Blogging
UK’s 100 most influencial property twitter accounts
Property Week have release the top 100 most influential property twitter accounts in the UK and The Big Property List rocked in at…9th!
Read the full story and see the Top 10 here
The overriding trend was that the top 100 was characterised by people not businesses or brands. Many property journalists such as the well respected Anne Ashworth of the Times and Graham Norwood (freelance) made it into the top 50 alongside property celebrities such as Sarah Beeny.
The UK Property Twitterverse is characterised by people not brands
There was a total absense of property portals inside the top 100 except (you guessed it) us. But then we spend a lot of time talking to people on Twitter and have purposely focused on engaging with people. We suspect that brands are used to talking at people (not with them) and this isn’t what social media is about.
Do you use Twitter or is it all Twaffle to you? Leave you comments below or Tweet us on @TheBPL.
Channel Four recognises The Big Property List Blog
National UK broadcaster Channel 4 named The Big Property List Blog as one of their favourite Househunting Blogs this week, rating us alongside such great company as the House Historian and the Rat and Mouse property blogs.
Channel 4 said:
(The Big Property List’s) meaty blog covers big topics in an accessible way. Posts about conveyancing, planning permission and selling at auction sit amongst the more topical house price speculation and other snippets from the news.
Visit the channel 4 website here to see the original article.
Earlier this year Primelocation named The Big Property List Blog runner up in their 2010 Property Blog Awards and we are delighted to be recognised in this way by a national broadcaster.
We are especially delighted that the aims of the blog – information and accessibility are recognised as it has always been our intention to provide a great resource accessible to everyone.
.
Property Blog Awards recognise The Big Property List
Kudos to the people over at Primelocation, arguably the second most popular UK property portal, owned and operated by the Digital Property Group, for awarding us the runners up prize for the best property blog post in 2010.
Well, runner up anyway!
We got the recognition for an insight piece we published last year about the Tesco/ Spicerhaart Online Estate agent isold.com and their direct marketing approach targeting homeowners in their launch areas. The post received quite a lot of comments from estate agents and discussion from the online property community.
We were in good company and beaten to the post (get it?) by Sam Collett with an article on her intelligent and entertaining What Sam Saw Today blog – a diary of a property developer, professional landlord and entrepreneur.
Other runners up in the category were Ben Harris’ Housing Dabble, Graham Downie’s A little Drop of Cognac and Henry Pryor’s Housing Expert.
The overall best blog 2010 award rightly (in our opinion) went to Graham Norwood’s property newshound which just goes to show that print and online journalism can compliment one another as Graham is one of the UK’s foremost Print Property Journalist and in our eyes the most clued up technology-wise.
Accepting his award Graham said:
“I’m delighted and honoured…so much property writing, by industry professionals and journalists, concentrates on the most exclusive homes.
They are fantastic but I wanted my blog to look at other issues, too, in a way which informed and entertained, and sometimes infuriated.”
Well said.
Commercial Property Portals lag behind Residential online
When it comes to searching for a new home most people are aware of the various offerings of the internet. The residential property portals such as RightMove, Primelocation, Fish4Homes have, as the recent OFT (Office of Fair Trading) report says ‘changed the face of (residential) property search’
It could not be easier for users to search for residential properties and rich features from 360 degree tours to virtual refurbishment options add to the experience. Residential property portals are used all through the market from high-value sales to low-value lettings. However, the commercial market has not been so receptive to online developments. There are portals that are available to those looking for commercial property, however, they are significantly less advanced than their residential counterparts.
EGPropertyLink, NovaLoca and Focus are the market leaders, but compared to the residential property portals only provide the most basic of information such as photos, maps, and property description. The only steps that have really gone beyond these are individual property websites such as Quarter Mile One in Edinburgh.
But the use of the internet by the commercial property market has and continues to lag behind that of the residential market. The reasons for this include the differing liquidity of the respective markets. In the case of residential lettings, properties will sometimes be on the market for only a matter of days whilst it is not uncommon for commercial properties to be on the market for many months or even years. It is therefore more suitable to make use of more permanent advertising mediums as they are less likely to date.
