Is there a better web site to search properties to buy?

Slithery

pieroabcd said:

hazyjo said:

pieroabcd said:

AdrianC said:

WoozieSioux_tse said:

You could maybe try writing your own advert for a property on Boomin. 

Never heard of it.

Which prompts a little test...

How many properties are listed in this county...?

Rightmove - 889 properties
OTM - 726
Zoopla - 648
PrimeLocation - 648
Boomin - 377

Now, if we were to prefer one platform over another because of filtering capabilities...

According to RM right now in London there are 47,368 results. Don't you believe that some proper filtering would help identifying one's relevant properties?

Who would just search "London". It's 600 odd square miles! Most people know the areas they want to be. Yes, I agree more filters would be useful, but things are not always black and white so I wouldn't want too many filters (despite having a very long wishlist when looking!).

In my case I specified London because I don't care where the house is, as long as it has the features that I want.

You're forgetting the #1 rule. Location, location, location.

user1977

pieroabcd said:

hazyjo said:

pieroabcd said:

AdrianC said:

WoozieSioux_tse said:

You could maybe try writing your own advert for a property on Boomin. 

Never heard of it.

Which prompts a little test...

How many properties are listed in this county...?

Rightmove - 889 properties
OTM - 726
Zoopla - 648
PrimeLocation - 648
Boomin - 377

Now, if we were to prefer one platform over another because of filtering capabilities...

According to RM right now in London there are 47,368 results. Don't you believe that some proper filtering would help identifying one's relevant properties?

Who would just search "London". It's 600 odd square miles! Most people know the areas they want to be. Yes, I agree more filters would be useful, but things are not always black and white so I wouldn't want too many filters (despite having a very long wishlist when looking!).

In my case I specified London because I don't care where the house is, as long as it has the features that I want.

But surely you can use some of the filters which do exist to narrow it down a bit? Or are you really looking for any property in London, no matter the price, size or location, as long as was built in 1964 and has three toilets?

AdrianC

pieroabcd said:

hazyjo said:

pieroabcd said:

According to RM right now in London there are 47,368 results. Don't you believe that some proper filtering would help identifying one's relevant properties?

Who would just search "London". It's 600 odd square miles! Most people know the areas they want to be. Yes, I agree more filters would be useful, but things are not always black and white so I wouldn't want too many filters (despite having a very long wishlist when looking!).

In my case I specified London because I don't care where the house is, as long as it has the features that I want.

So why stop at just London? Why not look further out into commuterland?

You seriously don't care in the slightest if you're north or south of the river, even? Thamesmead or Knightsbridge or Muswell Hill?

Even just setting a max price of £1m knocks 11k of those off. A £500k line splits the rest almost 50/50.

pieroabcd

AdrianC said:

pieroabcd said:

hazyjo said:

pieroabcd said:

According to RM right now in London there are 47,368 results. Don't you believe that some proper filtering would help identifying one's relevant properties?

Who would just search "London". It's 600 odd square miles! Most people know the areas they want to be. Yes, I agree more filters would be useful, but things are not always black and white so I wouldn't want too many filters (despite having a very long wishlist when looking!).

In my case I specified London because I don't care where the house is, as long as it has the features that I want.

So why stop at just London? Why not look further out into commuterland?
[/quote]
Initially I was sarching even in commuteland, but then I realised how much more expensive the train is outside of zone 6, so I'm back to zones 1-6.
[quote]
You seriously don't care in the slightest if you're north or south of the river, even? Thamesmead or Knightsbridge or Muswell Hill?

Even just setting a max price of £1m knocks 11k of those off. A £500k line splits the rest almost 50/50.

Initially I was sarching even in commuteland, but then I realised how much more expensive the train is outside of zone 6, so I'm back to zones 1-6.

 I don't have any preference for where the *right* area is. I've seen so many places that I can tell for sure that ugly areas are everywhere, even next door to lovely area in the same town. Even in West London - generally considered very sought after- there are places where I wouldn't move even if I could have the house for free.
Limiting the search to a specific zone would exclude houses that would be good candidates, so yes: I'm searching in zones 1-6 and visiting personally every time to make an idea of the zone after looking on google maps what's the situation about the services (trains, supermarkets and shopping centers).

pieroabcd

Slithery said:

pieroabcd said:

hazyjo said:

pieroabcd said:

AdrianC said:

WoozieSioux_tse said:

You could maybe try writing your own advert for a property on Boomin. 

Never heard of it.

Which prompts a little test...

How many properties are listed in this county...?

Rightmove - 889 properties
OTM - 726
Zoopla - 648
PrimeLocation - 648
Boomin - 377

Now, if we were to prefer one platform over another because of filtering capabilities...

According to RM right now in London there are 47,368 results. Don't you believe that some proper filtering would help identifying one's relevant properties?

Who would just search "London". It's 600 odd square miles! Most people know the areas they want to be. Yes, I agree more filters would be useful, but things are not always black and white so I wouldn't want too many filters (despite having a very long wishlist when looking!).

In my case I specified London because I don't care where the house is, as long as it has the features that I want.

You're forgetting the #1 rule. Location, location, location.

"The worst place in the best location" doesn't work at all for me.
I've seen a lot of areas that are considered very desirable, but where I wouldn't want to spend one day of my life. Places where you see a lot of nice houses and.... nothing else: no train stations, not supermarkets, no shopping centers and you have to make miles when you have to buy something. 
I prefer a very noisy place very close to all services than a posh place in the middle of nothing where you can hear the birds chirping.

