Property search engine Zoomf have announced a new feature they're calling "Boost". Aimed at estate agents, it borrows its MO from Google Adwords. Agents pay a set monthly amount to see a priority ad appear alongside relevant geographical search results, but are only charged when they receive leads. Unused credit carries over to the following month. It's a slick idea... although Zoomf could do with a page explaining/introducing it. And if you're browsing with Safari, you appear to be out of luck this morning. (I've just emailed the Zoomf team... I'll post their response.)

Technorati Tags: property, real estate, Web2, web2.0

Interesting, Australian, Web2.0 action from Streetfolio... a "simple property management" solution aimed at property investors and buy-to-let landlords. Plug in a few details of your portfolio... price paid for each property, current value, rental income, mortgage outgoing, and the web application converts the information into a handy cashflow statement and an analytics page, so you can feel on top of your investments. There's a contacts and reminders section, too, plus a place for insurance and mortgage information. Does it do anything an analogue filing cabinet can't do? No. Will it make you more likely to stay on top of things in these troubled times? Possibly. It's free to manage one property, then there's a sliding scale of membership depending on the size of your property portfolio, but it's not expensive. All the examples are Australian, but don't let that put you off, its scope is international.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate, Web, Web2, web2.0

It hasn't had the easiest of times, and now there are reports that Tesco Property Market might be on the verge of being sold... to established estate agency group Spicerhaart. It will - apparently - retain the Tesco name, however.

Technorati Tags: estate agents, real estate agents

They apparently launched last month, but we somehow must have missed it. AgentQuote are an interesting online proposition... if you're a vendor, you register with them (for free), fill in a little information about the property you wish to sell, you sit back and wait for agents to "quote" for your business, letting you know how many potential viewers they've registered on their books and their rates of commission. Since commissions are pretty much similar across the board - and, in practice, open to last minute negotiation or matching - this probably isn't the most useful aspect. And I'd be very interested to know how AgentQuote intend to check up on an agent's "potential viewers" claims. AgentQuote say they'll be offering a comparison service, too - with agents rated by previous clients. Agents have to register, too, to receive leads... and this is the business bit of the business plan. AgentQuote will charge to add estate agents to their list... because, of course, agents have lots of spare money to throw around right now. We'll be watching this closely.

Technorati Tags: estate agents, real estate agents, Web, Web2, web2.0

It's a £5.6m deal, and it's going to profit estate agents who - according to this - will now be able to advertise on both sites for the price of one. Traffic figures are always hotly disputed, but realestate.com.au (50% owner of Propertyfinder Holdings) claim they'll be inheriting 400,000 unique visitors with HotProperty. How many, if any, agents advertise on HotProperty, but not Propertyfinder, I don't know...

[thanks, Ed]

Technorati Tags: property, real estate, Web, Web2, web2.0

The Rat and Mouse is used to finding estate agents at the bullish end of the spectrum when it comes to the business game of house price predictions, so it's with a certain amount of surprise that I've received a -15% by 2013 from online estate agency Brightsale (admittedly, an agency that isn't afraid of being different). It's part of a report into the future of estate agency, which uses the prediction as evidence that high street estate agencies will be no more than "niche" rarities by 2013, as diminishing business drives them online and out of bricks-and-mortar. You can read "Is There a Future for High Street Estate Agency here.

Technorati Tags: estate agents, real estate agents, Web, Web2, web2.0

Grand Designs have a week of live TV planned for May, during which they'll reveal their top 25 houses, picked from all the shows. You can catch up on missed properties, and vote, too, by going here. Vote for this one and you're barred.

