Sarah Beeny discusses the future of the property market

Best known for presenting the Channel 4 property shows, Property Ladder, Streets Ahead and Britain's Best Homes, Sarah Beeny is also the founder of dating site, mysinglefriend.com and property site, Tepilo.com. Tepilo provides a place for people to buy and sell their homes directly, without paying estate agency fees, and calls into question the need for estate agents at all. We caught up with Sarah, a judge in this year's Website of the Year Awards on The Good Web Guide to discuss the future of the property market online.

Do you think that the estate agent is increasingly redundant?

I think there are still some good agents out there who are very good and successful at selling properties - but I think the internet has changed a lot of markets over the last few years. Agents' charging structures need a drastic rethink - as the amount of work involved in selling a property is very out of line with what they make from selling your property.

Google has recently unveiled new house hunting tools on its internet map service, which are free to use. How will this affect other online property portals?

Some of the big property sites - Rightmove for example - haven't signed up to use the new Google service - I think it will take some time for people to hear about the Google offering and some time to learn to use it - but, being Google, it can generally make a success of new additions. It will be a threat to the big portals as it's free to list on Google.

Tepilo.com has recently signed up to Google's new service. How do you think this will benefit Tepilo.com?

Yes, we were pleased to be one of the first sites to sign up - if you add your property to Tepilo we will add it to Google Maps automatically. We see the new Google service as a benefit to our business - if you want to list your own property on Google you will need a site or place with information for buyers to view. Tepilo provides this for free - and it makes sense for us to work with our users to get their property maximum exposure.

Do you think that the future of the property market is online?

You can find and negotiate the cheapest flights, the best mortgage deal, best savings account and much more online from your home or workplace, so surely it's only logical you should also be able to sell or buy your own home online and save thousands at the same time. We're seeing an increasing number of property sites and even online estate agents - which seems to be a new trend - so the market does seem to be changing. The number of property searches on Google rises from year to year and most properties are now selling online rather than through traditional methods.

What are the advantages/disadvantages of searching for a property online?

I may be slightly biased here - but why wouldn't you look for your next property online? A few clicks and you can see most of what's on offer in a particular area - it's just so much easier. Looking online we have more advanced technology too - at Tepilo, we've integrated streetview, so you can even walk around an area virtually to see what the surroundings are like. The local schools and transport links are also clearly displayed at the same time, along with the owner's favourite places to eat out or grab a drink - offline you would need to spend time visiting the street and doing your research will take much longer.

Sarah Beeny is a judge in The Good Web Guide's Website of the Year Award 2010. Click here to find out more.

16 July 2010