MobileSaver

pieroabcd said:

hazyjo said:

Who would just search "London". It's 600 odd square miles! Most people know the areas they want to be.

In my case I specified London because I don't care where the house is, as long as it has the features that I want.

I do have to admit that when I was looking for my current home I didn't care where the house was; like the OP I knew what features I wanted and literally looked from Scotland to Wales to Cornwall to the South East.

However I also knew that my and the OP's situation is very unusual and as much as I would have loved more filters, it was never going to be in the portal's interest to implement ways to restrict further how many properties their customers were shown.

Also, as @AdrianC said right at the beginning, the biggest problem is that EAs don't even correctly fill in the data for the current limited search criteria so adding more fields could make searches less accurate rather than more. It's one of those things that on the face of it seems a good idea but when you look into it further you realise in practice there are good reasons why it's not being done.

Salemicus

Slithery said:

pieroabcd said:

hazyjo said:

pieroabcd said:

AdrianC said:

WoozieSioux_tse said:

You could maybe try writing your own advert for a property on Boomin. 

Never heard of it.

Which prompts a little test...

How many properties are listed in this county...?

Rightmove - 889 properties
OTM - 726
Zoopla - 648
PrimeLocation - 648
Boomin - 377

Now, if we were to prefer one platform over another because of filtering capabilities...

According to RM right now in London there are 47,368 results. Don't you believe that some proper filtering would help identifying one's relevant properties?

Who would just search "London". It's 600 odd square miles! Most people know the areas they want to be. Yes, I agree more filters would be useful, but things are not always black and white so I wouldn't want too many filters (despite having a very long wishlist when looking!).

In my case I specified London because I don't care where the house is, as long as it has the features that I want.

You're forgetting the #1 rule. Location, location, location.

Or more precisely - you need to focus on the things about the property that matter and can't be changed (of which location is a prime example), and not sweat the rest. And the more picky you are, the more important it is to think like that.
Number of toilets? You can change that, so don't worry too much about it. Year of construction? Irrelevant, so don't worry about it. Location, tenure, distance from a station? Critical, so focus on that.

pieroabcd

Salemicus said:

Slithery said:

pieroabcd said:

hazyjo said:

pieroabcd said:

AdrianC said:

WoozieSioux_tse said:

You could maybe try writing your own advert for a property on Boomin. 

Never heard of it.

Which prompts a little test...

How many properties are listed in this county...?

Rightmove - 889 properties
OTM - 726
Zoopla - 648
PrimeLocation - 648
Boomin - 377

Now, if we were to prefer one platform over another because of filtering capabilities...

According to RM right now in London there are 47,368 results. Don't you believe that some proper filtering would help identifying one's relevant properties?

Who would just search "London". It's 600 odd square miles! Most people know the areas they want to be. Yes, I agree more filters would be useful, but things are not always black and white so I wouldn't want too many filters (despite having a very long wishlist when looking!).

In my case I specified London because I don't care where the house is, as long as it has the features that I want.

You're forgetting the #1 rule. Location, location, location.

Or more precisely - you need to focus on the things about the property that matter and can't be changed (of which location is a prime example), and not sweat the rest. And the more picky you are, the more important it is to think like that.
Number of toilets? You can change that, so don't worry too much about it. Year of construction? Irrelevant, so don't worry about it. Location, tenure, distance from a station? Critical, so focus on that.

I'm not so sure that the age of the house is irrelevant. By experience, the older the house the more likely the chances that it will need some more or less ex[t|p]ensive refit in the (very) short term. Yes, I know that there are 100+ years houses that are in very good conditions even now, but it doesn't mean that it applies to all 100+ years houses (like the reverse  doesn't apply to all new builds).
Also, recent builds have a more rational layout than older builds. To make an example, I would never buy a house with the toilet at the bottom, after the kitchen, or with a 3mx2m room, or where the kitchen floor is lowered respect to the rest of the ground floor (and with a lower ceiling).

getmore4less

I was surprised how little information you needed to find place people post about on here  and I start with

the all mainland uk map search

if just looking at recent stuff because you have already done the backlog(include SSTC)

all	815095
14	83339
7	39309
3	4403
1	1196

Numbers are changing so you won't get the same.
With a more fined tuned area(with exclusion pockets) the numbers should be manageable 

NaughtiusMaximus

AdrianC said:

pieroabcd said:

hazyjo said:

pieroabcd said:

According to RM right now in London there are 47,368 results. Don't you believe that some proper filtering would help identifying one's relevant properties?

Who would just search "London". It's 600 odd square miles! Most people know the areas they want to be. Yes, I agree more filters would be useful, but things are not always black and white so I wouldn't want too many filters (despite having a very long wishlist when looking!).

In my case I specified London because I don't care where the house is, as long as it has the features that I want.

So why stop at just London? Why not look further out into commuterland?

You seriously don't care in the slightest if you're north or south of the river, even? Thamesmead or Knightsbridge or Muswell Hill?

Even just setting a max price of £1m knocks 11k of those off. A £500k line splits the rest almost 50/50.

Not inconceivable if you're moving to London for work reasons from another part of the country and have no existing connections to the area.