Technorati Tags: property TV

Property search engine Nestoria continues to innovate. Now property-related websites can display live property price information, drawn from Nestoria data, via a widget. More explanation here. Nice work.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate, Web, Web2, web2.0

You know you want to. RottenNeighbor.com is a new public service website with a twist. Use the embedded Google map to tag your irritating neighbours, and explain why you hate them. Join the message board to discuss further. It's being marketed as a real estate site, aimed at helping potential buyers avoid nasty surprises. But surely there's a conflict of interest here. I wouldn't want to advertise my noisy, abusive neighbours to potential buyers... and so risk either driving down the price of my property or discourage nice, new, fragrant people from moving into the area. Or am I being picky? Anyway, it's a US site, and the London map is surprisingly sparse right now. You know what to do.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate, Web, Web2, web2.0

The plan was to bring you one of those little jpeg representations of the front page that the Rat and Mouse is so fond of, but the front page repeatedly crashed my capture client. So I saved it as a pdf... a 60 page pdf. It's now clear that I'm not going to be able to bring you an image of the House Prices Will Never Crash front page, because it's just too big and too mad... but what follows are a few highlights.

It's a truly extraordinary creation. It includes dinner party dialogue in screenplay format celebrating house price hikes, predictions of stratospheric rises in property values pegged to the Olympics and lots of pictures of rockets. Most of all, it's about the sell-to-renters. It doesn't like them.

In fact, the website's so crazy...

... that it's tempting to wonder whether it's the work of a HousePriceCrash agent out to discredit the bulls.

But... there are videos, too... 140 in the last three weeks, none of which I feel like embedding in the Rat and Mouse, and some of which are entirely unacceptable. What's going on? I'm scared. Who's Bruno?

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate, Web

Returning to the Times, briefly... The Bricks Chicks. Love it. A kind of Charlie's Angels... with interest rates. Although I thought there were laws about this kind of sexual discrimination.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate, Web2, web2.0

They don't get a link, but it's pretty clear whom Anne Ashworth is talking about here.

This pro-crash lobby accuses the economists at Nationwide and Halifax of publishing figures that give a falsely optimistic view. Journalists who report these numbers are deemed to be either mouthpieces for lenders or determined to support the value of their own property investments. The motives of this online fraternity that longs for the human misery produced by a market collapse are a mystery. Perhaps they hope that if they spread sufficient gloom, their rantings will become a self-fulfilling prophecy?

The Rat and Mouse believes the motives are a mystery because they're a complete mixture. At the more noble end... a mixture of old-fashioned Marxism and a genuine desire to address some of the iniquities of the system. Less noble... envy and a desire to punish (although these motives haven't been thought through, because it won't be the rich who'll be punished by rising interest rates and lower house prices, it will be anybody who just managed to get a hand on the bottom rung of the property ladder). Furthermore... a few instances of a need - at any cost - to be proved right. Clearly, though, after a certain amount of time, all bets are off. You can't predict something, wait indefinitely for it to happen, and then claim a victory. And finally - of course - there are the nutters, who just like attacking people on the Internet. Luckily, the site has enough of the former to make it an interesting read. If that's your thing, don't miss out on HousingPANIC either.

Meanwhile, if you want to know who the nutters are, it might be worth watching the comments section below Anne Ashworth's article for the next few days.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate, Web

Based in California, but global in scope, Ava Living is a niche social network with the aim of hooking up anyone with an interest in interior design... pros and non-pros alike. There'll be contests for design students, and the chance to post questions to designers, and for designers to post examples of their work.

Technorati Tags: design, interiors, Web2, web2.0

News International have brought in Gillian Kent, former MSN UK MD, to head up Propertyfinder, overhaul its business strategy, and make it yap louder on the tail of market leader Rightmove. More here.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate, Web

One we meant to bring you earlier.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate, Web, Web2, web2.0

"By becoming part of FIC's international bouquet of channels, RETV will be able to leverage the company's publishing, online and other channels to further improve our viewers experience while enhancing at the same time the value proposition we can offer to our advertisers."

That's sweet-smelling Real Estate TV's MD Mark Dodd (or just "MD" for short) on Fox's purchase of the satcab channel.

Technorati Tags: property TV

What's that? Pitchpuff.com is a web launch by A Place In The Sun's Zilpa Hartley. It's a private sales website with the emphasis on video and property. You can shoot your own particulars and upload the film from your video camera or mobile phone, or ask the Pitchpuff posse to come and shoot it for you. For a limited period, you get 12 months of advertising for free, and then it's £15 per month per property.

