Archive for August, 2009
Zoopla.co.uk winners of Daily Mail UK Property Awards 2009
We’ve just received the fantastic news that we’ve been successful in winning an award in the ‘Property Portal’ category at the Daily Mail UK Residential Property Awards 2009.
So, we’re winners but we have to wait till 16th October to find out whether we’re four star or five star. We have our suspicions!
If we are a top scoring five star winner, then later this year we’ll compete against other winning companies from Asia Pacific, Europe & Africa, the Americas and Arabia to find the ultimate World’s Best Property Portal.
We’re delighted with the result. Not bad for a company that launched in January 2008.
Thank you to you all for your support.
For more info on the awards click here
Go on, TemptMe!
We continue to receive great interest in our unique TemptMe! feature from both consumers and agents, so we thought we’d take the opportunity to explain, in greater detail, just why it is so interesting and innovative for buyers, owners and estate agents alike.
In short, our unique features such as TemptMe! and AskMe! are designed to drive greater efficiency and create more activity in the residential property market. By opening up channels of communication that don’t exist elsewhere and connecting users with information and other users, we continue to develop transaction opportunities that would otherwise not take place.
Buyers
At any point in time around 4% of UK homes are on the market for sale. So what if your dream home is in the other 96%? Well, you could drive by it every day hoping to see a for sale board go up and you could even slip a note through the door asking the owner to call you. Or you can make an anonymous TemptMe! Offer on Zoopla.co.uk and be the first to know with an immediate alert when either the property is put on the market for sale or the owner lets us know that they might be tempted to sell. You can do nothing and leave your dream home as a dream or you can register interest in it on our website and try to make it a reality. Why limit yourself to a choice of one of the 4% when you can choose from any home in the country?
Owners
Happy where you are living with no intention of selling/moving for now or thought about moving for a while but never quite motivated enough to market your home for sale? That’s true of the vast majority of owners at any given time. But what if there were people out there who happened to love your home but you never found out about them as they just assumed you were point blank not interested in a conversation? Setting a no-obligations TemptMe! Price on Zoopla.co.uk is a great way to signal to the market that you are not a seller but, as with anything, you could perhaps be willing to have a conversation at a price – just let us know what that price is and if anyone expresses interest it is a great starting point for you to contact an agent (as 95% of our users do on receiving any interest via TemptMe!) to drum up more interest and maximise the price you get.
Agents
Imagine a world where you got a new instruction to sell a property and as well as looking through your files for buyers who ‘might’ be interested in that type of property, you have the ability to directly target buyers who have expressed an interest in that specific home. Well that exists today and it is called TemptMe!…we have ten of thousands of TemptMe! Offers where users have expressed interest in specific homes and indicated the prices that they might be willing to pay. As soon as you list one of your properties on Zoopla.co.uk, if we have any interest in it an email is automatically sent to anyone who has expressed interest. Equally exciting, we know for each of these users what type of homes they are interested in, where and how much they are willing to spend so have a unique ability to promote other ‘similar’ properties on your books to them.
On the other side, it would be pretty helpful as an agent to know which property owners in your area might be tempted to sell or are the most likely to sell in the coming months.
Zoopla.co.uk allows you to see exactly which property owners have set TemptMe! Prices and whether they have realistic expectations, so that you can market directly to them accordingly or introduce potential buyers. This creates a unique opportunity for agents using Zoopla.co.uk to develop relationships with the sellers of tomorrow. A handful of agents have expressed concern that TemptMe! allows users to talk to each other, thereby cutting the agent out. Whilst it is true that we get strangers talking about deals that would otherwise never have happened, over 95% of owners contact an agent (mostly via our ‘recommended agents’ feature AskAnAgent) to handle the transaction following these introductions. Owners want to achieve the best price, agents help them do that and Zoopla.co.uk helps increase market activity by uncovering hidden transactions waiting to happen and generate further inventory/transactions for agents.
With tens of thousands of TemptMe! Prices and TemptMe! Offers already posted on our website and growing daily, we love the fact that we are driving new transactions in the market that would otherwise not have happened…putting buyers into their dream homes and getting owners motivated to think about selling if the price is right.
How we check home value estimates
Recently we’ve heard from some of you who have asked how we check our estimates, so we thought we’d add a little more to a previous post on ‘How to make Zoopla! estimates more accurate’.
