The ‘one stop shop’ smartphone app combines property search facilities, mortgage affordability calculators, local area information and property buyers’ guides.

Andrew Smith, Research Director, Digital Property Group, says:

“The ability to combine a mortgage repayment calculator with property searching is a powerful combination and will allow home searchers make more informed decisions on the move. Given their relative market positioning, the partnership between Halifax and FindaProperty.com will also lead to more quality enquiries for our agents and developers”

The app is scheduled to go live on 8th May.

Internet use beyond PCs is growing

45% of British internet users now access the internet via a mobile device¹ and evening use of mobiles and tablets exceeds that of home computers².Independent analysts comScore found that DPG records 58% more mobile website visits than Rightmove and 49% more than Zoopla³.

FindaProperty.com Smart TV app

The app lets users search for a new home from the comfort of their living room on their internet-enabled Samsung TV. FindaProperty.com joins leading brands, such as Skype and Twitter, who have already launched apps to take advantage of this high definition search experience. Samsung report that over 10 million apps have been downloaded to date. This launch will be followed shortly by apps for other Smart TV brands including LG, Philips and Google TV.

FindaProperty.com iPad app

The new iPad app from FindaProperty.com takes advantage of the latest GPS functionality to help home hunters find and review properties on the move. As the headline property image is one of the most important elements when selecting a property to buy or rent, the prominence of property pictures has been significantly increased whilst the search results are unlimited (unlike similar apps).

Both apps link directly to the searcher’s ‘My FindaProperty’ account which recognises search preferences and saved properties across all devices – delivering a consistent and personalised search.

Richard Shamsi, Chief Operating Officer, DPG says:

“It’s very rare for home hunters to restrict their property search to a single device. The challenge for portals is to respond to consumer demand and deliver a consistently positive property search experience across multiple channels wherever and whenever they want.”

“Our audience is constantly evolving which firmly places the onus on property portals to respond and match their expectations or risk becoming less relevant. This means we’re launching even more apps over the coming months and continuing to invest in our portals. As the comScore figures prove, it’s an area we’ve performed particularly strongly.”

“We spoke with several agents when building the apps to ensure that the output matched their expectations. Giving our users a greater choice of device will lead to more enquiries for agents; as no opportunity to search and enquire will be lost.”

The new FindaProperty.com iPad app can be downloaded by visiting: www.thedigitalpropertygroup.com/our-marketing/apps/

1 ONS, August 2011
2 comScore Custom Analytics, EU5, Dec 11
3 comScore media metrix, March 2012.

The new optimise tool provides an instruction-winning boost by showing where an you’re truly ‘Number One’ by trawling millions of property details across the 13,500 branches¹ listed on our sites for properties sold or let; for sale or to let; their area; and the number of bedrooms and price. All helping to establish where an agent leads their market.

The result is a branded vendor or landlord document which displays your market share versus an anonymous set of competitors. See an example here.

Rob Phillipson, Head of Business Services for DPG, comments; “Proving past success is an incredibly powerful factor when it comes to earning the confidence and trust of a potential new client, so being able to prove you’re the leading agent in a highly competitive area is essential to securing new business. Our latest upgrade allows agents to do this in seconds.”

We spoke to Roger Sleight, Owner, Churchill Independent Estate Agents, who uses Market View Pro across his three branches: “Understanding your market position is a natural obsession for most agents, me included. At the click of a button, I can see how we compare to our nearest competitors daily and pinpoint where we’re the leading agent.

“We use this to great effect to win new business as it’s hard for a vendor to ignore the agent that has sold more of a particular property than any other. The first instruction paid for Market View Pro for the next 13 years!”

Market View Pro was officially launched in October 2011 as the only daily service of its kind. It attracts over 15,000 monthly visits and sends close to 260,400 emails a month to its subscribers², each a new opportunity to win more instructions. These daily market updates include price changes, withdrawn properties, properties fallen through, new instructions, slow movers as well as an agents own branch performance.

Market View Pro joins a growing number of products and services from DPG Business Services including Enhanced Marketing, Insight, Legally Ready, Mobile Solutions and Telephony. Over seven in every ten branches now uses a product or service from DPG Business Services.

1 DPG Internal Data: April 2012
2 DPG Internal Data: March 2012

Enquiries: During the first 4 months of 2012, the number of email and phone leads sent to our customers rose by 43% compared to the same time last year, equating to an average of 28 enquiries per minute¹.

