Zoomf Blog - UK Property Blog.

At least that is what THEY would like you to believe

There is an interesting debate happening over on the House Price Crash website. Basically, home owners are up in arms about a recently launched map service from the Met Police in London whereby anyone can view ‘crime stats’ for their borough.

Why is this such a threat to the home-owner?

The internet is basically the biggest depository of information ever devised by man. As a result, we are all empowered to be able to do property research in a much more efficient manner. I read somewhere that the average consumer in the UK does an average of 12 hours of online research when looking for property. Do home-owners actually believe in 2008 that they will be able to ‘hide’ the unsavory bits about their property’s location?

Whether it comes from the internet, from the council or directly from speaking to your knowledgeable estate agent, the buyer is going to find out everything they can before starting that mortgage paperwork. This includes how safe your neighborhood is in comparison to other areas of interest.

Maybe home-owners should consider what they can do to ‘clean-up’ their neighborhood ( get invovled ! ) rather than fight the unstoppable force for transparency that is the web.

Gordon Brown’s government has announced the it is ax’ing the stamp duty on properties less than 175,000 gbp in hope of reviving the property market. London estate agent, Winkworths, wonders if this will have any effect in London or mostly be a boost in the provincial market. Read all about it here.

As Poppy just blogged, one of the best online property conferences is taking place today in San Francisco called Real Estate Connect, but need something closer to home? How about London Ad-tech? Registration is free and there are loads of free seminars related to online advertising like Google University where you can learn how Google can help your property business.

Need to learn more about the internet, using it as a marketing and lead generation vehicle or just need some basic knowledge of what’s out there? Ad-tech is a good place to start.

Ad-tech is taking place in London’s Olympia Sept 24-25.

So you’re thinking it’s time to wait out the property crunch but you want to keep an eye on any low-hanging fruit? Are you also a bit of a DIY-er? Then look no further. We’ve got 320 homes that already have planning permission in the Greater London area. Below is the Google map (via KML) containing all the latest ‘planning permission results’ from London.

There’s also this new website called Betternest that, according to the Times, will help you improve your home rather than re-locate.

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