Sustrans is well worth a look when you’re buying a house
Sustrans maps show all the cycle and walking paths available in your area. They also list bus stops, dentists, GPs, shops and tons of other useful stuff.
Give it a whirl!
Category: Useful sites
English Heritage Map search
Fantastic search facility for listed buildings at English Heritage
Search by postcode, use the ‘?’ to query the triangles – download pdf maps, see the listing details.
Essential if you’re looking at a listed property with a veiw to owning it.
The property ombudsman
If you want to complain about your estate agent then you can do via the Property Ombudsman.
His powers allow him to make awards of compensation for financial loss and/or aggravation, distress and inconvenience, where he feels it is appropriate. The service is free of charge for the public.
They can deal with lettings as well as sales issues!
Fantastic! Your estate agent must be a member of an Estate Agents Redress Scheme! It must be a scheme regulated by the Office of Fair Trading and have the power to investigate complaints.
If you have problems with your estate agent then have a look on the property ombudsmans site to see if they can help!
Sold house prices on Rightmove
There are lots of sites to search for house sold prices, but they’re also available on rightmove too
Visit rightmove’s house sold prices page.
You can searcg by postcode – try the first half of your postcode. Sales are listed by street which makes for interesting reading – if a street has a lot of sales does that mean there’s something wrong with it?
You can vary the time scale of house sales too – within the last year to over 7 years. Records online only go back to about 2001-2002.
The listing for each street gives you the full address, the sale date, the tenure (Whether it’s freehold or leasehold) and the price paid.
Bing maps
Bing maps is different from Google maps – so should show a different date of the photo. Well worth a look!
Up my street
Useful website – http://www.upmystreet.com/
They give you Neighbourhood snapshot for the area, photos nearby, events and activities, property for sale, help finding your nearest school and shop etc, and forums.
Free check at Homecheck
The ultimate guide to environmental, flood and planning risks and neighbourhood information.
They offer a free check service – just enter your postcode.
The results give you a high, medium or low assessment of risk for different factors – if there are any high risk factors then it’s worth doing additional checks.
You get one free search before you need to register.
Broadband Checker
What broadband is available? For many people in big towns and cities there will be a huge supply of broadband available and no problems at all. In some more rural locations you may have less options – and you might not get cable internet at all.
Sam Knowns has a broadband checker worth looking at.
You can Check using a phone number or postcode!
There can be a huge variation available.
Here are three different postcode results for different types of area
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Very Rural location * BT Wholesale ADSL |
More Rural Location * BT Wholesale ADSL |
More urban area * BT Wholesale ADSL |
PrimeLocation Review
Using Prime Location to search for properties isn’t as much fun as using other sites.
The main page is crowded but with UK buy option at the top left it’s easy to see where to start your search. On the main page there are links to articles and information about property for sale, as well as sale prices.
The search screen gives you the option to type in a location by town, postcode or country. You can set the price ranges, property types and minimum number of bedrooms. Plus there’s a keyword section.
The search location bar will autofill or make suggestions when you start typing. This can be very helpful.
The keyword section can be used to include a word you want on the property description or avoid properties with a certain word in. So if you want a mews house, type mews in, and if you hate mews houses then type –mews.
The area radius is set at various levels from ¼, mile, up to 30 miles.
You can browse by map too.
The keyword function also allows you to add additional keywords, just separate them by a comma. So you could type “pool, tennis, garage”, If you wanted to search for a house with a pool, tennis court and garage.
You can opt to exclude the under offer properties and sort by price high to low (that’s the default) or low to high, as well as newest to oldest, and oldest to newest. That’s a useful way of seeing what’s come on to the market recently.
They show the properties on a map on the results page. This is useful to see where the properties are more clearly.
The property details are easy to get to. Just click on the short details. You’ll see all the photos in thumbnails and can just run the mouse over to see them all full size.
You see contact details for estate agent and can make contact via email, request information or a viewing. You can also add personal notes.
There are also the written details available on that page too. Being able to request a viewing via the form is easy!
Not all the same estate agents use Prime Location as other major property websites so it’s worth having a check on this one too. There’s also the options to have emails sent when there are new properties that match your criteria.
Overall the site seems more cluttered that rightmove, but works about the same – allowing you to find property in the area you’re interested in.
PrimeLocation.com is worth adding to your property website search list.
Geograph – great photos
An amazing site packed with photos of the UK and Ireland is Geograph. It’s useful for getting an idea of the area and what’s there.
Visit Geograph now – type in a postcode, or place name.
What is the site? The Geograph Britain and Ireland project aims to collect geographically representative photographs and information for every square kilometre of Great Britain and Ireland
You can even upload your own photos to the site to make it even better for other visitors!