Biography: Tim Denny is a regular contributor to The Inside Edge. He is currently a Commercial Property Asset Manager for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and has an extrensive background in commercial property.
LinkedIn – Tim Denny
Twitter – @tim_denny
Interior design tips: Never judge a book by its cover…
Never judge a book by its cover …or not?
So, consider this…before:
Selling your home is always a challenge and can take some time. To help sell the property it is always a good idea to give your home that final piece of love and attention. The more effort you put into making your home look nice, the more money it will sell for. Try and look through the buyer’s eyes, investigate every corner and think of how you could make it better and more attractive.
Home staging is becoming ever more the norm and is often needed in today’s demanding property market. With the pressures of meeting buyers’ high expectations it is important to concentrate on the overall look and feel of your home and ensure that it is not only appealing to the buyer, but also inviting.
There is nothing worse than going into a home that is full of clutter, which has been left to its own devices. Over the coming weeks I’ll be providing tips to help sell your home and get it off the market – so book mark this blog or sign up to recieve my tips by email.
It is a service provided by Sav Design, so for more information please visit my website and follow me on twitter @savvy_sav for helpful advice, tips and other random tweets!
Helpful Hint 1: I know we are always told never to judge a book by its cover, but be honest how many times have you seen something and immediately made a judgement? It is quite common for people to form an opinion of some sort within the first few minutes of seeing something, be it a property, person or a pair of shoes!!
So ensure that the entrance to your property is tended to, be it a garden or a corridor. Make an effort to get rid of unwanted rubbish. We are all hoarders of some type and just need that extra push to de-clutter¦ believe it or not you will feel lighter and maybe slightly liberated!!
So get rid of those weeds in the front garden and give it a good sweep. Pick up the mess from the corridors and create an atmosphere of calm, welcoming your new guests. Small entrances can be tricky, but adding a long mirror and additional lighting automatically tricks the eye into seeing more. Another way to add more depth and space is to add a small console table at one end; this draws the eye forward again creating the illusion of more space. As the eye is being drawn to this table it would be a good idea to add a simple accessory such as a tasteful flower arrangement or vase. Leaving the entrance ticked off of your list!!
Now consider this…after:
Consider the impression that the two pictures above would give a potential purchasor. The key is to make that initial impact and create not just a ‘good’, but a fantastic impression.
I hope you enjoyed this article and are looking forward to the next helpful hint! In the meantime please do not hesitate to get in touch for personal advice from Sav Design.
Author Biography
Savita Kalia is the principal interior designer at Sav Design, an interior design firm offering a variety of commercial and residential services. Sav Designis a young company fresh with new ideas and old, ensuring that all client needs are fulfilled. Life is too short to be badly designed, contact Sav Design today! design@savdesign.co.uk
The Inside Edge receives a make-over!
Those of you who are regular readers will notice a big change in our design today as we’ve re-branded The Inside Edge property blog to match our corporate website design over at www.thebigpropertylist.co.uk
Things may continue to move a round a bit as we take off the bubble wrap and play with it and your comments and feedback are most welcome.
The main site will launch very soon now and this is the last stage before we release the property search and property upload features. Many of the links won’t work until the rest of the site is live so please be patient!
For those of you who are a bit techy, we are using the latest version of WordPress (3.0) which in our opinion is the ultimate blogging platform and allows us to use cool features like dynamic menus that make our lives easier – horaah!
What does it mean to be an ethical property investor?
by Roberta Ward
When I was requested to write an article about ethics in property investment I was asked a few questions:
• Do ethics and property investment make easy bedfellows?
• Are there ethical dilemmas in property investment?
• What does it mean to be an ethical property investor?
To answer these questions properly would take much more than one article, so I’m going to tell you in particular how we choose to apply it to our business.
Dictionary definition of Ethical: ‘moral principles, morally correct’.
Dictionary definition of Morals: ‘a persons standards or behaviour, concerned with right and wrong’.
