Singing Pig

Is there anyway to find out just how long a property has been on the market without contacting the estate agent or owner and showing interest too soon? Any way to find this out online perhaps??

This may give an indication. Not every property but worth a start.

http://www.propertysnake.co.uk/

Jason 

Try:

http://www.property-bee.com/

Provided a property has been listed on Rightmove you can install Propertybee into Firefox and it will show when a property was first listed.

Hi Marx,

I was very excited when I read your post about Property Bee! 

I would say it's a great little tool, but it does actually only record details from the first time you look at a property on rightmove. 

Very handy for properties you might want to keep an eye over time, but it doesn't register the history of the property listing on rightmove prior to the first time you view the property details.

Just to clarify..!

 

 

rightmove plus shows the date the property was entered on rightmove by the agent. The catch you have to be an estate agent to have access. Suggest just ask the agent who is marketing it. You could also ask if it was on with another agent and call and ask them the same

We looked at this last year and my IT partner got it to work to a fashion.

He found that he could take RM info and generate a mash up. Please excuse my lack of technical knowledge.

However, he could not look back at historical changes. So the information started from the point of the first search. Subsequent searches were then used to form data base of time on market and price movements. As we were looking at using this on a large scale and intending to get flagged depending on our set criteria, it meant searching RM every day over, lets say, the whole of the South East.

Then RM got wise and restricted his access and he was no longer able to search the site as required. RM monitor the number of searches performed and they cotton on to high number of searches in a small space of time. Whilst he felt he could get round this the amount of time and effort to to do so was counter productive. And of course it would be a constant battle to stay one step ahead of RM.

But you can / should be able to do this on a relatively small scale. Which is probably what the previously mentioned web site is doing. The trouble is unless you happen to notice the first day a property appears then you are potentially not getting true results.

From my experience in the current market, just ask the EA. As long as they perceive you as been a true investor they will give you the info. If they wont then simply move on to the next.

 

Good Luck.

Andy
 

Whilst I love the idea of propertysnake the results it gives I've found to be pretty inaccurate. Quite a few times now properties I've looked at with supposedly big reductions have actually been completely different properties!

If they get it right though it could be a great little site.