Homesearch, a new business which sets out to supply agents with instruction-winning information, has announced its pricing for next year.
Homesearch started trialling its product with agents in January and launched in beta mode in June.
When EYE reported on it, it created quite a stir – with agents who had already used it apparently queuing up to lavish it with praise, to the extent that it actually puzzled some regular EYE posters (it turned out that the customers were only too happy to help with the marketing).
Homesearch, currently free, aims to provide comprehensive, editable information on every single residential home in the UK, using a wide range of sources and machine learning.
A Homesearch report is designed for agents, keen to highlight their own local knowledge, to give to potential vendors and landlords who are in the process of getting valuations and deciding who to instruct.
The information given per property is comprehensive and includes planning history, previous ‘sold’ information, current value, plot size, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, as well as a lot of local area information.
By June, it had 1,200 agents using it, and it now has over 4,000.
After the end of this year, it will cost £55 per user, per month, with unlimited use.
Agents wanting to commit for the whole of next year will pay £44 per month.
Homesearch says that the pricing and pricing model have come directly from agents’ feedback.
Sam Hunter, a director of the firm, said: “We have been talking price with Homesearchers across the country since our launch in June.
“We took feedback on what features agents valued most, and asked what pricing was fair, which ranged from as low as £9 for one login to as high as £350 for an office, but the majority said they’d want to pay per person and between £50 and £75 per month, so we listened and that’s where we’ve gone for.”
Giles Ellwood, founder of Homesearch, said: “The pricing gives us the best chance at building on the foundations created this year, while keeping Homesearch as affordable as possible for agents as well.”
A free version of Homesearch will still be available to agents next year, but will come with limited searches, limited reports and a reduced feature set.
Ellwood said: “Our mission in everything we do is to improve the property industry and we see information as the best way to do that in the fastest possible time.
“So it makes sense that we’d keep a version of Homesearch available for free to align with this.”
Agents needing more than the available searches in the free plan will be able to purchase additional searches (including a report) for a small fee as and when needed.
Estate agents will still have access to the full service, including all new features, for free up until December 31.
Agents can go to www.homesearch.co.uk/pricing to see a full breakdown of the pricing and to register for free.
New ‘game changer’ service launches with information on every home in UK
But if you were really a local expert why would you need to be so reliant and desperate for this?
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this sounds more like an advert than a story?
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No actually, it’s good, I started using it after the previous hullabaloo and I really like it, by all means don’t if you’re in competition with us that’s fine, but then we know we’re kicking your @rses anyway don’t we?
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Doubtful, a couple of questions from the vendor about the data would quickly show your true colours and “expertise”.
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On my patch, you can have this, rightmove plus, net house prices and whatever else you want. I’ll beat you on memory,have a nice day.
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I like to educate the agency world from time to time, i pull up a lot of ‘New ideas’ that really are nothing but drains on our resources.
But i must say i like what Sam and his team have done. I am sure for most of us it will not help in determining the property price, but it does make for a wonderful way to present your report after a valuation.
You can also send a link to the report which pings you an email every time they open it (i hope this will be an indefinite feature not just for the first few months or year of the link).
The price is a little higher than i was expecting / hoping and i guess like all service suppliers they will stick 20% VAT on top as opposed to all inclusive. so takes it to £53 per month. Also little disappointed its per user.
In fairness Sprift also offer a similar product but at a higher monthly cost but has a few more bells and whistles.
Will i sign up to the paid for subscription? Jury is out. I like it but don’t NEED it, also interested to see what Sprift have to offer.
But i will say its better than most the new tech out there (And Sam seems to be a genuinely nice bloke).
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Seems a reasonable price, would be better if it was per office and not per individual (suspect branches will have a single nominated user). What would do them a lot of good is a declaration now about future price rises. Base them on HPI or RPI. We all know what happens when a product gains critical mass and becomes a ‘must have’ service (ahem, rightmove).
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Best ‘instruction getting tool’? A Google score over 4.8 and the attendant reviews.
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Thanks for the comments all.
I thought it best to directly address the question around future pricing changes.
When we first made our pricing promise, we stated clearly that we wanted to avoid the unreasonable 10%+ year-on-year increases, as seen from some suppliers in the industry (once they achieve critical mass as mentioned by Property Pundit above) and we’re sticking to that.
So, we are updating our T&Cs, to state that when reviewing our prices each year, Retail Price Index (RPI) will form the basis of any potential increase.
I feel it’s also important to mention, and am sure you can appreciate, that like all businesses, we must reserve the right to go beyond RPI as a result of circumstances completely outside of our control, i.e. unforeseen government legislation / taxation etc.
Very happy to continue the conversation over phone/email if there are further questions.
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‘when reviewing our prices each year, Retail Price Index (RPI) will form the basis of any potential increase.’
Good to hear, care to share this practice with rightmove?
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Aren’t these guys sponsored by Foxtons and share all the information with them? Agencies pay the advertising fee and data, and then good o’l Foxtons take the leads? sounds like a bad deal
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Appreciate the stir, PG – thank you.
We’re self-funded and completely independent.
We very conscious that, being a research and reporting tool, we don’t actually deliver leads to Agents so it’s very difficult to pass something non existent on to anyone else.
Happy to talk facts anytime or you can come and see our distinctly non-green offices (we do have a nice coffee machine, though)
Sam
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Not sure what planet PG is on …but keep taking the valium!
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