Property Week: …online property marketing is changing fast

We were delighted to read an article in Property Week on friday about online property marketing referencing The Big Property List:

‘Piggy backing on google…the latest nationwide listings portal’

Read the full Property Week article below or if you’re a subscriber you can also read the Property Week article online.

Foxtons selling houses for 0% commission in SW London

London Estate Agency Foxtons have announced that they will charge 0% commission on house sales for people using their new South London branches in Streatham and Willesden Green reported Negotiator Magazine today.

The offer is open to the first 200 sellers in each of the branches and the houses for sale in Streatham must be sold before 4th December 2010.

Earlier this year the Guardian reported that the Agency best known for its branded Minis experienced a profit slump of 70% with debts of nearly £350m due to the housing market.

So does this bold move opening two new offices signify a confidence in the South London Housing market?

So, can you spot any foxtons houses for sale in Streatham at The Big Property List?

Footnote: You have to hand it to the online marketing department at Foxtons – whilst researching this article I Googled ‘Streatham’ and their website features at second position in Google Spain and page 1 for google.co.uk – just behind wikipedia!  Good work boys!

How do I upload my property adverts to The Big Property List?

Below are some Frequently Asked Questions that should answer this question, if it doesn’t or you have further questions then please get in touch.

How do I upload my properties to thebigpropertylist.co.uk?

The property adverts listed on The Big Property List come from Google Maps.

You may have heard that you can now see properties for sale and to rent on Google Maps – well, we take a feed from Google so if your adverts are displayed on Google Maps (and you opt in to ‘re-syndication), they will be displayed on The Big Property List too!

Search for property listings on Google Maps

How much does it cost to list my properties on The Big Property List?

Nothing, it’s free.  Free to list and free to receive enquiries.  We do ask that you link to our website and display our logo on your website to show that your customers that you are marketing their properties on The Big Property List.  You can download our logo here.  We will shortly be sending out marketing packs with window stickers too – so if you want one please send us your postal address.

Adding property adverts to Google Maps

This can be done manually or by setting up a regular ‘feed’ in the Google Merchant Centre – the file types accepted are tab delimited (text or Excel spreadsheet), RSS and Atom files – these feeds can work in a similar way to the Rightmove feed but are not the same.  Your Estate Agent software provider or other partner portals may already be sending your feed to Google Maps, but it’s worth checking the quality of the information they are sending.  It is free to submit property adverts to Google Maps.

I’m not very technical, how do I send a feed to Google Maps?

The simplest place to start is to talk to your existing IT support, software vendor or portal about sending your feed to Google Maps – this may be just a click of a button for them.  If you do not have this support and would like us to help you set up and manage your feed then we can do this for a fee.  If you would like to know more about our feed set-up and optimisation services please get in touch.

Which property portals and software providers already send a feed to Google Maps?

These providers already send a feed to google Maps:

Software Vendors

• Web Dadi
• PropertyADD

Property Portals

• Zoopla
• Zoomf
• Property Pal
• Vebra
• SmartNewHomes
• Ezylet

…and others

Why do my property adverts show incorrect prices/ have missing information/ few photos or lack detail?

The property adverts at The Big Property List contain information exactly as provided in the ‘feed’ sent to Google Maps.  So if the feed lacks a price or contains only a one line description and no photos – this is what will appear in the property advert at The Big Property List.

This is why we recommend a full review of your feed – to get the most out of our free property portal and to maximise the number of enquiries you receive, include as much information in your feed as possible – this means a full description and lots of photos and an uploaded floor plan as a minimum!

If your feed does not contain enough information please get in touch with your IT support/ software provider to discuss it with them.

When I click ‘link to vendor’ on my adverts I don’t get taken to my website – why?

Whoever is submitting your feed to Google Maps (maybe an outside company such as your software provider or another portal) is not using your website address in the feed and may be using their own – so any enquiries and customers may be directed through their website instead of directly to you.  You should get in touch with them and request that the links in the feed correspond to the relevant property advert page on your website and that your email address is used as the main contact.

If you have further questions please do not hesitate to ask – we have been overwhelmed with enquiries since our recent launch and I hope you will understand that we will try to respond to everyone as promptly as we can.

The Big Property List officially launched today!

The Big Property List has been quietly online for some time and although the blog has been running for over a year (and has become quite popular) we only opened up the main property portal a few weeks ago.

The initial feedback and response has been good and people are using the site to find properties for sale and to rent in their area.

We are also seeing a suprising number of enquiries being send to Vendors to request viewings – especially given the recent press about fears for the housing market.

Why not look to find out what properties are on the market in your area?

Press Release 11 August 2010 – revised version

LAUNCH OF THE BIG PROPERTY LIST SEES THE UK’S ONLINE PROPERTY REVOLUTION MOVE ON – BIG TIME

The Big Property List (www.thebigpropertylist.co.uk), a new, free-to-use property portal, has been launched, laying down the gauntlet to everyone in the business of buying, selling and renting property in the UK.

The Big Property List displays details of available property, which have been publicly listed on Google Maps the UK, in a familiar portal style, tackling head-on the critics that suggest that users and those looking for property do not like property displayed in a map format.

In June the search engine announced that users were able to search for properties on Google Maps.  This announcement led to intense public debate in the property industry about the future of UK property portals such as Primelocation and Rightmove.

Many industry commentators and property portals have dismissed the threat posed by Google, saying that house hunters don’t want to search for property using the Google map view but prefer a list format.  The Big Property List addresses this by presenting the information in a familiar listing design.

The Big Property List offers what everyone hunting or selling property wants – a nationwide listing service to match Rightmove, which is free to use by agents.  It gives agents, home seekers and sellers on a budget, a no-cost, no frills, nationwide shop-window.

The Big Property List’s managing director, James Cole, says: “Any agent can send property details for free to Google Maps, and if they choose to syndicate this information then this will appear – for free – on The Big Property List.

He adds: “Estate agents fork out millions of pounds a year to advertise on nationwide sites. There will be no reason to do this anymore, with thebigpropertylist.co.uk providing a similar service, in a familiar style, for free.”

“At thebigpropertylist.co.uk we do not have to justify how we have to charge the fees normally paid by estate agents to a portal, allowing us to focus totally on what the consumer wants.  If we help people find the property they want, this results in better quality enquiries for estate agents.  So what benefits the consumer benefits the agent.”

-ends-

Notes for editors:

·         The Big Property List is an independent business and NOT a Google product or service.

·         The Big Property List uses the Google Base API to display details of properties which have been publicly listed on Google Maps.

·         Anyone choosing to list their property details on Google Maps can choose whether or not to syndicate this data.

·         If a user chooses not to syndicate the data, the information regarding their property WILL NOT appear on The Big Property List.  Submitting a listing to Google does not mean it will necessarily appear on any other website.

For further information please contact:

James Cole, The Big Property List +44 (0)7551 237 085 press@thebigpropertylist.co.uk www.thebigpropertylist.co.uk

Andrew Barber, Revolution Public Relations +44 (0)7989 553 903 andrew@revolution-pr.co.uk www.revolution-pr.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!