Our primary objective for our property valuations is to be as accurate as possible. To achieve this, we have to answer a fundamental philosophical question: What does it mean for an estimate to be accurate?
At Zoopla.co.uk, we expect our estimate to reflect the market value of the property on the day the estimate is provided. So how do we make sure we’re on target?
Tens of thousands of properties change hands each month (even in these current market conditions!). Shortly after these properties change hands, records of the dates and values of these sales come to Zoopla.co.uk via the Land Registry and the Registrars of Scotland. Among these properties that just sold, several thousand will have had Zoopla.co.uk estimates at the time they sold. So we can gauge the accuracy of the valuations Zoopla.co.uk published at the time of the sale by comparing them with the actual selling prices of the properties on the same date.
We then use what we learn from this analysis to calibrate the valuation estimates as well as the confidence levels of our estimates. In other words, we use this information to make our estimates even more accurate and to help us understand which valuations we can trust most.
We hope this helps answers some of the questions you’ve sent us via twitter. Look forward to any comments below or via twitter.
Zoopla.co.uk acquires PropertyFinder Group
We are delighted to announce we have now acquired the PropertyFinder Group from News International Ltd and the REA Group.
The PropertyFinder Group includes propertyfinder.com, one of the best-known and most-visited property websites in the country, with over 2 million unique visitors per month as well as other online property sites including HotProperty.co.uk and UKPropertyshop.co.uk.
We will now begin to integrate propertyfinder.com and the other websites, benefiting from an additional 3 million unique visitors a month. The combined group will power an impressive range of property partnerships with leading UK websites including MSN, Yahoo!, AOL, Guardian, Tiscali, Sky and Virgin amongst others offering estate agents unrivalled exposure across the internet.
The combined business will be a win for consumers of both sites, who will benefit from more listings and information on the UK property market, and agents who will gain more exposure and receive more leads as well as gaining access to the enhanced features and tools offered by Zoopla.co.uk, including owner leads.
This announcement comes hot on the heels of our acquisition a couple of weeks ago of ThinkProperty.com from Guardian Media Group – read more here.
We’d love to hear your feedback, so please do use the comment box below or contact us via twitter at @zoopla.
For the full press release, please click here
Property Hot Spots and Not Spots: England, Scotland and Wales
Optimism around a market recovery may well be somewhat premature, but there are some bright spots emerging in the market. Zoopla! research shows the overall pace of house price decline has slowed noticeably compared to last year.
Whilst we’re cautious about excessive ‘green shoot’ optimism, the tables below show the current values and % change since the beginning of the year and clearly show areas which may lead any housing market recovery when it comes, as well as those that are struggling.
However, our research also shows that the performance during the first half of 2009 should perhaps not yet be cause for celebration, given that over the past two years the decline in house prices in the last six months of the year was significantly worse than during the first half of the year.
Since the 1st January, house prices in England are up by 1.31% to a current average home value of £207,472, prices in Scotland are up by 1.75% to a current average home value of £152,902 and house prices in Wales are up 0.96% to a current average home value of £146,378.
