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Top tips for searching for a property

Top 10 tips to help you search for a property on the Internet

  1. Use the main property portals as not one property website will have all estate agents in that area on theri website due to various conflicts of interest and ownership.
  2. All property details will be updated on the portals and on a lot of estate agency websites in the middle of the night. If you are looking for a property in highly demanded area get searching before 9am when the world and its wife logs on.
  3. Many estate agent website do update throughout the day, check a couple of times a day to see new instructions.
  4. When searching use a broad search criteria as some properties may get missed out of the search because they have not entered certain criteria (e.g. detached or garden ) in their advert.
  5. Many property websites do not allow you to clickthrough to the estate agent’s website. Rightmove is bad at doing this. Simply copy and paste the estate agents name into google and find it that way, instead of having to fill out a big form!
  6. When emailing estate agents, be aware that 35% of them ( research from fish4 homes in 2004) don’t even bother responding. This is obviously poor business practice. But if they have a good property on their books you still have to use them. On your email don’t be too polite and say you are “just looking” it won’t get a response. Write an email with bullet points and put in phrases “keen to move quickly”, “short chain”, “buyer for my own property” etc. It will literally galvanise an estate agent into action and they will send details through and probably call you as well.
  7. Don’t be suckered into getting the agent to arrange a mortgage and conveyancing appointment for you when you email them or when you are on their website. Try and keep these services separate you will find a better deal elsewhere.
  8. Never show your hand too much to an estate agent, they are working for the seller not you. SO if you email them and they ask how much you have to spend knock at least 10% off your budget, they will always show your more expensive properties than you can afford anyway!
  9. In order to save time, note the following. Most of the regional press websites (about 75%) e.g. thisisplymouth.co.uk have property channels which is run by fish4, as is MSN and AOL. The Daily Telegraph, Yahoo and Wanadoo are run by property finder, and The evening standard, Daily mail, homes and property , email 4 property are run by find a property. So therefore keep it simple use the main portals.
  10. Never give too much personal information away on email, make sure if you leave your details it is secure first.
    If you have any more tips please email tips@britsandmortar.com