By Oliver Farrimond
HI-TECH house hunters will be able to track down information on homes for sale near their actual location – by sending a simple text message.
An Edinburgh property firm has launched the state-of-the-art service, which uses satellite tracking to deliver the latest information on the 10 nearest properties on their books to the sender.
The system uses GPS technology to track the exact location of the sender, and forwards a link to access the firm’s online database of properties.
By texting “Warners” to 84840, the system automatically searches its database, and forwards the information back directly to the sender’s phone
Scott Brown, partner at Warners estate agency, said that the service would make life easier for would-be property buyers.
He said: “Buying a property is a big investment and you can spend a lot of time searching through websites and property guides looking for the right place.
“It can be quite a daunting prospect – especially for first time buyers – so we’ve tried to make it easier for people to get the information they want when they want it.
“As there is just one text number to contact, the service uses GPS to identify where the customer has called from and sends a street map with the nearest properties listed on it.
“They can then scroll down to find the property they want and access details about its specifications, pictures and viewing times.
“It costs the same as a standard text message, so this is the cheapest service of its kind – hopefully it will give buyers an extra incentive to take a look at the properties on offer around them.”
The service – dubbed the “Warners Property Intelligence System” – is the first of its kind in Scotland.
Warners have also incorporated Google Street View onto their website portfolio, so that prospective home-buyers can check out the surrounding neighbourhood as well as a home’s interior.
Mr Brown added: “Many agents don’t want to include Google Street View on their websites in case it puts would-be viewers off, but we think it is a good addition to have.
“It provides greater clarity about the area of the city that customers are viewing and they’d be able to look on Google to get the same information if they really wanted to anyway – so why not include it as part of our service?
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