A thoroughly British Blog.

For the lolz :) Hugh Grant and Sam Elliott shave off a Movember supporter's moustache!

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 09:36:38 -0800

It's been a while since I posted on ActiveRain, but I know a lot of ActiveRainers were proud supporters of Movember so I thought I'd share this video of my buddy here in London (but from North Carolina....hence the lack of suave British accent!) persuading Hugh Grant to shave off his 'tache on the red carpet...yes, really!

When I have something interesting and real estate related to post, I will. But I'm too excited about being in Orange County for Christmas to think too businessy right now ;D

Merry Christmas!

HELP! I'm California Dreamin' and this little Brit needs advice :-)

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 17:13:40 -0700

I haven't blogged on ActiveRain for a long time, why? Because Twitter has sucked my soul and now if it's more than 140 characters my brain melts into an oozey puddle!

But I need some advice and ya know what? ActiveRain seems like the best place to ask.

Those of you who know me will know that I may be a Featured Member in Anaheim but I am actually an impostor, being in fact a British lady living in London. When I signed up for AR I couldn't put an international city so I chose Anaheim, a place I've fond holiday memories of and home of my (almost) namesake ;-)

So here's the story, in Spring 2010 I'm coming to 'live' in California for three months. You folks don't make it very easy to get a visa so three months is the most I can stay without jumping through lots of hoops/tricking someone into marrying me etc!

Now I need some advice on WHERE to lay my head during this three month period. My shortlist of places is as follows:

San Francisco (Mission District)
Laguna Beach
Santa Monica
Newport Beach

I have vacationed in all of these places so know them in a very loose sense, but I can't figure out where I should stay for the three month period. Or, if I should stay six weeks in SF and six weeks in the OC, or one month in three different locations....or what!

The biggest thing that will affect my decision is that I won't have a car, I'm too young to hire and the idea of driving in America is terrifying to me if I'm perfectly honest.

So where would you recommend I made my temporary Californian home, bearing in mind I will be car-less, looking to meet lots of new people, looking to have fun, need great bars and restaurants but want to relax too? I really adore the idea of a beach, as I live in grotty central London and want a real change of scenery. I'm very happy to take public transport, but I want to be able to walk to cafes etc. And I want to feel safe wherever I am. Cost isn't so much of an issue, I'm coming from London for goodness sake!

I'm spending Christmas and New Year in Orange County so that will help me check out my options also before coming out for the three months in March/April but any advice is greatly appreciated :-D

Thank you in advance.

Property Porn comes to Twitter

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 13:33:39 -0800

Well, I have been quiet haven't I? The good news is that my lack of blogging has not been because the real estate market in the UK is so bad that I've gone to cry under a rock, oh no. I've just been so flippin busy lately that blogging has taken a bit of a sidestep.

I have lots of news, so I'll just tell you what I'm particularly excited about - Twitter!

I have been addicted to Twitter for a long while now and although Twitter is a hit with US based real estate agents, your UK counterparts haven't flocked to the social networking site...yet. Well, in recent weeks Twitter has seen a huge increase in traffic in the UK. In fact, Twitter is now one of top 100 websites in the UK in terms of traffic numbers. A few UK agents are starting to creep on there and I have a real positive feeling that it will explode pretty soon.

With that in mind, we made some changes at Globrix on Friday to make the site as Twitter friendly as possible. We have the largest index of for sale and rental properties in the UK now, around one million (and for a small country like ours, that's a lot!) and now every property can be tweeted :)

Under each property listing on Globrix we have added a 'Twitter this property' button, like this...

So if a user finds a nice house, they can tweet it - simple! We don't need the Twitterers user details/password to make this work, so nobody needs to worry about any phishing scams, it's all very easy and hopefully people will find it useful.

I also launched a new Twitter account myself last week - @PropertyPorn.

Like sexy properties? Really kinky ones with swimming pools, helipads and tennis courts? You need to be following @PropertyPorn!

Each day we tweet some of the hottest, baddest, naughtiest UK properties for your viewing pleasure. WARNING - Some homes are seriously X Rated! One that I tweeted yesterday was on the market for £700,000,000. Just count those zeros ;-)

You can also follow me - @PoppyD and @Globrix.

And...just to prove my Twitter love...check out the necklace I bought yesterday!

UK House Price Predictions for 2009

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 06:40:37 -0800

Around about this time of year, everybody starts to make their predictions on what they expect 2009 to bring. Well they certainly do here in the UK, and I'd be surprised if it was much different in the US! When it comes to house prices, this years forecasts are of particular interest to EVERYONE.