These are the guiding principles which drive our business. I am often asked – “What is ethical property investing?” The three things it means to us are:
• Not getting involved with companies or individuals touting a ‘get rich quick’
methodology
• Teaching people the truth behind methods of investing- good and bad/ ‘warts and all’
• Being extremely careful who we link with – and by this I mean on any level-whether that is a text link out from our website to another company or literally the people we choose to work with and for.
In truth, it’s been a huge challenge keeping a moral compass within property
investing. There are many times when you are tempted by bribes or incentives to be part of something questionable. But, our own stance is to connect with and help people who have the same ethics as ourselves. We never directly recommend anyone we have not worked with personally. That way, if they prove to be not what they seem, then at least it’s just us and not any clients of ours who lose money. If we are not completely comfortable with them then we don’t work with them.
Our own code of ethics was developed over time because of the disgust we felt at the way property investing has been hijacked by marketing sharks who are really just chasing the quickest route to your money. The advent of huge ‘property networking’ events, which are little more than sales drives, has made the whole scenario very distasteful. It still amazes me why so many folks get sucked in by them.
As a company, we have to be very good judges of people, and we spend a lot of time examining those we do business with. The higher your profile becomes, the more people are keen to be seen working with you. This in itself presents a challenge and we have had to find ways to say ‘get lost’ politely! ( Not always easy-as those with poor reputations tend to be like a jack russell hanging on to a trouser leg!)
So back to the questions at the start of this article.
“Do ethics and property investment make easy bedfellows”- no not really, it’s complicated but it’s also very rewarding in the long term.
“Are there ethical dilemmas in property investment?” You betcha! Every day we come across new challenges, but business is about challenge after all.
“What does it mean to be an ‘ethical property investor?” It means having courage to stand up for how you believe business should be done and being prepared to weed out those who seek only to feather their own nest.
Roberta Ward is the owner of mypropertymentor.co.uk, a top 20 UK property blog, and teaches ethical property and wealth investment strategies for professionals via Joint Ventures, workshops and revolutionary collaborative events.
We are officially a Top 100 Real Estate Blog – Technorati
We were really pleased this week to discover that we’ve made it in to Technorati’s top 100 Real Estate blogs – worldwide! As the name suggests Technorati is the Web’s leading authority for blogs and attaining the upper ranks is no mean feat in the today’s rich blogosphere.
Thebigpropertylist.co.uk blog started out on Blogger nearly two years ago and has gone from strength to strength, attracting guest writers from all over the property blogosphere such as Ollie Cornes, professional Landlord and owner of Landlord software company Juicy Property and Sharon Crossland, tenancy expert and blogger of Leasehold Life.
Visitor numbers and contributions have continued to rise on a weekly basis and we have been really pleased by the positive and supportive emails we’ve received from readers in that time.
Our aim is to continue to bring you the latest UK property news as well as property articles on a range of useful and entertaining subjects. We will shortly be moving the blog to the prettier design that we employ on the main website as the property portal is finally getting close to launch (horaah!). Originally planned to be a ‘For Sale by Owner’ property sales portal thebigpropertylist.co.uk will offer an altogether different type of property search. The website has been delayed whilst we surveyed the market (especially in the wake of the Tepilo launch and while we finished other projects) and planned our next move. So, you will just have to wait and see what the final site brings!
In celebration of making it to the top 100 Real Estate blogs and as a nod in the direction of our fellow property keyboard tappers, here’s a list of our favourite property blogs elesewhere on the web:
- Housing Dabble – Property Marketing, Brand Building and Social Media from Ben Harris
- Agent’s Diary The weary musings of a time-served estate agent (realtor) somewhere in the UK
- Modern Estate Agent – Brain food for the modern estate agent
- Facts Not Headlines – Kate Faulkner, author of Which? property books and consultant to the industry tells the REAL stories in the property market
- Landlord Law Blog – Tessa Shepperson, a solicitor and specialist in residential landlord and tenant law
Happy reading…
