A new service which aims to provide estate and letting agents with what it calls “game changing” access to property data and market intelligence launches publicly today.
Homesearch, which has already been soft-trialled by 1,200 agents across the UK, formally launches its BETA platform today and is offering free access to all verified agents in this country until January 1.
The new service provides what it claims to be the most comprehensive property data in the UK as well as demographic and market insight relevant to agents’ requirements. These include:
- detailed information at individual property level, complete with visual Land Registry boundaries, title numbers and comparable local properties;
- a database of planning applications and planning history attached to every related property;
- data-based valuation information;
- live analytics and demographic data available at: building, street, district, sector and full postcode level;
- filterable single map view to explore properties and land across the UK.
Based on public, licensed and proprietary data, and using machine learning, Homesearch says it wants to be a major port of call for residential property information, transaction history, demographic data, insights and reporting.
"Estate agency is fundamentally a people-based business, and high levels of service will always achieve the best results. Far from diminishing the human factor, we believe that information should be used to enhance the relationship with buyers, sellers, landlords and tenants, to educate and inspire” explains Homesearch founder Giles Ellwood.
“We set out to empower agents and their clients alike; to have more open and meaningful conversations based on data, and enhanced using the huge experience agents have to guide and inform" Ellwood says.
Homesearch - which has already been named as a partner in Graham Lock’s new trade buying organisation the Federation of Independent Agents - is operated by a group of data scientists, developers and entrepreneurs, who want to use the rest of this year as a learning experience.
“We want to steadily gain the trust of agents and elevate the industry. The more agents get involved and help to shape the tech, the greater the future improvements are likely to be. So far the feedback has been that our users are seeing immense value” continues Ellwood.
Agents can register for free for the rest of 2019 at www.homesearch.co.uk.
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A superb offering that is ideal when the call comes in to book a valuation and gives the negotiator a great tool to discuss things about the home that the vendor wouldn’t expect them to know. Equally ideal for the professional valuation visit as part of building your comparable evidence.
This has rapidly become indespensible in our office. We’ve been using this for a while now and the rate that the team have been incorporating new features is impressive. Wouldn’t be without this.
Fantastic tool. Rightmove BPG on steroids...and so much more. Love the planning element. Real conversation starter.
Brilliant product and an excellent company to work with. Highly recommended
Also great to have a positive story for once!
I've been using this for months now. Saves me so much time gathering info from numerous different sources. It's great. But please don't use it. I want to keep it all for myself
An honest, open and engaging company and team, with a very innovative product, and we've been pleased with the results of our trial over recent months. Good luck to everyone at Homesearch and I look forward to seeing how this develops further......
A great offering that is improving over time, I think the soft launch was a great idea and the reports will be a game changer...Not perfect yet...but really getting there!
This really is the best tool I have come across for Estate Agents since I have been in the industry. It's basically Google for all your Property Data requirements. They now have released beautiful PDF reports that can be generated at a click of a button, that will wow vendors, this just makes an Agent look super authoritative and helps you to provide genuine value to your clients.
To let you know how I came across Homesearch, I run Olivia, a service for Estate Agents that responds and qualifies leads via SMS with real people. I knew that data would make our live agents more powerful, now all of our customer experience agents use Homesearch to have unbelievable conversations with leads about a vendors property.
Also, I know Sam from Homesearch and he is one of the most genuine guys I have met who really wants to make a product that helps Agents.
Tempting for agents to get on board but, as always, beware the free launch period. One word; Rightmove. Perhaps Mr Ellwood could be a bit more open about potential monthly subscriptions payable after 01/01/20 particularly as the idea is to get you hooked, if not dependent, on the software.
There's something not quite right with this company, and all the positive reviews it has received in the space of a few hours. What is happening with all this data they are collating from estate agents? The company must be making money somehow? Who are they selling the list of addresses to?
I agree. Some of the reviews here appear similar to those that can be found on Trust Pilot about PB's....or am I just being cynical??
Thanks for all these comments.
We thought it best to let our early users know we were planning on doing some press - we're a business trying to grow and its great they're happy to talk about their experiences.
To answer your question on funding - we've self funded to date. Our pricing will be released on August 31 (this is clearly stated on our website) so agents have a further 4 months to use HS for free and decide if they see value.
If you think any of the messages of support aren't real - thankfully EAT make it so users post using their real names - feel free to contact any of them, most of these people have been users of Homesearch throughout out soft launch - I'm sure they'll be happy to have a further chat (or you're welcome to join up and take a look for yourself). Think that's me done for the day - thanks all. Sam
Are we seriously giving a company a tough time for an initially free product that will later cost? Sounds like a long run to establish value before you commit to paying. They have just launched but have been trialling with 1200 agents so of course they have some testimonials- if you don’t trust what the company says & don’t trust what other agents say who exactly do you want to validate it? As for data, a huge amount of he data is out there they are just putting it in one place, easy to access, easy to relay. The data conspiracy theories are tired and gdpr should have resolved concerns over reselling agent data without their knowledge or consent. I saw the platform in early stages but with the team every luck & success moving forwards.
'Are we seriously giving a company a tough time for an initially free product that will later cost? It's like going back in time to when Rightmove launched using the same model.
Loving this tool, been using it a while now and am very happy with the data and support.
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