Just like in the US, 2008 saw a pretty nasty time for UK real estate. Prices dropped dramtically, transactions decreased, and many estate agencies had to close their doors forever. In fact, 32,000 estate agents lost their jobs in 2008, nearly half of the entire estate agent workforce.

But is the worst over in the UK? Or is more bad news set to come?

Predictions for 2009 property prices range from the overly positive to the starkly bleak, Legal & General believe prices won't recover to their recent peaks for a decade. The Telegraph has a round up of predictions, with most agents reaching a consensus that prices will fall around 5-10% over 2009 and then start to pick up again. Most of the newspapers are running with Hometrack's prediction of a 12% price drop over 2009.

Looking back over 2008, our own stats at Globrix have shown that in some parts of the country up to one in four homes are still on the market having not sold all year. In Rochdale, Lancashire, as many as 26% of properties for sale have been stuck on the market waiting for a buyer since the beginning of 2008. Aberystwyth in Wales has also suffered, with 23% of homes for sale failing to find a buyer.

Globrix CEO, Daniel Lee, comments on what we've seen over the past year and how things are starting to look up for the New Year...

"It's been a terrible year for the property market. These end-of-year figures really do bring into sharp focus just how stagnant the property market has been in 2008.The gridlock in the market has been a result of the banks' reluctance to lend and an unwillingness by sellers to lower their asking prices to more realistic levels. Fortunately, in the past few weeks there have been signs that sellers are starting to accept that they need to drop their prices if they are going to attract buyers."

The predictions may differ for how 2009 will play out, but I think everybody can agree that the banks need to lend and sellers need to be realistic if the market is going to stand a good chance of recovery. That's what I think here in London, but I'm sure that message rings true in the US as well.

The best prize of my life, I'm coming from London to meet you all!

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 08:14:00 -0800

I have always wanted to go to an Inman Connect conference, but sadly being here in little old England has always meant I've followed the event from my computer screen...desperately waiting for the next tweet or blog post with all the hot RE gossip, tips and tricks.

Through platforms like ActiveRain I've come to know hundreds of US based RE folk over the past year and a half or so, and I was starting to think I'd never actually meet them 'IRL' (in real life).

This weekend, my luck changed dramatically :-D

On Friday night I entered a competition on Jay Thompson's popular real estate blog 'Phoenix Real Estate Guy'. The prize? A conference pass for the entire duration of Inman Real Estate Connect NYC (sponsored by the guys and gals at Inman News) and a whopping $1500 worth of travel expenses (kindly sponsored by the great team at HomeQuest).

When I entered Jay's competition I never thought I'd win, I won't lie and say 'I've never won anything before in my life' but the things I have won have usually been crappy things like pens or book tokens. A trip to New York? Unlikely.

I actually went to Brighton (on the English coast) for the weekend and wasn't even online when the draw for the winner took place, I was probably watching the sunset over the sea when Jay's daughter Lauren picked a name out of the hat for the prize. Just before midnight I checked my emails on my cellphone as I didn't have access to a computer, I was really just checking to see if I had any new Twitter messages or comments on my YouTube videos but there were a couple of direct messages through Twitter saying things like 'Congratulations'. The penny dropped when the next message said 'Can't wait to meet you in NY!'.

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <------my reaction as I realise I must have won the competition.

I managed to find a friend with a dodgy internet connection where we were staying and logged on to Jay's blog to confirm the good news. I can't tell you how happy I am and how grateful I am to Jay, Inman and Homequest for making it possible for this loudmouth girl from London to hop on a plane to New York and attend Connect.

So I guess all that's left to say is that if you're going to Inman Connect...see you there!

If you're lucky, I may even bring British candy ;-)

UK asking prices continue to fall..

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 09:28:51 -0800

Here at Globrix we're still keenly tracking those asking prices and it has become clear that since our last data release, asking prices have continued to fall.

So where is the best area in the UK to pick up a property at a rock-bottom price?

According to our most bang-up-to-date stats, Southend-On-Sea is the top location in the UK right now if you’re looking to pick up a bargain. In the past week alone (w/c 28th November 2008), 2.9% of sellers in the seaside resort have cut their original asking prices, a higher percentage than anywhere else in the country. This means for bargain hunters looking for a steal, Southend-on-Sea is the place to look, with 33 properties reduced in price by an average of £11,075 since Friday 28th November.

In the latest list of bargain hotspots, Southend-on-Sea is followed by Bedford (2.3%), where 38 properties have been reduced by an average of £23,831 in the past week, and Colchester (1.9%), where 52 properties have had an average of £11,430 knocked off the price since 28th November.

