Could property websites do more to improve the house hunting experience?

So, I’ve been house hunting recently and have to say that property websites have progressed a lot since the last time I was looking, but I am surprised at how limited they still are. 

It’s great that several of them now summarise the available properties in a map – a quick way to rule out those ones that look surprisingly good value until you realise they are positioned actually on the M25! Also, several of the sites now let you save properties you are interested in too and send you alerts, but a few extra personalisation features would be a huge help.

I keep looking at the same properties over and over again, and can’t quite remember why I ruled them out last time. In my personalised area why can’t I hide ones I don’t like as well as saving ones I do like? Or just set different flags for each property such as ‘viewed’, ‘book a viewing’, ‘maybe interested’, ‘not for me’, etc?

Also, I end up having endless bits of paper and printed out particulars with scribbles of what we like or don’t like – why can’t I just add notes to each property within the personalised area? It would be particularly useful when you’re a couple looking to have a personal area where you can share thoughts about new properties that come on the market.

What would also be fabulous would be if from the websites like Rightmove, Globrix, Primelocation and Zoopla you could select all the properties you want to view on a particular day and automatically schedule them with the various estate agents giving you sufficient time to get between each in a sensible order. Or maybe I’m asking too much there! Phoning and registering with every estate agent (and so getting endless emails about houses you’ve already rejected) and fitting all the appointments around each other is a tedious and time-consuming job. Just online calendars for the estate agents to book viewings would be a major improvement.

However, my primary pet-hate that applies to many estate agents is when they don’t provide decent floor plans. Surely everyone wants to see the size of the rooms and how they fit together before they view them? So why do so many estate agents either not provide floor plans, not provide dimensions on their floor plans or provide the plans in tiny .jpegs that are illegible even when expanded. And why are so many estate agent websites only compatible with Internet Explorer?

Is it just me or could a few improvements make a huge difference to the painful process of house hunting?

Picture credits: www.rightmove.co.uk

Comments

[Jo Cranwell]

Lucy it sounds like you'd benefit from using the new RightMove ipad or iphone application. You can find out more about them from here: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-you/ipad-application, and here: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-you/iphone-application.

You're right though in that estate agents on the whole have been a bit slow to catch on to the digital revolution with the websites being generally dull and basic.

Another app you might be interested in is the ASBOrometer app for Andriod and iPhone: http://www.reghardware.com/2010/02/17/asborometer/. Basically you can check "How chavvy is your town?" [!] which could be useful if you want to check out how many anti-social behaviour orders have been issued within the area you are looking to move to.

You might also want to check out http://www.upmystreet.com/ which does pretty much the same thing and more but is web based.

This doesn't solve all of your issues by any means [eg., the floorplans (the seller has to pay extra for these!)] but at least some of the agents are catching onto the mobile market and might help make the searching more convenient if you're on the move!

Good Luck!

Jo Cranwell