Could Broadband be a deal breaker?

The Telegraph has reported an interesting addition to property details that are held on the Rightmove website.  According to the Telegraph’s Telecoms Correspondent, Rightmove is to team up with BT to list the broadband speeds of over one million homes listed on their website.

This could make a significant difference to how we ‘shop’ for a new home as this information would be available alongside key property information such as the number and size of bedrooms in a property.

A recent survey found that almost 75% of house buyers would be “put off” from purchasing the home of their dreams if it didn’t have an Internet connection or the speed was very low.  Half of those people surveyed also said they would pay more for a house if high speed broadband was available.

When you consider how much we rely on the Internet these days for so many things, this news is hardly surprising.  Working from home, social networking, online shopping, and online gaming have made the Internet an essential service rather than a luxury and a home without broadband would cripple many of us socially and professionally.

Rightmove, which currently displays details for approximately 90% of the homes for sale in the UK, will also include details of properties covered by BT Infinity, the new fibre-optic broadband network currently being rolled out across the country.

When asked about the changes on the Rightmove website, a Rightmove spokesperson said “As a leading UK website, services such as superfast broadband obviously interest us and we have recently looked into how it can benefit us, although we are not currently in any form of partnership with BT.”  However, they did confirm that initial discussions had taken place.

The good news for those living in some rural areas is that the Government has committed £830m from the BBC license fee over the next seven years to rollout superfast broadband.  If BT and Rightmove do enter into this partnership it won’t be the first of its kind.

Many independent estate agents currently include details of whether properties are connected to Virgin’s broadband service on their property listings.  Virgin have also recently entered into a partnership with Persimmon to connect their fibre optic cables into new build homes.

So, if you are a frequent user of all things Internet and looking to move home, broadband may be a big consideration.  Whether or not it is a deal breaker is up to the individual, but trying to imagine life without broadband is getting increasingly more difficult as time goes by.