Property search news... an update... [February 9, 2007]
Hello PodAds [August 3, 2006]
Rat and Mouse trendspotter - video viewings [April 11, 2006]

Technorati Tags: Web, Web2, web2.0

Charmed. Oh, there's more:

Poverty of weather, poverty of emotional expression (save for humor and violence) and, now it seems, poverty amongst first-time buyers of real estate.

Thanks, Chris Matyszczyk... perhaps growing up in the UK with that surname gave you more exposure to humour and violence than is representative. But that's neither here nor there. He's writing for ZDNet about cohabitation and Facebook, and in particular sharetobuy.com, a kind of speed-dating service for would-be home-sharers looking to get onto the ladder. His tone is, er, skeptical and, interestingly, he equates a willingness to use this service with greed. Has any Rat and Mouse reader tried sharetobuy.com? Any experiences to report?

Technorati Tags: property, real estate, Web, Web2, web2.0

It strikes the Rat and Mouse that now is a particularly good time to be paying close attention to PropertySnake, the place to watch real-life asking price collapses as they happen. Today, we're particularly taken with this rather charming five-bedroom Victorian house in Clapham, down from an original guide price of £1.399m (according to this) to the current £995,000... that's a bargaintastic fall of 28%. Stay tuned for more. And have a great weekend.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

According to the FT, Tesco - still, officially, in limbo between its suspended private sales service and a possible "new and exciting on-line estate agency service - has complained to the OFT about Rightmove's refusal to list Tesco's properties. Rightmove's response?

"The analogy is, if we opened a grocery store next to Tesco and found people were still going to Tesco, would our next move be to insist that Tesco let us open up on their premises?"

Actually, it's pretty difficult to find an accurate analogy right now, since it's not at all clear what Tesco's intentions are. However Tesco's concern appears to be that Rightmove is much more than simply a shop front... they are a standard online entry into the property market. But do they dominate any more than Tesco dominate the grocery business?

Tesco sounds retreat [October 4, 2007]
Estate agents grab whatever's to hand, prepare to fight Tesco [July 30, 2007]

Technorati Tags: estate agents, property, real estate, real estate agents, Web, Web2, web2.0

Zoomf, and new snowy logo, here.

[via Renthusiast]

Technorati Tags: Web, Web2, web2.0

Rightmove have gone from green to blue in a revamp that's more about look than functionality.

Fair enough, looks better, but weren't you kind of expecting a little Googlemaps fancy shmancy-ness, too? No, still stuck with those clunky, non-draggable AboutMyPlace maps, and a little primary and secondary school action to give the impression of usefulness. Or do they know something the young upstarts don't? Do users just want the barest of information... agent and guide price? Personally I appreciate the thought that goes into the Nestoria and Zoomf experience... what do you think?

Technorati Tags: Web, Web2, web2.0

Nestoria has cleverly linked its live search data to a GoogleMap. The result? You can sit back and watch what's being searched, live. Perfect for the property addict who's so far gone their bodies have developed a resistance to Channel 4's televised output and so needs something pure and uncut to stare at. Watch it, here; but remember to blink once in a while.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate, Web, Web2, web2.0

First [via Renthusiast], Extate appears to have become DotHomes. Sensible?... asks Renthusiast. Yeah. I reckon.

And - fresh from the blog that is all things Nestoria - now it's easy for anybody to use the Nestoria data to show average house prices for a particular area. Each Nestoria search offers you a simple cut-out-and-post widget, which you can embed into your blog.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate, Web, Web2, web2.0

First, Zoomf announce visual search... a tasty alternative to entering a postcode or street name. Now, you can draw the areas that interest you directly onto the map. It comes as part of a colourful redesign that's keeping Zoomf fun and fresh. Meanwhile Nestoria have teamed up with Sportsbase to add sports information to their listings. If living close to a pitch, court or club is as important to you as living close to a tube station or school, Nestoria have the tools to make it happen. Don't expect this kind of innovation or responsiveness from the larger portals.

Technorati Tags: Web, Web2, web2.0

They're a property search engine with 450,000 properties in the UK and 700,000 in Spain. That's a lot of data, especially if you factor in historical data. So expect considerable interest now that Nestoria's announced it will make all that data (current, for now, historical to follow) available via its API (application programming interface, the code that allows Nestoria's software work with other developers'). The implications might be significant, not just for existing suppliers of house price data, but other property search engines, too.