But in which large towns have price cuts been the sharpest?

Sellers in Cambridge appear to have had a major reality check over the past week: while only 0.6% of the properties in the famous University town have had their prices cut since 28th November, the average price cut was a massive 16.6%, or £42,772. Property price cuts in Stoke-On-Trent came the closest to Cambridge. The average price cut over the past week was 9.2%, or £9,588. In third place was Northampton, seeing an average price cut of 8.8%, or £11,220. In London, 278 properties have been reduced in price by motivated sellers during the past week, at a staggering average drop of £58,446. In Birmingham, the UK’s second largest city, 53 properties have been lowered in price by sellers, by an average of £7,806.

Nationally, 3293 properties have been reduced in price by sellers since 28th November at an average price drop of £22,061 (7%).

Daniel Lee, Globrix CEO, had this to say on the latest drops...

“As the weeks go by, more and more sellers are repricing their properties downwards on the basis that if they don’t then they simply won’t find a buyer. There is no doubt that sellers are becoming a lot more realistic around price — the penny really has dropped. Clearly the next month will be quiet but it will be interesting to see whether the combination of lower interest rates and lower house prices will finally stimulate the market in the New Year.”

UK area in focus - Guildford, Surrey

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 08:51:59 -0800

Whenever I write or post pictures from various parts of the UK, all my ActiveRain friends seem to like it. So this is part of a new daily series introducing you all to various parts of this lovely little island! If you've got any special requests for certain English places, just drop me a line and it could be featured next!

Today we're talking about Guildford :-)

Guildford, in Surrey (South East of England), is a rather nice little town which more than a handful of my colleagues have called 'home' over the years. I grew up ten minutes down the road so I know it well! And we're not the only fans of Guildford, oh no. Guildford regularly appears in all manner of 'Top UK places to live' lists and has even been hailed the most attractive and safe shopping destination in the country.

Guildford appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it was deemed to be worth the princely sum of £32. Of course, just to own a property in Guildford nowadays you're gonna need a few hundred thousand more than that.

Guildford's got plenty of historical tidbits to offer, including a castle which is thought to predate the Saxons and the oldest remaining synagogue in Western Europe. The first ever game of cricket is also argued to have taken place at the Royal Grammar School in 1598.

Even in more recent times Guildford had made it's mark on the history books, the scary climax of The Omen was filmed at Guildford Cathedral and let's not forget that Cheryl Cole (nee Tweedy) was arrested for assault after thumping a toilet attendant in one of Guildford' favourite nightclubs.

We spoke to one Guildford resident to find out why they love where they live...

"There's a nice combination of rural and urban here, nothing's too overwhelming. There's enough of a buzz for decent shopping, restaurants and bars without the claustrophobia of a big city. I can be at Waterloo in half an hour or I can be in one of the many picturesque Surrey villages like Shere and Gomshall within 15 minutes. There's a mix of good state schools and private schools and there's lots for kids to do with the Spectrum nearby. The only downside? Don't start your night at the bottom of the high street and expect to make it to the top, that's a big hill and if you've had anything to drink then it's not going to happen!"

Has Guildford tickled your fancy? Check out...

Homes for sale in Guildford

Property to rent in Guildford

UK area in focus - Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 07:45:08 -0800

Today we're talking about Bury St Edmunds :-)

Bury St. Edmunds, one of the few towns in England that doesn’t end in Ton, Ing, Ham or Ford is situated in the heart of John Constable’s county of Suffolk. It earns its unique name from its dark and complicated history. Originally a Saxon monastery, King Edmund was buried here in the 900s, of which his fame brought prosperity and growth to the surrounding town. Monasteries crumbled, abbeys were erected and power regularly changed hands up until the wool trade in the 15th century, which allowed the market and nearby villages to flourish. In the following 200 years, some of the largest witch trials were held in the town by the “Witch finder General” Matthew Hopkins.

Despite the dark history, Bury St Edmunds’ town centre is a beautiful place with plenty of independent shops, bars and restaurants. The ruins of the abbey are open to the public and host some beautiful flower gardens and even a tiny bird zoo.

If you’re in to your ales, you’ll find the freshest Greene King beer in the country, as the brewery is based right in the town centre and fills the streets with delicious hoppy smells for most of the year. The Old Cannon Brewery also offers some independent and very high quality tipple.

Travel wise, London can be a bit far on the train but is still commutable, and property prices are considerably lower than Cambridge and Ipswich. If you work in the latter two towns of course, you can be at work in about half an hour. Also, if you’re in to your country property, the surrounding villages to Bury St Edmunds play host to one The Rothschild’s estates as well as Claudia Schiffer’s little agricultural project. In the summer, West Suffolk’s colour scheme is unrivalled as golden fields of wheat and barley compliment the ‘Suffolk-pink’ cottages that are so common around Bury.

