A new service claiming to deliver comprehensive information on every single residential home in the UK launches in beta version today.
It will be free for estate agents to try out until the end of this year.
Homesearch, founded by CEO Giles Ellwood, is fundamentally a search engine that uses big data and other information from a wide range of sources. The site also employs machine learning.
Ellwood said: “Anything an agent needs to know about any property, they can ‘homesearch’ it.”
It soft-launched in January and already has over 1,200 estate agents using it. One of those independently contacted EYE to describe the service as an industry “game changer”.
Ellwood said: “Own it, don’t fear it.”
He said the site aims to be the first port of call for residential property information, transaction history and demographic data plus other insights.
He also says it is a tool to serve and enhance the agency process, not remove the human expertise, and that the aim is not to be disruptive, but “comprehensively constructive”.
He said: “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.
“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.”
Homesearch aims to use the rest of this year to better understand what agents need from the platform and further develop directly from the feedback to ensure the product grows in the right direction.
Ellwood continued: “We want to steadily gain the trust of agents and elevate the industry as a whole.
“The more agents that get involved and help to shape the tech they actually want to use, the greater the future improvements in the estate agency process are likely to be.
“So far the feedback has been that our users are seeing immense value from what Homesearch offers already.”
Features currently include for each property: Land Registry information; a database of local planning; a data-based valuation tool; live analytics and demographic data based at building, street, district, sector and postcode levels; and a highly filterable map.
More features are due to be delivered over the next few months.
Pricing for next year will be announced on August 31, based on what users think it is worth.
Free registration for agents is at homesearch.co.uk
Comments (53)
I have been using Homesearch for a couple of weeks now and it’s an Instruction winner! Ultimately only the Agent will win the business but it’s a fantastic tool and demonstrates that you have really taken care and time in researching the Sellers property. Cracking work guys!
…..Asstonishing!!
Get these people to run OTM …… they’ve posted, advertised, marketed, lauded, applauded their product more in this thread than OTM have done for months!
Whether it’s great or cr@p I don’t know yet however they’ve kept SHOUTING ABOUT IT!
Nite John Boy ……
…….and Nick isn’t a relation or involved, is he?
Homesearch is proving very beneficial to my office in helping us generate more business. Keep up the amazing work Sam!
Loving this tool, been using it a while now and am very happy with the data and support.
Tried to register.
Nothing happening.
Gave up.
Down vote here.
Hi Mark. Sorry to hear nothing happened. Would love to understand what went wrong – feel free to give me a call on 0207 531 7143 or shoot me an email – sam@homesearch.co.uk
Oversubscribed?
Had to move on to other things.
Some (perhaps just one multi-offender) of you are very transparent and even more naive.
Posting to promote your business as if you are not part of the company is deceitful and hardly likely to win you any friends here.
Hi Eagle60, can you elaborate on what you mean please? Of all the comments, you have my assurances that I’m the only one from Homesearch who’s posted. You can see Nick Salmon’s comment that he’s verified the other commenters are all genuine.
I can see this is very tempting for agents to get on board (particularly after all the positive 1st time posters blowing smoke about it this morning) but, as always, beware the free launch period. One word; Rightmove. Perhaps Mr Ellwood or SamH could be a bit more open about potential monthly subscription levels payable after 01/01/20 particularly as the idea is to get you hooked, if not dependent, on the software.
Happy to, Property Pundit.
We want to take feedback from our users around pricing before letting everyone know what it’ll be from 2020 onwards on August 31 (this is clearly stated here – https://www.homesearch.co.uk/pricing) so agents have a further four months to use HS for free and decide if they see value.
What figure does your business plan rely upon as best case scenario for Homesearch moving forward – £100pcm? £250pcm? £500pcm? £1000pcm?
I thought it would be helpful to comment further on why we have our pricing strategy as it is. Homesearch is an independent business that we have self funded primarily through our other property data business – Address Intelligence.
When we planned to launch the trial back in January 2019, we thought about publishing a monthly subscription cost. We sat in a room for weeks and went around in circles about what would be a fair cost, for us and our users. What is for certain is that we would much prefer the majority of the industry to have access to the service and paying a far more affordable subscription than a smaller group paying a higher monthly fee. As a result we’ve committed to set a price by the 31 August that will apply from January 2020.
Thanks to Ros for running the story and for all the comments! Plenty of work to do but hopefully we can bring some value to your businesses.
I’ve been using this for a few months and it is an exceptionally good tool. Very easy to use, the information is up to date and I use it daily. Would recommend it to anyone in the industry.
What is the developer’s background and who is funding Homesearch?
Is no-one else distrubed that over 1,200 agents are handing over the addresses of all their prospective clients? That’s a very valuable database. Is Homesearch offering other services to these motivated sellers, or is the list being sold to other companies/agents?
We’re not handing over any live on the market addresses, aSalesAgent. We don’t ID any property that is on the market, we provide data any property an agent wishes to homesearch and they can use it how they see fit. To answer your last question, no.