[via TechCrunch]

Technorati Tags: property, real estate, Web, Web2, web2.0

A phone-in discussion, starting at 1pm, on Radio 2. If you're "abroad", you can listen online, via the BBC website, here.

Technorati Tags: estate agents, property, real estate, real estate agents

It's so new it's not actually there yet:

Interestingly, News International already has a 50% stake in PropertyFinder, which charges agents to list on its site. Globrix will do things differently, using spiders to crawl agents' sites to produce a search database. It's not a new technique, and it's one that's rumoured to have previously got other property search start-ups in hot water with market leader Rightmove. According to this in the FT, Globrix will offer estate agents the opportunity to opt out. Revenue will come - instead - from an advertising model.

With News International cash behind it, it's likely to become a force to be reckoned with. As we all know, it's a competitive market, and - ultimately - success is all about innovation and implementation. The Rat and Mouse watches developments with interest.

[Thanks - twice - Ed]

Technorati Tags: Web, Web2, web2.0

Low fees online estate agency HouseSimple was hired (along with Jackson-Stops & Staff and Walkers) to market a £3m Essex estate, including seven bedrooms, 67 acres and a further cottage in the grounds. According to HouseSimple, the website received 5,000 "summary views" and 500 "detailed views" for the property, and it was the only agency to bring in offers. One, the asking price, was accepted. The buyer exchanged last Wednesday. HouseSimple charged 0.67% (a discount from its usual multi-agency deal of 0.75%), earning just over £20,000 in commission. A more typical high street deal of 2% would have cost the vendors £60,000. It might be an important moment, one you'll hear cited many times in the future to demonstrate that these new, online alternatives can shift expensive properties too.

Technorati Tags: estate agents, property, real estate, real estate agents, Web, Web2, web2.0

It's not quite science, but Oodle's new price tool - based on asking prices on its database - provides a useful point of comparison between one neighbourhood and another. Search here, and click the pricing button.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate, Web, Web2, web2.0

Property blog BricksnClicks has the scoop on news that Tesco appears to have ditched its For Sale By Owner online offering:

Tesco Property Market launched in the early summer offering the public a chance to sell their house privately for £199. The offering immediately ran into trouble with estate agents and the property portals... I understand that all of Tesco’s existing clients will receive full refunds plus a good will payment.

According to BricksnClicks, Tesco's retreat comes after the OFT ruled that Tesco were acting as estate agents, and so must comply with all necessary legislation. The demands associated with that make a £199 fixed fee impractical.

In Tesco's own words:

As we can't be both an on-line estate agent and private seller we reluctantly have to suspend the private seller service launched earlier in the year. We will however continue to use Tesco Property Market to provide advice and support to home movers, as well as offering great value products including mortgages, insurance, conveyancing and HIPs.

Estate agents grab whatever's to hand, prepare to fight Tesco [July 30, 2007]
Tesco answers back [July 6, 2007]
Tesco - hung out to dry? [July 4, 2007]
Brightsale attacks Tesco [July 2, 2007]
Property portals don't freak out/do freak out over Tesco [July 2, 2007]

Technorati Tags: estate agents, real estate agents, Web

It's "sort by newness"... which - as anyone who's used one of these property search engines for real world house-hunting will know - is a very valuable feature, and should go a long way toward combating misleading/old listings. Nestoria's here.

Technorati Tags: property, Web, Web2, web2.0

That was fun. I thought Mike Carter and Mark Hopwood - while approaching the subject in very different ways - both spoke eloquently about what Web2.0 is and the opportunities and risks it presents for the property industry, and I enjoyed Andy Etches' robust case for a skilled, value-driven online agency business that can thrive alongside the the more traditional high street names. I have to admit... I'd been a little nervous about the event. I make very few public appearances... I normally send a stunt double. But with such a friendly and interesting panel, skillful chairperson and informed and eloquent crowd, I'm really glad I didn't miss this. Thanks to Zoomf for the invitation, and to any Rat and Mouse readers who showed up... and particularly those who came over and said "hello".

