Tepilo

New property site, Tepilo.com was shortlisted for The Good Web Guide Website of the Year Award 2009. Founded by property guru, Sarah Beeny, the site enables buyers to sell or let their home with no charges or commission. We caught up with Sarah to find out more.

Explain your website.

Tepilo.com is my new free to use property website, enabling you to sell or let your home with no charges or commission - saving you thousands of pounds in the process. Tepilo walks you through the process of buying, selling or letting a home giving you practical advice on how to make the most of your property through design, negotiation and marketing. The site, which is set out in a easy to use format, helps you present your home in a glossy magazine style, allowing you to focus on the key selling points of your home. Now more than ever is a time when people need to save money when selling their home - we hope Tepilo will give people the confidence to enable them to sail through the process.

How does it make money?

Tepilo was set up using a fairly unique business model and has run without making revenue for several months - moving forward we are finalising a sponsorship deal which should enable us to keep the website completely free for the end user. Tepilo doesn't take commission on any services, but uses this to reduce the cost of the services. There is also no advertising on the website - keeping everything very user friendly.

What is your background?

I'm probably best known as a Channel 4 television presenter on Property Ladder and Property Snakes and Ladders among others. As well as my own property developing career I also founded mysinglefriend.com, a social dating website.

When did the site launch?

The site launched in July 2009 so is fairly new, but has attracted over 4,500 properties, lots of sales and some really positive feedback.

What does the name ‘Tepilo' mean?

When I was a child my father used to tell me stories about a fantastical palace called Tepilo; a wonderful place to escape to. It seemed the perfect name for my new property site! We have since found out that in a language created by philosopher Hans Kamp, Tepilo means "Talk", which is also very fitting.

How many visits do you have per day?

We generally get several thousand visits a day, and this number is expanding rapidly. We don't have traffic as a target, rather number of properties sold. As long as we are selling properties we are happy, although we understand that traffic and sales are directly related. We have a significant TV advertising campaign, backed up with outdoor posters and online activity coming up soon, which we hope will draw in large numbers of visitors to the site.

Describe your average visitor.

Our average visitor is really any homeowner, buyer, landlord, tenant or developer in the UK - with the addition of anyone interested in property. Our users generally spend over 10 minutes on the site and our conversion to registration is generally very high. The most common question we get asked is "Love the site - how come this is free?"

Who are your closest competitors?

There are a number of websites in the private sales sector, but most of them charge a fee, which means surprisingly that there is not a huge amount of competition. We've been delighted by the uptake, as the hardest thing is to get from 0 properties to a critical mass of several thousand. We don't see anyone as competition, as we're not competing for revenue from users on the site. Our mission is driving awareness of how easy it is to sell/let your own home. Any activity from other sites offering similar services actually helps us too!

What is your biggest challenge?

Our biggest challenge is generating brand awareness; we want to become a household name. When people find the site they've been great at getting stuck in and also in helping to tell others about it.

What makes Tepilo.com unique?

It's free to use - there is nothing to pay to use the site at all, loads of free information and advice, and no advertising to our users. We'd like to think the site helps to get your property looking great, in reality and on the site itself. It's really simple to use.

What are your forecasts for the property market?

I think currently we are bouncing along the bottom of the market - I don't see the market falling much, but then I can see it taking some time to recover. Prices are rising, and due to a reported lack of people selling this has pushed them up further, but this doesn't mean they are actually worth more - probably just that buyers are more desperate to get hold of property.

Where do you see Tepilo going from here?

We've got loads of exciting stages planned in - we launched in phases so we could concentrate on each area and get each one moving before moving onto the next one. We are working hard to increase awareness of the site, add in some great new partnerships and most importantly sell and let property in a really efficient manner. There's much more to come!

Visit www.tepilo.com

16 November 09