There's Nothing Wrong With A Little Voyeurism Is There?! (rightmove.co.uk)

Member Name: BestMum

Product:	rightmove.co.uk
Date:	14/10/02 (361 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to navigate, Quick-loading pages, Vast, regularly updated database

Disadvantages: Not all agents are listed, Basic property details only, unless you ask for further information to be sent

I've got the moving bug, and I've got it bad. Leaving behind long lazy, warm sunny days in Spain in September, we came back to a dark, smelly, boring UK. It was life, but not as we know it...or not as we wanted it at least. The original plan was to sell-up and move abroad to sunnier climes but found the thought of taking our little one away from her grandparents quite distressing. So after struggling with our conscience for a few days we decided to downsize instead, and put the profit towards a renovation project.

I don't particularly enjoy dealing with estate agents; hassling you, phoning every day, pressurising you into viewing properties you really don't want to see (just my experience you understand), so before spending countless pennies on calls to the dreaded agents, I thought I'd check out the Internet. This is when I came across Rightmove.co.uk.

You may remember Ian Wright (ex Arsenal football player for those not in the know) starred in their TV advertising campaign a while back, no?! Well, I remembered that quite a few agents were involved with the site; that was good because it would give me a much wider choice for properties. Fasten your seatbelts folks..

***WHAT IS RIGHTMOVE.CO.UK?***

Rightmove claim to be the UK's number one property website, collating information from the country's leading estate agents, letting agents and new home developers onto a vast database for the likes of us property hunters to peruse at our leisure. Rightmove is jointly owned by four of the largest estate agents in the UK. Over half of the top 100 estate agencies post properties on the website, covering 99% of UK postcodes. In July alone, they had 1.7 million visitors to the site.

***SUPER, NOW DO I HAVE TO REGISTER?***

Registering your details with Rightmove is necessary if you want to receive further details of properties by post; I would recommend it as you can't really use t
he website to its full potential if you don't, and they do have a data protection policy in force so I think you can be assured your information is safe. Registering is easy peasy. If you type in the address and wait for the home page to load, you will see a 'sign in' tab in the top right hand corner...

Once at the membership page you'll be asked for information like:

Name
Telephone Number
Password
Email address
When you'd like to move in by
Why you want to move

If you don't want to answer the latter, that's fine. And then we're ready to roll!

***SO NOW THAT'S DONE, HOW DO I FIND WHAT I WANT?***

You'll find subjects like Buying, Renting and Selling at the top right of the page; these are the main categories. From here, you'll then be directed to relevant areas of the website.

Now all that's left is for us to find our dream home..

***COME SEARCH WITH ME***

I wanted to find properties in the Cheshire area for a maximum value of £100,000. So, clicking on the buy tab at the top of the page, up pops a very inviting search box that told me I could enter the region, city, town or village I wished to search in. Or, I could use all or the first part of a postcode. Wow, great choices, especially if I wasn't too sure where I wanted to move to.

After reconfirming my location as Cheshire, as there were multiple Cheshire options, it was then time for more decision-making. And you thought us housewives had it easy eh?! Down to the nitty-gritty, like:

Size of search: I could expand my search up to a 40 mile radius. (Quite handy if you were to search on a town or a postcode)
Type of property: i.e. house, flat or bungalow
Minimum bedrooms
Minimum and maximum value

This done, I clicked on send and awaited a message saying 'no results found' as was usually the case with sites like th
ese. To my utter amazement, after a few seconds deliberation, it claimed there were more than 100 matching properties. Yippee, result!

So far so good.

***WHAT NOW?***

Because my search has brought up more than 100 properties, I can redefine the search to include a minimum value if I wish, but I'm nosey and like to look at them all!

So now I have thumbnail pictures and a brief description of each property. I can choose to sort them by price descending if I want to, or I can just view properties updated in the last 1-4 weeks. Also on my results page is quite a nifty little tool that lists areas around the Cheshire region which I might like to try too.

I can now view further details of the property - the standard of details is really dependant on the agency, some are better than others. But, you can request full details as explained below:

***ADD TO SHORTLIST***

Any properties you are interested in can be added to a shortlist by simply clicking on the button by the side of each listing. Once you're happy with your selections, one click of the link at the top of the page gives you a preview of properties you've added. From here you can request details of the properties you're interested in via an automated bulk email to the relevant agencies, or you can clear your shortlist completely if they're no longer of interest. And then within a couple of days, usually, you'll receive all your requested details, to peruse at your leisure!

A little voyeuristic I know but this is my favourite bit because we're all a bit nosey when it comes to other peoples property if we're really honest! We like to eye-up the decor and see what they've got that we haven't. I like to call it self-improvement!

***CONCLUSION***

THUMBS UP?

*Extremely easy to navigate, and the pages load very quickly.
*Good search criteria to enable you to sift out t
he ones that don't take your fancy.
*Vast up-to-date database of properties, on an easy to read screen.
*Access to information on buying and renting, and selling your property too.
*Shortlist function is really handy and easy to use, but remember to have a clear-out once in a while or you won't see the bricks for the mortar.
*No pop-ups, yey!!
*Automatic email notification function if a property is added which matches your criteria.

THUMBS DOWN?

*The 'Find An Agent' link doesn't work very well; there are at least six that I know of in my area and it couldn't find any of them.
*If you use the back button on your browser instead of the 'back to results' link on the page, quite often the website suddenly become inaccessible and you have to restart your browser, and as a consequence, begin your search again.
*Not all agents are involved in the site so it's best to check the likes of Yellow Pages to see which ones you've missed.
*Not a huge amount of information on each property; I quite like to see more pictures (again, that's just me being nosey!), and the site only displays a front shot of the property.

This website gets a big thumbs-up from me. Very thorough and updated regularly, I haven't experienced any difficulties with properties having already been sold. Very easy to navigate, even for the likes of me, and I've always had details through the post within 48 hours. So whether you're looking for the right move, or just bored and curious to know what your lottery millions will get you in London (if you have £20,000,000 to spare that is!), it'll certainly keep you occupied for a while!

Enjoy, and thanks for reading :o)


If you've read this already today, sorry...it's the supressed churner inside me ;o)

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