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Property/DIY

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Original poster

Something you MUST do if you are trying to buy a house at the moment is....

18 replies

CaptainJackSparrowIsMine · 24/05/2011 14:48

....register with property bee which means to you can see all the history about a house which is listed on right move eg how much it was originally on for, how much price has dropped, any other alterations to the listing etc.

I'm sure most of you know about this already but talking to a friend who is moving house at the moment and seeing the threads about moving reminded me how useful it was when we were moving last year

Hope it helps somebody

Disclaimer: I am absolutely nothing to do with property bee

OP posts:

mice · 24/05/2011 16:00

Thank you, I had never heard of property bee, makes for interesting reading! My husband will love it so thank you from us both :)

MoreBeta · 24/05/2011 16:03

Property Bee is indeed an interesting site.

One word of caution.I have heard that if an agent temporarily removes a house form the market and brings it back on the fact that it was previously marketed is not necessarily recorded.

They may have rectified that now but was something I heard a few years ago.

LtEveDallas · 24/05/2011 16:06

Thank you, verrrrrry interesting...

SybilBeddows · 24/05/2011 16:16

if you search using Home.co.uk the price reductions come up too. I couldn't get Property Bee to work.

Original poster

CaptainJackSparrowIsMine · 24/05/2011 17:15

YY Morebeta - I think that is right. I've noticed that. Having said that, if you are a property watcher then you may realise that anyway. Sometimes properties are listed with several agents and if you look around you will find its original listing with them if not with the agent who has re-listed if you know what I mean (it made sense in my head!)

OP posts:

thomasbodley · 24/05/2011 17:16

Property Bee is brilliant. Also, it's not-for-profit (or rather, they haven't yet found a way to monetise it) and the more people who use it, the more accurate it becomes.

It has, however, succeeded in killing off my interest in buying a house. It really highlights the lack of serious vendors (ie those who spend months on the market without a single price cut) and used in conjunction with nethouseprices.com, you can also see just how much of a new 'price bubble' artificially suppressed interest rates have created in London.

greentown · 25/05/2011 09:24

As per SybilBeddows, I couldn't get PropertyBee to work either but Home.co.uk is a good source of price info.
I've also found Globrix carries a lot of extra price data, time on market and so on.

Thromdimbulator · 25/05/2011 10:46

Property Bee runs with Firefox. It is an extremely useful tool. Also, check the 'House Prices' tab at the top of Rightmove. There is a 'Price Comparison Report' which often shows up houses no longer on the market (and seems a bit random, so worth playing with it more than once). This will sometimes reveal houses previously advertised with other agents (and at what price). You can also play the game of seeing which of these houses went to completion and show with a sold price either on Rightmove or with a database that uses the land registry. In our area, most advertised houses seem to be quietly withdrawn, presumably waiting for the market to pick-up. They've been waiting 3-4 years now, perhaps they'll wait for ever.

greentown · 25/05/2011 11:06

Cheers, tried Firefox - still couldn't get it to work. Tried all the things they say, still no joy - and I consider myself relatively IT literate - might be security software blocking it as I guess it tracks data on your PC.

That's a weird property scenario - 3/4 years with no movers!

Thromdimbulator · 25/05/2011 11:55

Well, I perhaps exaggerate a little! But it is pretty stagnant. Lots of houses being let out rather than sold too.

tyler80 · 25/05/2011 14:28

There are a 1000+ properties for sale in the town we are looking in. Last month there were 12 completions. Not a single house we have viewed has sold. One estate agent tried to tell me the market is buoyant - I guess that could be true if if means bobbing around doing nothing

Property bee is great although it doesn't track houses that get moved between agents you can often spot those who have moved as the estate agent board for the former agent is in the new agents pictures!

greentown · 25/05/2011 18:18

sounds utterly bizarre - Is there a reason why nobody else wants to live in that town?

tyler80 · 25/05/2011 18:24

It's a fairly cheap place to live and I imagine the sort of place that will suffer first from ftb's not being able to get mortgages.

Lots of sold signs about but not many of them seem to get to completion

thomasbodley · 26/05/2011 09:24

As far as my own experience here in London Zone 2 goes, Throm isn't exaggerating. I've been looking to move for a good three years now, the same houses come on and off the market non-stop.

Despite not selling, many vendors increase the asking price (which Property Bee is brilliant for spotting). What, just so you can admire pictures of your house on the internet?

greentown · 26/05/2011 09:49

my experience in the London market would suggest if you're a serious buyer or a serious seller then the market is moving and sales are defintely completing.

thomasbodley - I think what you may be observing (and I'm saying this because I know property in London is selling) is landlords marketing their properties for limited periods between tenancies. They can't market properly with tenants in situ so every 6 months or so the property appears on the market, with a different price as advised by the agent at the time. If it doesn't sell pronto, they can't afford to leave it empty and are able to re-let it straight away and it comes off the market again for another 6 mths.

Thromdimbulator · 26/05/2011 10:21

Greentown, That's not the case where I am. This is a desirable town in the South East which for the last decade at least has been able to sell houses at exhorbitant prices to people moving out of London. It's not the earning power of London workers that is the problem, I can accept it's a commuter town and a local wage would not buy a house. However, I think prices have spiralled because of the amount of people who have seen their London homes more than double in value through the mere good fortune of being able to buy at the right time. It's been easy money for them. Easily 'earned', easily spent. But they've become much rarer. Estate agents have had it very good but are failing to engage with the new economic reality.

greentown · 27/05/2011 08:10

Throm - I'm just guessing but I wonder if you're in the £1/2mill + bracket?

I'm looking at FTB flats, first family homes and maybe 2nd/next step family homes - all in SE London. All those properties (in the right area/at the right price) are shifting pretty quickly. The stockbroker belt is out of my experience.

Lovethesea · 27/05/2011 19:38

Property Bee was fantastic for us - we've just exchanged - took me a couple of attempts to get it working on firefox but since then it's so easy. I would miss it greatly!

All those price drops, dates it came on, dates of changes, when it had open houses.

The ones we've seen 'cheat' the system are those that came off completely for a few days and then relaunched with whole new photos. But for the vast majority of properties it is really revealing - it shows when they moved to Under Offer, or Sold subject to contract, and when they then come back on again if it falls through!

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