If you like the sound of Bury St Edmunds, and you’re not a witch of course, why not check it out?

Property for sale in Bury St Edmunds

Property to rent in Bury St Edmunds

UK area in focus - Oxford, Oxfordshire

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 09:29:45 -0800

Whenever I write or post pictures from various parts of the UK, all my ActiveRain friends seem to like it. So this is part of a new series introducing you all to various parts of this lovely little island! If you've got any special requests for certain English places, just drop me a line and it could be featured next!

Today we're talking about Oxford :-)

Oxford, or The City of Dreaming Spires as some people like to call it, is in the South East of England. Perhaps best known throughout the world for its famous historic university, there's more to Oxford than just a fine academic institution.

The architecture is impressive, with buildings that reflect every architectural period since the arrival of the Saxons and if you're a history buff then you can while away weekends tracing Oxford's roots all the way back to the 9th Century.

But aside from the history, there's plenty on offer for those that prefer something a bit more modern. I spoke to one Oxford resident to find out why they love where they live...

"Oxford has absolutely loads to offer yet much of the cities character is defined by the university buildings - it's impossible to go to Oxford and not be inspired by the university's history which is there for all to see. That being said, I've never studied here and I don't feel like I've missed out. Of course, there's a big student population but there's lots to do whatever your age. There are great pubs, great shopping and I can safely get about on my bike. It's not an overwhelming city like London is sometimes, you can navigate Oxford really easily. Although if you want to get to London then it's only an hour or so on the train. I really like it here, and nobody does a better May Day celebration than us here in Oxford!"

Has Oxford tickled your fancy? Check out...

Property for sale in Oxford

Property to rent in Oxford

UK area in focus - Colchester, Essex

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 09:32:45 -0700

One of our readers saw us talking about Chester yesterday and felt compelled to tell us about their home town with a similar name - Colchester.

Colchester, in the East of England, is officially the oldest recorded town in England. London stole the capital position from Colchester over 1000 years ago, but for some time it was the city of choice for kings, and plenty of history is still visible here too. Colchester’s town centre still prominently displays the old Roman wall and a fantastically preserved Norman castle can be found in Castle Park.

Photo credit

Old churches have been redeveloped in to arts centres and there’s even an old water tower which is rumoured to be converted in to a bachelor pad (add “bachelor pad” to your MyGlobrix search)!

Photo credit

Aside from the history behind the town, Colchester has plenty of shopping space available and can make a good night out if you head to the right places. It also makes a claim to fame by being the proud host of Pimp My Ride UK. For the grown-ups, London is only 45 minutes on the train to Liverpool Street, which explains the new (but quite aesthetically pleasing) housing developments near the station and for the children, Lexden road hosts some of the best rated schools in the UK.

Why don’t you have look?

Property for sale in Colchester.

Property to rent in Colchester.

UK area in focus - Hove, East Sussex

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 06:20:57 -0700

Whenever I write or post pictures from various parts of the UK, all my ActiveRain friends seem to like it. So I'm going to start a new daily series introducing you all to various parts of this lovely little island! If you've got any special requests for certain English places, just drop me a line it could be featured next!

Today we're talking about Hove :-)

Hove is a popular Southern town in East Sussex, with some stunning Regency architecture. The wide avenues and grand buildings have made the seaside town a favourite coastal retreat for many decades, famous Hove residents have included Winston Churchill, Dusty Springfield and Paul McCartney.

Hove is Brighton's next door neighbour, together the two towns form the city 'Brighton & Hove'. It's important to never accuse a Hove resident of living in Brighton, they are likely to quickly remind you that they're from 'Hove, actually'.

Photo credit

I had a chinwag with one of the locals to see why they love where they live...

"I moved to Hove from London about three years ago, mainly because the stress of inner-city life was getting to me! When I realised I could live by the sea and still have a job in London it was a no-brainer really. I can be at my desk in the City in an hour and a half and at the weekends I have the coast and the fresh air. There seem to be more and more delis and cafes springing up too, making the area even more attractive."

Has Hove tickled your fancy? Check out:

Property for sale in Hove.

Property to rent in Hove.

Ever wondered what a real estate agent does in the UK?

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 11:50:53 -0700

A lot of the US agents I speak to are curious about the real estate buying/selling process that takes place here in the UK. After all it's not just interesting for curiosity's sake, it's very important if you're ever selling to UK investors who are used to a very different process.