When you say ‘no’ to my “last question”, is that specifically “is the list being sold to other companies/agents”? Does Homeseearch write to these addresses offering other services, such as conveyancing, movers, auction listing services, energy switching, etc?
It was a no to all, including your specific points mentioned
Thanks for clarifying, SamH.
Genuinely one of the first sites I log into everyday. Great tool to enhance a good agents repertoire. A one stop shop and the new marketing reports are top drawer.
Keep up the great work boys and girls. Can’t wait to see the platform evolve over time.
Guys, Trustpilot is this way >>>>>>>>>
So what if there are a lot of new posters? I assume Homesearch has briefed clients to come out in support, maybe they could have been a bit less blatant about it but it sounds like a superb bit of tech if it works (I’ve never used it). Fair play, it sounds like someone has built something that is useful to agents.
And if it negates one of Rightmove’s features it can’t be bad, can it?
We’d have been silly not to let the agents we’ve been working with know we were doing some press. After all, we’re a business trying to grow. We’ve worked hard to get here and are grateful for the support
Fair comment but the concerted guff was hardly subtle.
Oh dear the snipers are out already ‘I can’t believe its not butter’ – get a life you melt, and stop whinging before your wife leaves you. I had a convo with CEO Sam after Perry recommended Homesearch to me. For years I’ve been p****ing aroud like most with the best price guide, which for all intents, has always been ****. This works. It’s quick and is simple to us, it’s pulls great data in, is pretty accurate the vast majority of the time.
If you are one of those old school whiney agents who comes on here. Please..don’t use it. Carry on moaning about change, and keep on mocking everything. You don’t have long now.
This most definitely…is the future.
Amazed at this NEW Product…..
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* Enjoying a few days off on my motorbike …..having breakfast at Tebay Farmshop Services ….reading this nonsense!
……and Purplebricks is the Gift that just keeps on Giving!
Remember – Try NEW Oxygen! It’s AMAZING
GPL…it won’t be long buddy. Then you can find another industry to be a dullard in..I very much suspect you aren’t doing much to stand out from the usual turnips in the industry Phnaaar
Genius first post, congrats.
I love the geography of the Howgills at Tebay!
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.
Wow! All these New/Old Posters? Really?!
I can’t believe it’s not butter – they ALL chorused!
😉
Have been using Homesearch for a couple of months now and clients are impressed with the personalised report, which has resulted in an increase in instructions. Great product!
We have been trialling this service for some months now and it has continually developed during that time.
Ideal for pre MA preparation providing EPC data, square footage, mapping, council tax bands and an unerringly accurate valuation !
More recently seller Marketing Reports have been added.
Certainly advise agents to speak to Sam Hunter with a view to giving it a go.
Starting using this about a month ago . Im now using it daily , save so much time and can be personalised.
This is a great tool, innovate and easy to use and has worked well for us over the last few months during our test. Well done to the team at Homesearch and I’m sure there’s plenty more to come from them.
Never seen so many new posters on one thread – staff bonus for a good review?
A bit vague on content.
Looking forward to learning more about it.
We’ve been using this for a few months now and it’s a really useful tool. The customer service and support is fantastic and they are constantly adding improvements to the system. I’d highly recommend having a look at it.
Loving all the first time posters liking this editorial!
Piepilot
Was just thinking the same
Somewhat unusual to have so many positive comments about a new product but we can confirm that the EYE readers making them appear to be genuine long term users of our site.
Yup, and every post of very similar length. Read like PB’s Trustpilot reviews and we know who wrote those.
Incredible tool for so many reasons. The data. The reports. The speed. The planning information. Plot information. The lot. The team at Homesearch are genuinely interested in creating a tool that agents actually want and need.
Hugely informative and actually takes away the need for Rightmove’s best price guide. Clients love the amount of information available and that is reflected in you as the agent. The team are very quick to respond to any development issues and are extremely keen to hear from me as an agent with any improvements. Definitely worth implementing if you haven’t already.
Great idea – but I’ve just searched one of mine and it highlights the house next door!
Hey Revilo!
Google st view determines where the pin for the property gets placed. Try moving the map and it should correct itself. That affects maybe 15% of all the properties across the country and we’re working to auto-move the maps. If that doesn’t change it, flag it with us in the system so we can have a look for you (or post your address here and we can ALL check it… 🙂 )
Sam
It’s highlighted the next door property purple and i can’t make it move…
“or post your address here and we can ALL check it…” Nice try!!
Ah it’s the plot that’s not lining up. That’s genuinely something we’d want to look at. You’ve got my details if you do ever want it sorted.
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.
Been playing with this new tool for a while now and in comparison with our other property pricing tools it is so much more versatile. The fact that you can edit the report so that is more relevant to your prospect is invaluable.
A great resource, we have been using it for several months and we are confident about it becoming a one stop solution to help us operate efficiently and to be the “informed” agents.
I’ve been using this tool. Client feedback has been great. Used correctly it’s a great conversation starter, stay in touch policy and prospecting tool. I love the planning element too.