Perfect match as website secures first house swap deal
January 27th, 2009 by Julie
Property-Matchmaker, the groundbreaking swapping website exclusively for property professionals launched towards the end of 2008, has clinched its first deal - in the early days of 2009.
Two sellers using Essex-based estate agents Keith Ashton Limited realised they were a “perfect match” for a swap within seconds of their respective details going online at www.property-matchmaker.com.
After viewing each other’s properties, the two parties are about to exchange, which means they are likely to complete in less than eight weeks from start to finish - and with no chain to hamper the deal.
Graham Twine, associate partner at Keith Ashton, said his company - which has estate agents in Brentwood, Billericay and Kelvedon Hatch - was committing “lock, stock and barrel” to the website after enjoying almost immediate success.
The agreed swap handled by Keith Ashton Limited involved one seller looking to downsize from a four-bedroom detached house and another with a two-bedroom mid-terrace property (with scope to extend) who was looking for a bigger home.
He said: “We joined Property-Matchmaker with a large amount of properties and instantly generated a lot of potential matches. As well as our first sale, we have three-way match in which the vendors are considering a swap and are in the early stages of viewing each other’s properties.”
Property-Matchmaker - dubbed the “match, trade and swap site for property professionals” - only matches houses being sold by estate agents and builders. There are no private advertisers. The website is operated from offices in Stokesley, North Yorkshire.
Fifty-four* estate agents nationally, with more than 100 branches, are currently uploading properties to the website - and co-founders Paula Westacott and Miki Rogers say the number is increasing almost by the day.
“We are generating literally hundreds of potential matches every week. Even when the property market was at its busiest, it wasn’t generating activity at that level,” says Paula, who worked for estate agents and builders for more than 20 years.
Property-Matchmaker is a powerful search engine, which matches the details of each property the instant they are uploaded based on price, location and number of bedrooms.
An exact match would meet all the requirements of both sellers - the price would be within the minimum/maximum set by each party, the bedrooms matching the minimum specified and the location within the set radius. Matches are also graded as ‘near’ providing property matches 10% cheaper and 20% more expensive than the client has requested, as well as bringing in matches from a slightly larger location. This gives the estate agent a larger bank of matches to work with, and takes in the possibility of the sellers adjusting their price.
Miki says: “The public can use the site to test for potential matches but, unlike other swapping sites, can only access details of the matching properties through the estate agent - thus easing any concerns agents that people might use their pulling power, but then do their own deal and cut out the agent.
“We went live with only two months of 2008 remaining but we were confident it wouldn’t take long to record our first swap. Seeing the two families exchange keys will be the perfect start to 2009.”
Graham Twine adds: “If no one is looking at your property, you aren’t motivated to look at properties yourself. As a consequence, a lot of house sales were, quite bluntly, dead in the water. Property-Matchmaker has re-invigorated the market because we can instantly match our vendors with potential exchanges, whether through private, builder, upsize or downsize, and a chain that is, at worst, short and sweet.”
If you are interested in house swapping in the Essex area, contact:
Graham Twine, Associate Partner, Keith Ashton Estate Agents
Email : village@keithashton.co.uk, Tel: 01277 375 757
www.keithashton.co.uk www.keithashtoninternational.com
Visit our interactive mortgage website at www.mortgagebusiness.net
*As of Friday, January 23
Property-Matchmaker can be found at www.property-matchmaker.com
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