I've made a little video over at AgentGenius to try and give a brief overview of what we do and how it's different, would be interesting to hear what you think of our system :-)

You can read the post and watch the video here.

Have a super Sunday people! :-D

Keywords....the key to success!

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 09:30:54 -0700

People know what they like. If you walked past a restaurant where the menu said "spaghetti, meat, vegetarian option", it's pretty unlikely you'd go in. Why? Because you need details to be sold something.

It's the same with househunting, a lot of people are starting their search for property on real estate search sites like Zillow, Redfin, Roost, Trulia, RealSeekr and so on. In the UK of course, people looking for property for sale start their search on sites like the one I work at, Globrix. But no matter where you are in the world, when consumers are on property sites with (literally) millions of properties, then they're probably not going to pay a lot of attention to the properties with one dodgy photo and a one liner as a property description.

That's why keywords are so darn important!

One of the main 'draws' of these new and clever property sites is that househunters can use keywords to filter their search, meaning they don't have to read through every blooming property that's in a given area to find out if it has a garden/roof terrace/parking etc.

Although us technical wizards that work at real estate search sites try to be as helpful as possible, we can only show users properties with feature XYZ if it's mentioned in the property description. And that's why we rely on agents to make the descriptions as detailed as possible. After all, if a property has a garden but it isn't stated, househunters won't see it in their search!

At the site where I work, we know for a fact that the agents who take that little bit of extra time to write keyword rich property descriptions, get much more traffic sent to them than those who don't.

So if you're an agent writing a property description, include all the relevant keywords you can! And if you're home is being listed with an agent and you don't think the description does it justice, get on the blower and tell them to sort it out ;-)

A new job, a new blog!

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 08:18:12 -0700

So somehow I went from being that girl from London who posts on AR every day to simply disappearing all together.

Well, I didn't completely disappear, those who follow me on Twitter will know by my incessant tweets that I haven't fallen off the edge of the earth. Some of you may even have seen my latest video blog (link won't be suitable for all, we're pretty snarky in it), which the superb Carolyn was cool enough to blog about a few days ago.

So all in all, you can call off the search party, I'm alive and very, very well.

The reason for my lack of real estate blogging was simple, I just changed jobs :-D I blogged about the fact I had accepted a new job at uber sexy property search engine Globrix a while back, but I actually only just started my position last week.

In between leaving my old job and starting here I've done all sorts...I was given the honour of becoming an AgentGenius contributor, I'm the first Brit to be allowed to blog at AgentGenius so I feel very pleased with myself about that one. So far I've written about the problems of marketing yourself vs marketing your company and I've also been writing about the mistakes I've watched real estate pros make when discussing politics online. Aside from all that I've been doing a lot of baking, watched a lot of Ricki Lake and even went to Israel.

But now I'm back and I'll be blogging over at Globrix about all the UK property news as well as all sorts of clever online tips for agents, of course I'll still be blogging here but if you'd like to add the Globrix Blog to your feed reader then that would be unspeakably cool of you. You can find the Globrix Blog here.

I'll stop dithering on now and leave you with a couple of photos from Israel :-D

A typical Israeli breakfast

Tel Aviv beach

Forget 2008, how did you rank in Google back in 2001?!

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 07:04:00 -0700

The internet has become such an important part of our lives. We book our holidays with it, read the news with it, some of us even find our life partners with it! And lets face it, it's changed the world of real estate! But how many of us were saying "oh just look it up on Google" ten years ago?

Not many of us, because a decade ago Google was still all new and shiny, just launched to the world wide web and probably none the wiser that it would become the world's favourite website.

To celebrate Google's tenth birthday, they've brought back the 2001 version for us to play with.

Searching 'property blog' on the 2001 archive brings up 2,310 results (of which none are actually property blogs) compared with today's 13,600,000 results for property blog, most of which are pretty darn accurate.

ActiveRain must have just been the apple of Jon Washburn's eye back in 2001, as ActiveRain only got two results on old Google...and neither of these were property related ;-) Today, you're looking at 1,810,000 results for our favourite real estate blogging community.

Searching for 'Globrix' (the property search engine I work for here in the UK) in 2001 would have brought you, well, nothing. Search for Globrix today and there are around 762,000 results.

'Real estate' has always been a popular search term it seems, even in 2001 you could have found 11.5million results, but compare that to today's 624million results and you can see that the world of online real estate has come along way. Buyers are now spoilt for choice when looking for property for sale.

I have to say I was impressed to see that when googling myself (not as dirty as it sounds) on the 2001 version of Google I found two accurate results, one a review of BBC comedy The League of Gentleman and the other a review of a new Destiny's Child album...what an uber cool 14 year old I was, hmmmm.

