The Property Market - Virtual Viewing

Buying a home is the most important purchase most people make. Apart from the actual purchase price (which is all relative to individual’s affordability) the emotional input is significant.  Where to live -will it meet the changing demands of life with jobs, schools and hobbies?

Until the emerging property booms of the 1960s onwards a home was generally for life. Now, on average, people move every seven years. The world is far more transitional and aspirational. Property became a tool to create capital. Second homes were no longer the prerogative of the rich as funding and gearing of capital enabled such acquisitions. The world became busier and with enhanced transport links the UK grew smaller.

The internet fuelled interest from a wider sector of the population as portals provided detailed information of properties in all sectors of the market. As time passed infinite background information became finger available -but did it really replace the emotional purchase only achieved by physically seeing a property? I think not.

 2020 is setting new standards due to enhanced technology and a reassessment of life unexpectedly inflicted upon us all. Lifestyle change will be the keyword on many a tongue for some time. Realising the need for face to face meetings involving excessive travel is not always practical or cost effective, working from home and indulging in virtual meetings and conference calls and minimising rush hour panics to arrive at destinations that can easily be replaced are all factors that will alter lifestyles.

 New lifestyles will inevitably lead to questions about where to live -maybe a home in the country or by the sea is possible? So straight to the internet portals to see what is out there.

Logically there will be a property boom during the 2020s dictated in part by a pent up demand from a frozen market - not maybe in the way there has been in the past and certainly not managed in the same way.  Every generation is IT savvy in varying degrees. Used efficiently this will improve the slow mechanism associated with the acquisition of property from initial viewings to legal completion.

 Many estate agents are engaging with applicants having produced virtual tours of the houses they are engaged to sell. (A whole new industry is developing here).  This a step forward in ensuring applicants get a better idea than any still photographs can create. It will surely become as normal as the original flysheet brochures and details produced for decades.

But --- virtual will never replace the true emotional feeling of standing in front of a house and knowing it is “the one”. Used correctly, like any tool, it will perhaps help to minimise wasted journeys. Having a designated person acting on your behalf who has the contacts, knowledge and experience to direct you objectively through the process from search to completion will ensure the remote ill-considered acquisition will not prove an expensive mistake.

Nigel Bishop    Recoco Property Search

njb@recoco.co.uk   www.recoco.co.uk