The gentleman from Knight Frank made an interesting and very valid point about the difficulty persuading the old guard running a 150 year old company that a corporate blog might be safe, never-mind desirable or useful. That's simply never going to be easy. But the reality is that it's probably not a question about blogging, Web2.0 or new media. It's a question about leadership and business culture, and it could apply to almost anything, from technology to dress-code. In any case blogging isn't new. And if the word itself is a problem, approach it as a company journal. If the Wokingham Conservatives are doing it...

If anybody wants to keep the conversation going, or for advice about blogging software/tools, feel free to comment or email.

Technorati Tags: blogging, property, real estate, Web, Web2, web2.0

Here's the story of (as far as I know) the first open-house to take place in Second Life. US agents Coldwell Banker took an experimental approach to marketing a $3m property on Mercer Island (Washington State)... building a Second Life replica. According to the brokers, the virtual house had 3,500 visitors in three days (and the numbers have continued at around that level), compared to the 50 to 100 people they'd expect to visit the real property each day. And no - they didn't just come and make out on the sofas.

Technorati Tags: estate agents, property, real estate, real estate agents, Web, Web2, web2.0

It's been an accident waiting to happen for some time... the steady growth, improvement and influence of free-and-easy, Web2.0 online estate agents and their worsening relationship with the sole-agency agreement-loving high street agents. At some point, there was going to be either a big rumpus, with property bloggers standing around shouting "Fight! Fight! Fight!", or (preferably) a big fight, with property bloggers standing around shouting "Rumpus! Rumpus! Rumpus!". Clearly riled by recent comments made by Spicer Haart's Paul Smith, Brightsale (generally regarded as some of the property business's Web2.0 good guys) are doing the only sensible thing and - after seeing some of their own clients penalised by high street agents for signing up online - attempting to bring matters to a head. They've written to the Office for Fair Trading, demanding they look again into the issue of fair competition in estate agenting, making some specific recommendations, including "cooling off" periods for disappointed homesellers. Here's Brightsale's Andy Etches:

“For such a senior figure in the estate agency profession [Smith, above] to call for contracts which prevent the use of online agents is regressive to the development of competition and to the evolution of estate agency in this country. ‘Sole selling rights’ contracts are iniquitous and clearly not in the interests of consumers. We don’t see how any contract which allows an estate agent to claim a fee even when a home owner sells his property to his neighbour following a private chat over a garden fence can possibly be defended as fair to consumers.”

The UK's hippest estate agents? [January 31, 2007]

Technorati Tags: estate agents, real estate agents, Web, Web2, web2.0

It's called IdealHome.tv, and it cleverly turns you existing particulars (floorplan, photos etc) into something that looks kind of like a movie. There are three options. A standard movie costs £99, and will give you two minutes of panning and transitions through 15 photographs, plus subtitles. Two hundred and fifty pounds buys the plus movie, adding script, voiceover and music. Add another £100 for the premier service, and your estate agent's looking at a branded player, floor plans, scene selection, maps and a rub-down with finely fragranced oils. It's an interesting technology. Whether it sells houses, I don't know... but it certainly gives the impression of movie-particulars (all externals shot on a very still day) without the crew turning up. There are examples on the website. See what you think.

Technorati Tags: property, property TV, real estate, Web, Web2, web2.0

I'm not sure the Rat and Mouse has written about PropertySnake before, which is pretty criminal since it's one of the property web's more interesting addresses. Want to know which listings are dropping in price? PropertySnake's the place to go. For now, anyway. They've just been constricted by the portals:

Unfortunately in recent weeks, several owners of property portal websites that we have previously linked to have requested that we remove their listings from our site for copyright reasons. We have of course complied with their requests when asked, but we were disappointed in their decisions as we had previously felt that they would be more than happy to receive the free leads from the traffic we were driving to their sites. Instead, we have replaced all the listings with a new batch which can be seen on the site today. Unfortunately we are unable to provide direct links or photographs anymore.

