

Both apps in our test provided a faultless experience.

Tepilo are about to launch their version as another challenger to these apps

Meanwhile my suggestion is you use both apps when searching for a property as they both have strengths that make them worthy to use on your iphone

Please feel free to comment below if you disagree or agree with our verdict.

Zoopla Vs Rightmove App Round 6

Zanet — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 08:16:38 +0000

ZOOPLA V RIGHTMOVE PROPERTY APPS ROUND 6

What sets it apart from the other apps?

At this point we normally ask about cost. But it appears that all these big property apps are free and rightly so. So we have changed this round to enable us to look at any features that set it apart from the competition

What extra features can Zoopla boast over Rightmove?

The map is integrated with Google and provides 3 views Map, hybrid and list
Search from within the map view
The app has a database of 27m homes
Local market data including average home values by area

There is a depth to this app that Rightmove can only match on its web site

A grueling contest continues

What extra features can Rightmove boast over Zoopla?

Rightmove is still the daddy when it comes to current property for sale and rent
It has more properties and estate agents than any other app

Verdict: Zoopla won. It just has so many more features and isnt a million properties behind in database terms, so though Rightmove has the greatest amount of estate agents, Zoopla has a depth of extra features.

3.5 Zoopla
2.5 Rightmove

Please feel free to comment below if you disagree or agree with our verdict.

Tomorrow is the final round of the apps – Can Rightmove pull it back and get a draw, or will Zoopla become crowned the king of property apps?

Zoopla Vs Rightmove App Round 5

Zanet — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 08:11:01 +0000

ZOOPLA V RIGHTMOVE PROPERTY APPS ROUND 5

Which property iphone app has the greatest intelligence?

If you are out and about viewing property then the Iphone GPS functionality is a useful tool, not only does it tell you how to get there, but once your there it may even reveal other properties around the corner of the very location you love.

So we know Rightmove uses GPS intelligence but does the Zoopla app use it?

Zoopla Vs Rightmove

Yes, Zoopla app utilised the iPhone’s GPS functionality and gave me property for sale and rent in and around my current location incredibly quickly and intelligently as is seen in previous rounds.

What about market value? Or trends in the market.

This is where Zoopla seems to go ballistic!

It knows the average property price of a postcode area.
It takes into account the rise and fall of property locally
It even estimates any property, though its estimates are pretty broad.
It gives prices of property that has sold in recent years.

Its true that Rightmove have this information at hand on the web site, but this intelligence is missing on the rightmove app

Verdict: Zoopla won. Although they both use the built in GPS location, Zoopla has a great ability to predict the worth of any property and give its last selling price. That’s a fair bit of intelligence for a small app.

2.5 Zoopla
2.5 Rightmove

Please feel free to comment below if you disagree or agree with our verdict.

Tune in tomorrow for round 6 where we look at the new features on iphone app

Zoopla Vs Rightmove App Round 4

Zanet — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 08:04:01 +0000

ZOOPLA V RIGHTMOVE PROPERTY APPS ROUND 4

Which one has the larger number of properties for rent in a given area?

Last time Rightmove crashed out. Version 1.1 feels a lot more stable, so lets see how it performs on this test.

Zoopla Results
Town: 50 of 667 Reading properties for rent
City : 50 of 1610 Birmingham properties for rent

Rightmove Results
Town: 100 Reading properties for rent
City: 100 Birmingham properties for rent

Iphone battle : Zoopla versus Rightmove

Once a gain it a similar situation to round 1. Both provide a lot of results that need filtering down. So we will try using my GPS location alone to see how many are served up

Zoopla Results for properties to rent
2 within my location

Rightmove Results for properties to rent
42 within my location

Verdict: Rightmove won. Since Rightmove released a stable version it still seems to have the largest database of properties.

1.5 Zoopla
2.5 Rightmove

Please feel free to comment below if you disagree or agree with our verdict.

Tune in tomorrow for round 5 on app intelligence

Zoopla Vs Rightmove App Round 3

Zanet — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 07:59:46 +0000

ZOOPLA V RIGHTMOVE PROPERTY APPS ROUND 3

Which has the greatest usability?

As with all iphone apps they must be easy to use or they won’t get used. With both these apps the interface is immediately intuitive and it felt just as easy using the app as it would visiting their main site.

Rightmove had predictable text when entering a town or city. This made it easy to enter without misspelling. Apart from this feature it was overall good. The app just felt a little dated after using Zoopla’s app.

Iphone battle : Round 3

Zoopla had a lot more features while remaining simple to use. The map integration along with the buttons and ease of use was noticeable on Zoopla’s app. I love the way the app takes you straight to your location and the pins appear right from the start of the app. The Google integration on the map with the pins felt so right. This for me is a step forward in usability.

Verdict: Zoopla has an advantage as its learnt from the other apps and produce a very smart and usable application. The map integration with pins as a way to view property is very well executed. Rightmove app is solid, but feels a little like a conversion of the web site search.

1.5 Zoopla
1.5 Rightmove

Please feel free to comment below if you disagree or agree with our verdict.

Tune in tomorrow for round 4 where we test renting on the iphone app