Go search crazy on the old Google here, and sit back and think how of how far we've come in just seven years.

A new job :-)

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:22:58 -0700

So, what’s new with me? I certainly haven't been on ActiveRain very much recently. Well, I painted my toenails a stunningly sexy coral colour earlier. But, perhaps more importantly, I have just accepted a fantastic job over at Globrix. Globrix helps consumers find homes for sale and rental properties. For a long time I have admired what the Globrix team have been up to, with it’s super sleek interface they’ve really been pushing forward the idea of property search in the UK.

I’ve loved working at Zoomf over the past year, the team there are fantastic and a lot of fun to work with, even if I didn’t ever master the art of ping-pong. But I felt the time was right to move on having finally graduated from UCL, and the opportunity at Globrix has gotten me all excited and spritely.

I’ll be working on communications and product development, which are pretty much my favourite things to be working on (except for working on which handbag to buy next, that will always be my favourite activity and if someone’s willing to pay me a salary to do that then I’ll be there in a flash).

I can't wait to see if and how Globrix plan to help American real estate professionals, it will be great if we can come up with something that benefits all of us :-) And I definitely can't wait to get back to property blogging, I know I've deprived you all of British real estate news of late! But I'll be back with a bang soon enough.

I guess that’s it from me. I’ll be starting at Globrix in a few weeks and I may even buy a nice new dress to celebrate.

12seconds and Seesmic....lights, camera, ACTION!

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 08:24:21 -0700

I don't have a standalone webcam at home, so I've never really gotten into the whole 'vlogging' phenomenon. But my MacBook (which I use at work) does have it's little inbuilt iSight for recording video...so whilst I've been off this week I took my MacBook home and started playing around with video. I've had a blast!

To dip my feet in the water I used 12seconds TV. 12seconds is an alpha mode website where you can record video updates, it's been described as the video version of Twitter. Because just like how you're limited to 140 characters at Twitter, at 12seconds you're limited to...guess what... 12 SECONDS!

I don't see any huge real estate applications for 12Seconds, you can't do a great deal in 12 seconds :-) But it's a fun site, great for transparency and networking, people can comment on the videos and you can subscribe to peoples 'channels'. One thing I would say, is that because it only takes 12 seconds to record/watch a video, it's never going to eat in to too much of your work time. That's a huge advantage! It's a fun site and there are a few real estate people there already that I know of including Jeff Turner, Derek Overbey, Brad Coy, Mark Eckenrode and Ted Mackel. There are probably heaps more!

Here's a video I made a few days ago, my channel itself is here.

British Weather on 12seconds.tv

After getting used to 12seconds, I felt comfortable enough to record longer clips, so I turned my attention to Seesmic. Seesmic is a video conversation site, you may for example ask a question and then people respond to you via video. It makes for great worldwide conversations...heck I was even chatting in French with people from across the channel this morning!

I love this site, I really really do. After all, I'm all the way in England and don't get any real 'face time' with my pals in the US, so it's great that I can feel like they're opposite me having a conversation. There are even more real estate people over at Seesmic, it's like a video ActiveRain if you log on at the right time of day!

Go take a looksie, you can watch videos without signing up, but the fun comes when you're a part of the conversation! You can search for people you know (find me here) and 'follow' their videos, and best of all you can now tag posts e.g with 'real estate' so that they can be searched by users. Mike Mueller was very excited to rank number one for 'mortgage'! Maybe we'll see you over there :-)

I haven't fallen off the edge of the earth...

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 08:13:53 -0700

This is just a quick post because I haven't posted for so long now it feels, I miss my AR buddies :-) I haven't been too well the last couple of weeks, nothing serious or exciting, but I haven't been at work and I haven't been blogging. I was getting problems with my eyes and migraines, but luckily I'm on some meds that seem to be knocking that on the head (excuse the pun) and now I can see without nasty coloured blurry bits interrupting my line of vision :-)

So, yeah...no real estate news today. Just little old me dropping by to say hi. I know you guys like pictures, so here's one I took earlier of my breakfast...you've heard of the 'full English' right?

Record breaking UK house price falls...

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 05:56:35 -0700

…are themselves beginning to sound like a broken record. Everything has to be on a biblical scale when we talk about house prices and today is no different, year-on-year British house prices have fallen by 8.1% according to Nationwide. And, you guessed it, that’s the biggest annual drop since records began in 1991. This is the top story in most of our papers today, as you can probably imagine. Soon we'll be lining up the animals two by two and jumping in the ark to sail to safety.