Hmm. Wonder where the new listings are from? Anyway, it's still a good browse... and recommended.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate, Web

I enjoyed it... although I'd liked to have seen something about the detrimental effect of developer-led arsitecture on the urban and suburban environment. Another blogger - a northern property writer who knows his patch - is less impressed.

Tonight's must-see TV [July 30, 2007]

Technorati Tags: property TV

The rallying cry - reported in Estate Agency News - comes from Paul Smith, chief executive of Spicer Haart:

Tesco might think that ‘‘Every little helps" — but it won’t be at my expense.

Love it. He calls on estate agents to stick together and prove their worth. More controversially:

Estate agents with sole agency contracts need to be careful. There’s nothing to stop their vendors from sellling privately. You need to consider reverting to sole selling rights and include a clause which prevents the seller from using an Internet Property Retailer at the same time.

Technorati Tags: estate agents, real estate agents

Do any of you use the Foxton's podcast/vidcast service? I've got to admit, I wasn't actually aware of it before reading this interesting if slightly confused piece in the International Herald Tribune. Foxtons believe in rss, but their Web manager, Leo Lapworth, is sceptical about video tours:

If I'm a buyer, I don't really need to see someone opening a cupboard door, what I need to see is the floor plan, the room-by-room descriptions, and that's what's going to help me decide whether I want to see the property or not.

Which explains why their selection of vidcasts and podcasts are such a strange hybrid... an automatic computer-generated voice reading particulars, accompanied - in the "video" version - by still photographs. It's functional, fast and cheap, which has got to be right... but the dalek does nothing for Foxtons' friendly image.

More news to me from the IHT piece is BuyAssociation - a website offering advice about buying houses and, er, other stuff. Here, you can listen to podcasts by Adrian Mills and Maggie Philbin interviewing industry experts on property and cosmetic surgery. What?!! Oh yes, it's a homebuying and facelifting site... an impartial buying guide for the property-hungry and slack-joweled. And what's odd about that?

Your particulars - the movie [July 6, 2007]

Technorati Tags: estate agents, Foxton's, real estate agents, Web, Web2, web2.0

Nestoria - the property search engine responsible for powering the Rat and Mouse's own search facility (front page, top right, give it a whirl) - have added a clever new feature. Partnering up with ParkAtMyHouse, they now offer information about local parking opportunities - not just conventional carparks but privately rented parking spaces - with each and every property search.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate, Web2, web2.0

According to Rosalind Russell, writing in the Telegraph, estate agents are deliberately populating property listing websites with homes that were sold weeks ago or - in some instances, she hints - were never on the market. The idea is to appear useful and relevant during a property shortage, and to encourage the phone call in order to register the details of a potential buyer. The result for us? A waste of time. For estate agents, should the public get wise to this? It's put succinctly by Nick Goble of Winkworth:

Credibility is being undermined by more than one agent, and if we lose our credibility, we are snookered.

Technorati Tags: estate agents, property, real estate, real estate agents

Property search engine Properazzi appears to be heading further and further afield to find the sunshine promised in their logo. Rat and Mouse readers will find properties from Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia added to their already extensive roster.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate, Web, Web2, web2.0

Apparently "thousands of estate agents" are threatening Tesco Property Market with legal action if they don't remove their listings. These are particulars which - according to Tesco's agreement with fish4homes - were to stay on the site until October, even though fish4homes have already pulled out of an ongoing relationship with the supermarket-turned-estate agency.

Tesco answers back [July 6, 2007]
Tesco - hung out to dry? [July 4, 2007]
Brightsale attacks Tesco [July 2, 2007]
Property protals don't freak out/do freak out over Tesco [July 2, 2007]

Technorati Tags: estate agents, property, real estate, real estate agents

Our friends at Property Clip spill a few trade secrets - including £50,000 cameras and pro-editing equipment - in this Independent feature about producing the ultimate movie-style property particulars. Next time the Rat and Mouse calls in the agents, we're going to leverage Property Clip's services as much as possible, including CGI special effects and a full cast to play myself, Mrs Brandt and our glamorous friends. Unfortunately my next-door neighbour already looks like he's being played by Dennis Waterman... but presumably there's something we can do about that.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

According to this, Tesco's Property Market has drawn more than a quarter of a million visitors in less than a week, and they've already managed to sign up a handful of private sellers. The vast majority of their listings, however, are for the chop. Keen to put things right with angry estate agents, Tesco spokesman Mark Davis commented thus:

I’ve spent a decade working in the property industry and I can understand why estate agents might view Tesco’s entry into the market with initial scepticism because competition can be tough. But it benefits consumers and makes businesses work harder for them.

