When you buy property on the web its easy to think, search on Rightmove – That’s it! Today we take you out of the box. As we saw last week sites such as Zoopla will give you an additional 25% more properties on an average search.
How to Find your Dream Property – The principle:
Simply think and learn from how you would buy property in the days before the web and you may be in a better position to find your dream property.
It’s easy to go down the road and ask your local estate agent for what property is available in a certain area, within your budget, but the chances are he will only have access to half the actual properties available. the next agent has a few more you havent seen. Then finally a few more estate agents have one or two more properties. So after 5 or 6 Estate agents you are convinced you have seen all the current property available. Well you are almost right, but they could be a few that are advertising on there own board without an estate agent, so a drive around the neighbourhood may find the property you really want.
Additionally if you make an effort to drive around the area and find a property with it’s own board, its likely you are doing something few others have done. Less competition and no agents fees means you will probably get the property for a good price.
So how does this analogy help you when your on the web?
Site 1 : Rightmove
– We all know that Rightmove is the number 1 UK propert search portal – so yes, go to Rightmove as your first point of call on the web, but don’t end it there as the gems are yet to be uncovered.
Site 2 : Zoopla
– As we recently saw in our analysis, Zoopla is a worthy 2nd site to visit and will cover many more properties that you would not of seen on Rightmove. Zoopla acquired Houseprices.co.uk and PropertyFinder along with several other databases. Don’t underestimate Zoopla as it has it’s eye on challenging Rightmove for the number one status
Site 3 : Findaproperty
FindaProperty.com was acquired by Associated Newspapers, the publishers of The Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and Metro, so in some areas such as London this is a worthy search tool. But it has lost grounds in recent years compared to Zoopla and Rightmove.
Site 4 : Prime Location
Prime Location is also owned by the Daily Mail. It has around 13,000 leading UK estate and letting agent branches list their properties on PrimeLocation.com, including Knight Frank, Savills and Hamptons. It has a niche market for quality estate agents and property.
Site 5 : Tepilo
Tepilo enables sellers to advertise their property for free. It has the advantage of belonging to property guru Sarah Beeny. Tepilo is an alternative way to buy, sell or let your property and it’s free. You maintain 100% control and pay 0% commission! You will find some gems from time to time, but it lacks the number of properties the above have.
Conclusion
So don’t forget, if you go to the sites where everyone else goes – you will pay what everyone else pays and live in a property that everyone else lives in. But if you are looking for something different, then surely going out of your comfort zone and checking out a few of the less know sites, will give you an opportinity to dicover something special.
You may even find your dream property if its out there!
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Whilst Teplio may not have as many houses on the website, given that sellers are not charging any commission, the money the seller saves in estate agent fees may mean that as a buyer you can get a better price. But like you say, it all depends if you can find a house which meets your criteria.