House prices have been hugely overinflated in this country for a very long time, I know I say it often but even during this 'house price crash' it would cost you over half a million dollars to buy my (fairly crappy and tiny) one bed apartment in East London. I think this 'crash' is more of a 'correction', a reality check to those who have grown to think it's normal for small houses in nice areas to be worth the equivalent to a million+ dollars.

But, all that being said, news is news and today we've learned that the average British home has lost almost £15,000 (or 30,000 dollars) in value since July 2007 and the number of first time buyers has fallen by 41%. It's a difficult time for first time buyers, they've waited so long for the chance to buy a property, the prices come down and *BHAM* nobody will give them a mortgage. The average age of a first time buyer here is 34, I'd be interested to know how that compares to the US.

Anyway, a picure tells a thousand words so here's what's happening on the other side of the pond...

I don't think anyone will be framing this pic and hanging it over the mantle any time soon!

Is it professional to have zero emails and tweet about your cat?

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 05:33:30 -0700

You betcha it is! The last couple of gems to come from Real Estate Connect relate to some of the key problems that any real estate superhero has to face…

Your inbox has a zillion emails and keeps getting more, how the heck do you stay on top of it?
You’ve signed up to twitter and your dog is sick, should you tweet about it?
You want to manage projects with clients and colleagues, can it be done easily without losing your sanity?

Connect helped property professionals to answer these questions and luckily for us folk who weren’t there, there have been some nice blog posts detailing what was said.

So, if your inbox is making you want to run for the hills then check out Jay Thompson’s post on AgentGenius - ‘Approaching Inbox Zero’. There you can learn how to delete, delegate, respond, defer and do, which should help your inbox shed all that unsightly excess weight it’s been carrying.

If you’ve been listening to all the hullabaloo about Twitter and want to start pimping your property company online, you may be wondering what the best way to go about it is. Well, as Todd Carpenter points out in his post ‘People Really Do Want You To Tweet About Your Cat’ over at RealEstateTomato, the agent who just tweets links to listings and data reports is unlikely to gain any new best friends any time soon. So does that mean it’s cool to tweet about things that aren’t property related, to be (dare I say it) unprofessional? Absolutely! Social networking for business is not about being the formal square in the corner.

And then lastly, if you’re looking for an easy project management tool, Dustin Luther suggests taking a look at BaseCamp. We use BaseCamp here at Zoomf Towers so we concur that it’s a great product (and with it’s 30 day free trial you can decide that for yourself before parting with any cash).

I can’t finish this post without mentioning one of the other highlights of Connect, the Inman Innovator Awards. Major kudos to all the winners, which include the super cool Lani & Benn from AgentGenius and Derek & Co from Roost.

I guess that’s it from Connect, until next time!

I may not be at Connect, but I have American candy!

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:24:03 -0700

Well I'm kinda overexcited right now, I just got a big delivery of groceries from my gorgeous friends Gia and Grant from Realseekr.com. I can't put into words how excited I am about my new goodies, so I made a video instead.....and to all those who have been waiting to hear my British accent - enjoy! LOL!!!

The importance of listing photos...

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 06:17:29 -0700

I’ve harked on about it before, but it seems there are still plenty of agents who haven’t grasped the importance of property photos in a listing. Over at Real Estate Connect, it’s been a subject of debate at one of the panel sessions. Lorna Borenstein, president of Move Inc, said that their research had shown that consumers doubt the credibility of the agent when there aren’t multiple photos on a listing. And she’s right, a lack of photos is likely to make you think either that the property has something to hide or that the agent simply can’t be bothered. Neither of those are good things for your potential buyer/tenant to be thinking.

John Helm, CEO of apartment listing site MyNewPlace.com, said that their research had shown listings without photos only get around 25% of the click-thrus that listings with photos get. In today’s market, surely you want to give your listings the best chance for a click-thru? Make sure you always carry a (charged) digital camera with you! And then when choosing the main listing photo, choose the picture that best represents the property. If the best part about a property is its fantastic garden, then don’t make the main listing photo one of the kitchen. Simple stuff, but all too often forgotten.

Remember…

No photos - implies the agent can’t be bothered or that the property is a bit crappy.
One photo - may whet the appetite, but if comparing with other listings with plenty more photos then the one photo listing will probably get overlooked.
Lots of lovely photos - leads to lots of lovely enquiries! People can see every room, imagine where they’ll put the TV and will have already mentally moved in before you’ve even picked up the phone.

Yes, this is a real listing photo. No, you don’t need fake people to sell a house. In fact, you don’t want real people in your property photos either.

40% of British homebuyers lose their nerve before sale completes...