Yep, that should do it.

Tesco - hung out to dry? [July 4, 2007]
Brightsale attacks Tesco [July 2, 2007]
Property portals don't freak out/do freak out over Tesco [July 2, 2007]
Tesco's piece of estate agency pie [June 29, 2007]

Technorati Tags: estate agents, property, real estate, real estate agents, Web

Congratulations to (free) online home-move planner Moveme.com for winning Best New Business in the 2007 New Media Age Awards. Moveme.com has backing from Advent Venture Partners, The Accelerator Group and no less a new media celebrity as Brent Hoberman.

Technorati Tags: Web, Web2, web2.0

From Joe Slavin, CE of fish4:

fish4homes continually strives to provide the highest quality service to its network of clients. Because Tesco is one of the UK’s biggest and most widely-recognised brands, we initially felt that involvement in the Tesco Property Market initiative would give our new and existing customers’ property adverts maximum exposure and deliver maximum value for our partners moving forward.

Right, every little helps... but?

Since the launch of Tesco Property Market, we have received valuable customer feedback and have decided that our involvement with the site, in its current format, is not in the best interest of our clients. We are therefore terminating our agreement with Tesco.

Does this mean that Tesco will be left, shortly, with zero properties for sale?

Brightsale attacks Tesco [July 2, 2007]
Property portals don't freak out/do freak out over Tesco [July 2, 2007]
Tesco's piece of estate agency pie [June 29, 2007]

Technorati Tags: estate agents, real estate agents

... and then fires indiscriminately into the property industry crowd, injuring both sell-it-yourself websites and estate agents. According to a missive from Brightsale boss Endy Etches, Tesco is doomed to failure.

Selling a home is a very big deal, and the feedback we have had over the past six months is that people do not feel confident in going it completely alone. They need the support not just of sophisticated online tools, but also of a properly trained single point person who can negotiate with buyers, deal with solicitors, chase up chains and attend to the many, many other aspects of completing a sale.

Estate agents... don't get too comfortable:

The old style traditional estate agent is similarly in danger of going the way of high street travel agents. The costs of running a branch network have to be passed on to customers, and the lack of investment in online tools by the vast majority of these agencies has left them unresponsive to customer demands in an online world. The future is not bricks and mortar (and logoed cars and flashy suits) any more than it is ‘sell it yourself'.

Unsurprisingly, according Etches, the future's bright, the future's, er, Brightsale... a low-cost, alternative estate agency model, operating online and out of a Manchester call-centre, charging 0.5% (including legal fees). The Rat and Mouse has written about Brightsale before... and we've remained impressed with their forward-looking approach to the industry... a bit of Redfin-style lateral thinking and investment in more than online acreage. Whether Etches will be proved right remains to be seen.

Property portals don't freak out/do freak out over Tesco [July 2, 2007]
Tesco's piece of estate agency pie [June 29, 2007]
Wow - online or off? [June 8, 2007]

Technorati Tags: estate agents, property, real estate, real estate agents, Web, Web2, web2.0

So, Tesco's estate agency site is up and running.

Last week, we reported on the strange mating ritual taking place between the property portals and the supermarket giant. Well, according to a connected Rat and Mouse informant, there was more honking and arse-feather-displaying than even we realised.

Continued... after the jump.

Technorati Tags: estate agents, property, real estate, real estate agents, Web

Everybody wants a piece. Last year, it was Asda. Now, Bricks'n'Clicks appears to have the scoop on a plan by Tesco to enter the online, low cost estate agency market. Tesco themselves are refusing to comment, while the other larger property portals are apparently engaging in a strange mating ritual as they decide whether they want Tesco to pluck their listings or not.

