Zoopla! Property Valuation Web Site

Just discovered this amazing new web site (which can be found at http://www.zoopla.co.uk/ ) which appears still be in beta testing. You just pop a postcode into the box on the home page and it then comes up with all the prices of houses sold in that postcode with an image of the property taken from Microsoft Virtual Earth. Presumably, the prices achieved and date of sale have been taken from the Land Registry information. It has an estimate of your property which is calculated using a clever algorithm. You can then claim a property and add more details and then invite people to make an offer on that property.

The site also has a social networking element to it via the My Zoopla button. This logs properties you have claimed as your own, tracks other properties you would like to buy or are just plain curious about. You can link with other registered Zoopla users and upload personal details and photo.

I think this site is going to be big. I can see this being of great interest to developers who can research properties near to their developments or even identify potential target properties and make offers via the web site. It could be anther worry to agents because it links buyers with sellers directly. Whether putting your property on this site constitutes marketing of your property such that it invokes the HIPs legislation is an interesting question yet to be answered. Bank and building societies might even save the money on valuations and use this site instead! Could be open to abuse though, if you managed to claim a property as yours and give it a low value. This might result in someone suffering financial loss if it put buyers off making offers.

Generating Plot/House Sales in a downturn

As the full horror of the credit crunch begins to unfold, do we get gloomy and hope for the best or do we see this as a golden opportunity? The fact is that estate agents and developer's sales teams are bracing themselves for a very tough year.

We at Trethowans have been thinking how we can help our clients and agents we work with and have been discussing the idea of a having a forum over a few beers in which we can explore all of the possible incentives that can legally be offered to prospective buyers. We believe that a basket of incentives will be the best solution because one size definitely does not fit all when it comes to generating sales. Some buyers are cash-strapped and would be interested in cash backs, gifted deposits or even having their mortgages subsidised for a year or so. Buyer's solicitors may have concerns and there are ways to overcome these concerns. Some lenders are growing reluctant to approve these schemes but the lender's consent is vital to avoid allegations of foulplay.

Solicitors have had a monopoly on legal services since time immemorial but with the passing of the Legal Services Act 2007 which received Royal Assent in October last year, the market is to be opened up to commercial companies and the likes of Tesco, Sainsbury, RAC, Co-op and Virgin have all expressed a desire to enter the market to provide legal services. Solicitors have been responding to this threat in different ways. Trethowans has decided to respond by raising the standard of their service to a level way beyond its competitors by launching a legendary client service strategy. This was launched a year ago and has involved an ongoing firmwide training programme which I was involved in designing and providing. The programme draws on the latest wisdom from the service champions in retail and leisure throughout the world. Karl Reynolds, my fellow partner in the property development team has even written a thesis on this for his MBA. It is not something that can be achieved overnight but we are firmly committed to delivering it over the next few years.

If this would be of interest, please let me or your usual contact at Trethowans know and we can fix some dates up for a forum/open discussion. You can post a comment to this posting by hovering your mouse over the comments heading at the bottom and then typing in your comment.

For the last few years, plot/house sales have been relatively bouyant but in the next 12 months at least, it is clear that we are all going to have to work at generating and maintaining sales. Whilst we do not profess to be experts in legendary service, it surely cannot harm to listen to some ideas and you never know it might give you a killer idea which means you ride the leaner times with greater ease than your rivals.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

EPC's Compulsory for Commercial Property

Under the Energy Performance of Buildings (Certificates and Inspections) (England and Wales) Regulations 2007 (as amended), there is a requirement for Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) to be issued by an accredited assessor (subject to some exceptions noted below) on the construction, sale or renting out of non-dwellings and the implementation timetable is as follows:

6 April 2008 - where there is a total useful floor area over 10,000 sq. metres
1 July 2008 - where the area is over 2,500 sq. metres
1 October 2008 - for all the remaining buildings within the scope of the Regulations.

EPCs are NOT required for:
-places of worship,
-temporary buildings with a planned use of less than 2 years,
-certain types of building with low energy demand including, industrial sites, workshops and
-non-residential agricultural buildings
-stand-alone non-residential buildings with a total useful floor are of less than 50sq. metres.
The Regulations specify the point at which (subject to some limited exceptions) certificates are to be made available

For non-residential property EPCs have a validity of 10 years.

There is also a requirement in the Regulations for there to be inspections of air-conditioning systems. This applies from 1 January 2008 and is implemented as follows:

If the system is put into service after 1 January 2008, the first inspection must take place within five years of the system being put into service.
If the system is in service before 1 January 2008, the date of the first inspection depends on the output of the system:
systems with an output of more than 250 kW must be inspected before 4 January 2009;
systems with an output of more than 12 kW must be inspected before 4 January 2011.Finally, from 1 October 2008, occupiers of certain buildings will be required to show a Display Energy Certificate (DEC) in a prominent place. The requirement to display a DEC only applies to buildings with a total useful floor area over 1,000 square metres occupied by public authorities and by institutions providing public services to a large number of persons and therefore frequently visited by those persons.
Circular 02/07: The Energy Performance of Buildings (Certificates and inspections) (England and Wales) Regulations 2007 (www.practicallaw.com/4-253-3952) states that public museums and swimming pools will fall into the latter category of buildings required to display a DEC, but hotels and retail outlets will not. According to Circular 02/07, further guidance on establishing whether a building requires a DEC will be published shortly.

Free 3D Modelling Software from Google

Google Earth is a thing of wonderment and beauty but did you know that there is a piece of free software from Google called Google Sketchup in which you can easily design a building of any shape or dimension then place the building in a physical location on Google Earth and then invite others to view your building. This could be a housing development or even an extension on to an existing building. It is possible to render the outside surfaces with photos stored as JPG's so that the external appearance looks like one of your houses. Apparently, the software only takes a couple of hours to get to grips with. If your building is noteworthy, you can submit it to 3D Warehouse and they will include it in their catalogue of 3D Models.

This could be an incredibly powerful way of marketing your new development to the public. Using the Google Earth flight sim software users could fly around your development and zoom in to get a virtual tour of the development.

Check out the site for further details.

http://sketchup.google.com/