Recommendations for house search not limited by area

Emerion

We want to move in the near - medium term. Unlike most house buyers, we aren’t tied to a particular area, so Rightmove hasn’t proved very useful to us. It’s all about search areas, and not many filters. You can use key words in your search, but they are simplistic and you can’t save them to an automatic search. After looking for 2 years with multiple searches saved on Rightmove, we’ve seen half a dozen possibilities at most. This could go on forever at this rate. In my dreams, I could set up a search for pretty much the whole of Southern Britain, but with multiple search terms and filters. I know that doesn’t exist, but does anyone have any tips for when you want a particular type of property, but not in a particular area? 

Oh_bother

Hi @Emerion, That is what we did when looking for our new house - both rental and purchase. 

We used Zoopla put in a location and then increased the distance to the max. It also has a map search which can be used to select a very large area. It let us look at where we could afford the type of house we wanted.

canaldumidi

Prime location. Use a wide search ara eg a county and add whatever filter words you need. The filters are far better than rightmove.

Trouble is not all properties are listed on PL. There again, not all are on RM though I think RM has more listings.

Sapindus

Out of curiosity - what are your criteria if you are searching the whole of southern Britain and only found six possibilities in two years?  Would it be worth going the old-fashioned route of actually writing to estate agents with your requirements?

Flugelhorn

Emerion said:

We want to move in the near - medium term. Unlike most house buyers, we aren’t tied to a particular area, so Rightmove hasn’t proved very useful to us. 

I found it harder when I had a huge area in which to I could move to, focusses the mind if the area is a bit smaller

TripleH

You may need to have multiple searches going, each on different areas and keep track.

Alternatively sit-down work out your must have list and narrow the criteria a bit?

We had a manually drawn map which we then amended when we had a change in criteria.

Emerion

it’s not that niche at all @Sapindus.  Detached. double garage with a  workshop or space for one. Plus  what would nowadays be called a large garden, but 20 years ago, would have been called small-medium-sized. Pleasant area, anything from a quiet part of a market town to countryside but not isolated - some neighbours & 1 mile or less to at least one small shop. But not a huge house because there are 2 of us. It’s the outside space that rules out an awful lot of areas nowadays. New houses are obviously out. Also would prefer a 2, 3 or small 4 bed house at most. If you want the garage & the space you have to have a big 4 bed or bigger. Also, developers have built on many gardens attached to houses built in the 80’s and earlier when gardens were bigger. We currently have a lot of land, and are isolated. It’s gorgeous, but becoming a burden. So we just want room for hobbies in a pleasant area. We’ve  been looking in a number of counties on Rightmove, mainly Shropshire & Powys, and must scroll past more than 99% of the houses that they send us without needing to open them to look closer. Of the remaining tiny percentage, probably 1 in 20 is worth discussing. 

Emerion

canaldumidi said:

Prime location. Use a wide search ara eg a county and add whatever filter words you need. The filters are far better than rightmove.

Trouble is not all properties are listed on PL. There again, not all are on RM though I think RM has more listings.

Thanks, I’m looking at this now 🙂

Emerion

Emerion said:

canaldumidi said:

Prime location. Use a wide search ara eg a county and add whatever filter words you need. The filters are far better than rightmove.

Trouble is not all properties are listed on PL. There again, not all are on RM though I think RM has more listings.

Thanks, I’m looking at this now 🙂

Oh dear. It doesn’t look any better than Rightmove. I tried “double garage” and ‘double garage’, and they both return houses with double glazing and single garages, i.e. the quotes make no difference, just like on Rightmove. 😫

badger09

Emerion said:

We want to move in the near - medium term. Unlike most house buyers, we aren’t tied to a particular area, so Rightmove hasn’t proved very useful to us. It’s all about search areas, and not many filters. You can use key words in your search, but they are simplistic and you can’t save them to an automatic search. After looking for 2 years with multiple searches saved on Rightmove, we’ve seen half a dozen possibilities at most. This could go on forever at this rate. In my dreams, I could set up a search for pretty much the whole of Southern Britain, but with multiple search terms and filters. I know that doesn’t exist, but does anyone have any tips for when you want a particular type of property, but not in a particular area? 

Have you watched the Channel 4 TV show “Perfect House Secret Location”? If not, I suggest you do. It’s an interesting concept. 

Can’t remember if there’s the usual blurb at the end about ‘if you want to take part…’ but might be worth a shot. 

I’m in Shropshire, not far from Shrewsbury, in a village which probably fits your location description.  What is your budget? 

Thrugelmir

Emerion said:

it’s not that niche at all @Sapindus.  Detached. double garage with a  workshop or space for one. Plus  what would nowadays be called a large garden, but 20 years ago, would have been called small-medium-sized. Pleasant area, anything from a quiet part of a market town to countryside but not isolated - some neighbours & 1 mile or less to at least one small shop. But not a huge house because there are 2 of us. It’s the outside space that rules out an awful lot of areas nowadays. New houses are obviously out. Also would prefer a 2, 3 or small 4 bed house at most. If you want the garage & the space you have to have a big 4 bed or bigger. Also, developers have built on many gardens attached to houses built in the 80’s and earlier when gardens were bigger. We currently have a lot of land, and are isolated. It’s gorgeous, but becoming a burden. So we just want room for hobbies in a pleasant area. We’ve  been looking in a number of counties on Rightmove, mainly Shropshire & Powys, and must scroll past more than 99% of the houses that they send us without needing to open them to look closer. Of the remaining tiny percentage, probably 1 in 20 is worth discussing. 

Spend some weekends away in B&B's. We've found lots of interesting backwaters simply by going off the main tracks. Areas that we would never have even considered.