Technorati Tags: estate agents, real estate agents

Okay, it would be dishonest not to admit I'm excited about being up there at the top...

... but I'm also having a lot of fun exploring this list. A New Build Diary, the architecture thread at MyNinjaPlease, and pingmag, in particular, are heading straight for the Rat and Mouse feed reader, and I'm continuing to explore. Thanks, once again, to the Times for the kind words. Get the full list here.

Rat and Mouse in Times Top 50 business blogs [June 13, 2007]

Why advertise with the Rat and Mouse?

Technorati Tags: blogging, Curbed, London, property, theRatandMouse, real estate, Web, Web2, web2.0

If you're a Facebook fanatic you'll be pleased to know you can now search for an apartment without leaving the warm and addictive cocoon of your homepage. Go here, load the Nestoria application, and not only will you be able to search for property at lightning speed, but you'll be able to share your searches with your friends and send them details of properties too, all from within Facebook.

I've tested it, and it's very, very good.

Technorati Tags: facebook, Web, Web2, web2.0

Remember last weekend's Hack Day contest, sponsored by Nestoria? There was a winner... it's called "Pyzeta" and it enables owners of GPS-enabled Nokia mobile phones to automatically browse Nestoria-listed properties in their immediate vicinity. More here.

Technorati Tags: Web, Web2, web2.0

According to a survey by Alliance & Leicester, private home-sellers using websites to market their properties are finding buyers in an average of less than two months, compared to more than three months via the more conventional estate agency route. The survey featured 2,384 people, 8% of whom had used on online private sales service, 5% had used a local paper, 4% had hand-crafted a "for sale" board and 1% had used eBay.

[via Reuters]

Technorati Tags: estate agents, property, real estate, real estate agents, Web, Web2, web2.0

That's right, our friends at Nestoria are using Saturday's Yahoo! Hack Day in London to launch a competition. The best (as judged by the Nestoria engineering team) mashup to use the Nestoria API will win a Garmin eTrex Vista Cx GPS... because geeks like to know where they are. Good luck.

Technorati Tags: Web, Web2, web2.0

Fuzzbo - isn't the domain name market a bitch? - is a Googlemaps mashup online private sales website. For £99 and not a penny more... okay, plus VAT... Fuzzbo will upload your property details onto not only their map, but a bunch of partners' too, including Home.co.uk, Hotproperty.co.uk, PrimeMove.com, OnOneMap.com and Nestoria. What's more, you get a real-life for sale board to put up outside your house.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate, Web, Web2, web2.0

The Telegraph carried this interesting piece about Wow, an online agent with an offline presence. Wow will apparently only operate in neighbourhoods where they have a local agent who knows the local market and can view the property. It's not entirely clear from the website, but according to the Telegraph they've "branches" in west and south west London. They charge a flat fee of £899 (making them a viable alternative when selling a property worth £400,000 or more), and advertise on a host of larger portals, including Rightmove and Propertyfinder. So... a local agent with an online shopfront.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate, Web

And it looks like this:

[via Renthusiast] [Zoomf]

Technorati Tags: property, real estate, Web, Web2, web2.0

It's called Blockhunter, and it's a particularly elegant example of what are - apparently - being called "intention websites". You don't advertise your home on Blockhunter... you express an interest in selling (or letting) it. On the other side of the fence, potential buyers (or tenants) express an interest in taking it off your hands. Both parties remain anonymous... but are matched up via a very nice implementation of the Google Search and Maps APIs. In practice, it's impressively fast and simple to use... an initial search for tenants in south west London found me nine entries in less than 60 seconds. Downsides? Since it's free (and anonymous) there aren't many, but it clearly relies on the quality of user-generated content. Some potential buyers are registering "blocks" (their personal geographic search areas) that are so huge they're effectively pointless (I found somebody looking for a 2-4 bedroom flat anywhere within a 66,095 square kilometre "block" that stretched from Southend-on-Sea in the east to Tipperary in Ireland in the west... not too fussy, clearly). Also, studio flats aren't served in the drop-down menu. But this is a new website, with an elegant and usable UI, and will improve the more people try it out.

Start marketing your home before it's for sale [March 30, 2007]

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