England
| Best Performing Towns | Average Home Value | % Change 2009 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WYMONDHAM, Norfolk | £195,253 | 11.41% |
| 2 | KINGSWINFORD, West Midlands | £173,990 | 10.99% |
| 3 | FERRYHILL, Durham | £87,828 | 10.86% |
| 4 | WEST MALLING, Kent | £324,485 | 9.63% |
| 5 | OSSETT, West Yorkshire | £160,278 | 9.52% |
| 6 | WHITLEY BAY, Tyne & Wear | £173,776 | 9.25% |
| 7 | OLNEY, Buckinghamshire | £261,520 | 8.95% |
| 8 | HELSTON, Cornwall | £218,399 | 8.19% |
| 9 | BILLINGSHURST, West Sussex | £377,552 | 6.80% |
| 10 | BIGGLESWADE, Bedforshire | £203,201 | 6.72% |
Source: Zoopla.co.uk
| Worst Performing Towns | Average Home Value | % Change 2009 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | POOLE, Dorset | £240,171 | -7.62 |
| 2 | MALPAS, Cheshire | £264,617 | -6.94 |
| 3 | RIPON, North Yorkshire | £216,371 | -6.83 |
| 4 | ST. IVES, Cornwall | £215,898 | -6.69 |
| 5 | KEIGHLEY, West Yorkshire | £139,050 | -6.56 |
| 6 | RIPLEY, Derbyshire | £129,605 | -6.52 |
| 7 | LOUTH, Lincolnshire | £153,037 | -6.45 |
| 8 | DURSELY, Gloucestershire | £203,824 | -6.45 |
| 9 | RAMSGATE, Kent | £142,486 | -6.40 |
| 10 | UTTOXETER, Staffordshire | £168,036 | -6.37 |
Source: Zoopla.co.uk
Scotland
| Best Performing Towns | Average Home Value | % Change 2009 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | EDINBURGH, Edinburgh | £204,102 | 2.84% |
| 2 | DALMALLY, Argyll & Bute | £150,241 | 2.35% |
| 3 | GREENOCK, Inverclyde | £114,094 | 2.02% |
| 4 | OBAN, Western Isles | £149,708 | 1.94% |
| 5 | BISHOPTON, Renfrewshire | £186,841 | 1.74% |
| 6 | GOUROCK, Inverclyde | £137,649 | 1.65% |
| 7 | JOHNSTONE, Renfrewshire | £144,574 | 1.62% |
| 8 | LOCHWINNOCH, Renfrewshire | £189,643 | 1.53% |
| 9 | PORT GLASGOW, Inverclyde | £108,748 | 1.46% |
| 10 | SKELMORLIE, North Ayrshire | £182,668 | 1.27% |
Source: Zoopla.co.uk
| Worst Performing Towns | Average Home Value | % Change 2009 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | DUMBARTON, West Dumbartonshire | £128,033 | -9.13% |
| 2 | HELENSBURGH, Argyll & Bute | £177,017 | -9.02% |
| 3 | GLASGOW, Glasgow | £141,727 | -8.34% |
| 4 | GORDON, Scottish Borders | £173,340 | -7.88% |
| 5 | KELSO, Scottish Borders | £151,091 | -7.12% |
| 6 | MELROSE, Scottish Borders | £182,120 | -6.87% |
| 7 | SELKIRK, Scottish Borders | £114,825 | -6.45% |
| 8 | ALVA, Clackmannanshire | £102,342 | -6.03% |
| 9 | DOLLAR, Clackmannanshire | £240,133 | -5.78% |
| 10 | DUNBLANE, Stirling | £242,447 | -5.44% |
Source: Zoopla.co.uk
Wales
| Best Performing Towns | Average Home Value | % Change 2009 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | HOLYHEAD, Isle of Anglesey | £136,501 | 12.13% |
| 2 | CARMARTHEN, Carmarthenshire | £166,287 | 7.47% |
| 3 | HOLYWELL, Flintshire | £153,888 | 7.04% |
| 4 | LLANFYLLIN, Powys | £154,861 | 6.20% |
| 5 | PONTYPRIDD, Rhondda Cynon Taff | £120,598 | 5.92% |
| 6 | TREHARRIS, Merthyr Tydfil | £106,423 | 4.40% |
| 7 | LLANDUDNO, Conwy | £171,436 | 3.80% |
| 8 | BANGOR, Gwynedd | £144,321 | 3.56% |
| 9 | BUCKLEY, Flintshire | £143,862 | 3.07% |
| 10 | NEWTOWN, Powys | £143,493 | 3.04% |
Source: Zoopla.co.uk
| Worst Performing Towns | Average Home Value | % Change 2009 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | PRESTATYN, Denbighshire | £125,341 | -8.24% |
| 2 | PEMBROKE DOCK, Pembrokeshire | £126,033 | -7.19% |
| 3 | LLANBRYNMAIR, Powys | £142,578 | -6.83% |
| 4 | YSTRAD MEURIG, Ceredigion | £148,181 | -6.73% |
| 5 | RHYL, Denbighshire | £118,079 | -6.37% |
| 6 | MONTGOMERY, Powys | £176,488 | -6.32% |
| 7 | NEATH, Neath Port Talbot | £113,367 | -6.13% |
| 8 | BURRY PORT, Carmarthenshire | £125,322 | -4.99% |
| 9 | CHEPSTOW, Monmouthshire | £223,322 | -4.37% |
| 10 | MAESTEG, Bridgend | £94,292 | -3.75% |
Source: Zoopla.co.uk