Website visits: The number of monthly visits to our sites this year is 18 million, a 23% increase over 2011²

The market: Looking at FindaProperty.com alone so far this year, visits grew faster than for any other portal, including Rightmove.³

Properties on our Websites: This now exceeds 1m, leading to more choice for our website users.⁴

More TV to come: FindaProperty.com is currently on TV – and with 34m people predicted to see the ad at least once before the end of May, our agents and developers should look forward to yet more enquiries.

Sheraz Dar, Marketing Director, DPG, says:

“Over the past year DPG’s advertising investment accounted for over half of the total among the major portals and both PrimeLocation.com and FindaProperty.com were on TV during the first 3 months of 2012⁵. This has helped create a sustained increase in visits and enquiries that’s been building now for many months and we are delighted our customers are seeing the real, tangible benefits of investing in us. ”

Sources:

1 – DPG internal data, Jan-April 2012 vs Jan-April 2011

2- Cognesia, Jan-April 2012 vs Jan-April 2011

3- comScore media metrix, Jan-March 2012 vs Jan-March 2011

4 – DPG internal data – April 2012.

5 – Nielsen, May 2011 – April 2012.

As part of this successful partnership, we have been offering agents and developers free week day tickets to the UK’s No.1, award winning home show. But hurry, the free tickets offer ends at midnight 4th May.

The event, based on the hugely successful Channel 4 TV series presented by design guru Kevin McCloud, is perfect for anyone interested in the property market with hundreds of seminars from top industry experts and free consultations in the ‘Ask An Expert’ advice centre. Nigel Lewis, a leading and highly experienced property journalist from PrimeLocation.com, will be speaking live at the event on Thursday 10^th May. He will deliver fascinating and insightful tips about preparing property for sale or rent.

Sheraz Dar, Marketing Director, Digital property Group, said:

‘The ongoing partnership with Grand Designs Live is a perfect fit for PrimeLocaction.com. As well as having a genuine interest in the property market many of those attending Grand Designs Live and visiting the website are looking to invest in property or move home. We’re deighted to offer these free tickets to our highly valued customers.’

Claim your free week day tickets by visiting www.granddesignslive.com , following the link to book tickets and entering the code PLTRADE into the ‘special offer’ box. A maximum of two tickets can be downloaded. *

*Terms and conditions apply see website for details. Print at home tickets only, must be booked online. Max two tickets per order. Valid for weekday entry on 8-11 May 2012 only. Excludes Bank Holiday. Subject to limited availability. Offer closes end of 04/05/12

Gross yields in Greenwich now stand at 9.79 per cent and have outperformed the yield growth of any other London borough. Newham and Tower Hamlets have also outperformed the relatively stable London average of 5.14 per cent by recording average yields of 7.62 per cent and 6.43 per cent respectively, which is evidence of an ‘Olympic halo’.

However, average rents in the core Olympic boroughs have shown considerable differences both in terms of absolute levels and annual growth. Tower Hamlets performed well below the London average with rental growth of just 3.9 per cent year-on-year.

The extraordinary increase in rental prices in Greenwich has been driven by an influx of high end houses with four or more bedrooms, which have typically recorded the highest gains. When these properties are excluded, gross yields in Greenwich are only slightly above Newham at 7.88 per cent (up 1.94 per cent on 2011).

An increasing number of larger properties are now being targeted for short-term lettings during the Games and anecdotal evidence from local estate agents suggests that enquiries are predominately from corporates that may well be linked to the larger Olympic sponsors. Given the location and profile of property in parts of Greenwich, the demand for larger houses over the Olympic period will be focused on the SE3 and SE10 postal districts.

The volume and distribution of smaller rental properties are expected to grow over the next few months, which could drive up rental prices for these properties in line with the recent growth seen for larger properties.

Andrew Smith, Research Director at the Digital Property Group, said:
“At face-value there are clearly opportunities within the short-term lettings market for the core Olympic Boroughs. However, further analysis reveals that the highest returns are currently limited to larger properties and specific postal districts in Greenwich. As these houses are let and availability of smaller rental properties aimed at tourists increases, we expect the market profile and potential returns to fluctuate in the build up to London 2012.”

Jennet Siebrits, Head of Residential Research, CBRE, said:
“Greenwich has won gold in the Olympics rental race because it has benefited from the demand for the short term rental of larger properties. However, the regeneration of the three core Olympic boroughs brought about by the Games will have a positive effect on rents in the longer term as they are now more desirable places to live. Renters can now choose from a raft of new high quality developments and will be enticed by the area’s strong transport infrastructure.”

For further information please contact:
andrew.smith@tdpg.com