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 04:38:15 -0700

According to new figures from the Bank of England, in some parts of the UK as many as four in ten homebuyers pull out before they complete. I’m seriously resisting a sexual innuendo here, immature I know! The Bank of England said…

“‘In the market for established homes, more transactions were falling through, with some estate agents reporting a cancellation rate of up to 40 per cent recently. That was partly due to the unwillingness of many sellers to accept a lower offer.”

But, understandably, many are resisting buying now in the hope for a better bargain later down the line, which in turn is screwing up housing chains left, right and centre. All this coupled with record low mortgage approvals paints a pretty gloomy picture over here, unless you’re a landlord of course ;-)

UK property for sale.

A walk around Chester, England....

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:15:34 -0700

This weekend I had a fabulous excuse to leave London for a few days, it was my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary (awwww true love). Inspired by the fabulous response to my last little walking tour, I remembered to pack the camera and get snapping as I spent some time in one of my favourite British cities.

Chester is in the North of England and is most famous for it's fantastic history. Chester is one of our fantastic Roman cities and is nearly 2000 years old (blimey!) and the original Roman walls that encased the city are still intact...there's even an amphitheater, so no need to go to Rome! Many historians argue that Chester was intended to be the capital of Great Britain, once upon a time it was much more important than London, or Londinium as it was then known :) But it's not just the Roman ruins that make Chester a historical marvel, as you will see in the pics there are plenty of original Tudor and Victorian buildings. So sit back and enjoy!

This is the view of the local shops from one of the Roman walls, isn't it pretty?

In the above photo, you may be able to see that there are shops on top of shops. I've never seen this anywhere else in the UK (except in malls of course) and this part of Chester is known as 'the Rows'. This photo was taken from a restaurant on one of the upper rows...note the red telephone box in the corner hehe.

I love this building, it's one of the original steam mills by the canal.

This canal is very narrow now, as you can see, it's hard to believe that once upon a time it was these waterways that made Chester the most important port in the North-West.

This photo was taken by one of the towers that are part of the Roman walls. Poor King Charles...can't have been nice to see your army defeated!

This is Chester Cathedral, it's beautiful and impossible to capture in one photograph!

This clock is the second most famous clock in the UK, the most famous? Big Ben of course!

The Eastgate Clock was built for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897.

And, although it's not technically part of the Chester tour, I couldn't resist including this picture of my cousin Charlie and I. I only see him for a couple of days every few years, I guess that's what happens when you have family in Australia!

Hope you enjoyed the tour. I'll be back with more London pics soon, watch this space :-D

Fancy a holiday home in this beautiful part of the UK? Or just some gorgeous eye candy? Check out:

Property for sale in Chester

Property to rent in Chester

UK rental attitudes are changing, how is it stateside?

Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK (Globrix) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 05:06:58 -0700

In the UK we have a site called Gumtree, it's a lot like CraigsList...an online classifieds site with ads from dating to house sales. Gumtree recently published a report examining today’s British rental market. The findings were very interesting and I'd be interested to hear if you think there are similarities with your markets.

According to the study, half of Brits (51%) believe the national obsession with getting on the property ladder is old fashioned and needs to change. Over two thirds of 25-44 year-old renters (71%) are not planning to take a mortgage at all and will invest their money in other ways, and three-quarters of Brits (76%) wouldn’t buy property now even if they had the cash burning a hole in their pocket. Four in five renters (81%) can’t currently afford to buy, but they are content and want to continue renting for the foreseeable future.

The study also examined a year’s worth of historical data for London and five other large UK cities and found a shift towards a more ‘European attitude’ to renting, which is good news for landlords. In cities such as London, Edinburgh and Bristol the study found rental revenue increase by up to 7.8%. These findings reflect the opinion of over a third (35%) of landlords questioned who are optimistic about the rental market and believe their property will make them more money before the end of the year.

Renters looking for affordable properties should head to Manchester and Birmingham where urban development has contributed to a drop of up to 3.5%, as supply of outstrips demand. Gumtree’s Rental Index further reveals letting markets in Leeds, Bristol and Edinburgh to be slightly more neutral, with rents rising modestly or remaining static, yet to feel significant effects from the current property fall-out.

Property expert Michael Holmes had this to say…

“Until now renting has always been a bit of a dirty word in the UK. The importance of owning a house is deeply engrained in the British psyche and it’s our equivalent of the American dream. But in the new economic climate we’re seeing a real shift in attitudes towards a more continental approach to property, with renting becoming increasingly popular.”

Is it time to get rid of the stigma of being a renter? No matter where we are in the world?