x
By using this website, you agree to our use of cookies to enhance your experience.
Written by Rosalind Renshaw


A ‘home swap’ website for estate agents and house builders launched this week. Property-Matchmaker.com has been designed to create chain-free sales and has already signed up Bellway Homes.

Created by two women from North Yorkshire, Miki Rogers and Paula Westacott modelled Property-Matchmaker on a successful American website.

It allows agents and developers to match their properties with those of buyers and sellers across the UK who then swap or trade homes with each other – eliminating the need for a first-time buyer and creating chain-free sales.

Rogers, a former IT professional and primary school teacher, said: “The housing market is stagnant and much of the problem stems from the lack of first-time buyers in the market. People still want to move, but because first-time buyers can’t get mortgage deals without large deposits, the market has ground to a halt.

“Our website is unique. Historically, house-swap businesses have cut out the agents, but our site is for the sole use of professional estate agents and house builders. It allows them to search across the UK and help second-time buyers to trade homes with each other. There’s no chain and no first-time buyer so the process is infinitely quicker and much less likely to collapse.”

Westacott, who worked for Taylor Wimpey for 15 years, said: “The system has been in development for six months and uses bespoke, highly advanced technology to match buyers’ and sellers’ needs in terms of location, price and size.”

www.property-matchmaker.com

Comments

  • icon

    SkgebK vkoo7wvY5Xkfak7bf1Th

    • 05 April 2009 12:01 PM
  • icon

    Hi,
    Comments are not appearing due to a technical problem with Estate Agent Today, not due to removal by owners of website. On another link to this page it shows 15 comments. The owners of the website cannot remove their own comments from the forum.

    • 16 December 2008 11:03 AM
  • icon

    We would like to make it clear that none of the comments posted apart from the initial comment from S Larcombe were done so by any of the employees of Property-Matchmaker. Thank you for all of the comments supporting what we are trying to achieve and for all of the Estate Agents working with us towards this common goal.

    • 11 December 2008 10:19 AM
  • icon

    I agree with "Lets be positive" - anyone trying to innovate to help get the market moving has to be encouraged - I have looked at all of these sites, they all seem to work fine, and they all seem to do slightly different things along similar lines, which is to help put deals together. They do of course need the support of agents to get enough houses on them to do the relevant deals. I am not sure anyone can expect anything for free these days, and why should they???

    • 08 December 2008 05:26 AM
  • icon

    I think all of these initiatives deserve a big thumbs up - whichever solution turns out to be the best for agents in this difficult market, only time will tell. The key is to get sellers to buy into the idea that they can move if they are prepared to make compromises. Moving into 2009 more and more sellers are likley to want to downsize, but if first time buyers cannot get a mortgage at a sensible LTV they will be left out in the cold, leaving methods of sale such as this more attractive to everyone - well done to the innovators....

    • 08 December 2008 05:10 AM
  • icon

    All the users comments seem to have been removed/modified by the owners of this site? Scared of upsetting those who advertise with Estate Agent Today by allowing honest and unbiased comments?

    • 06 December 2008 07:34 AM
  • icon

    Interesting concept, you have just stated that your site is not just for properties that want to part exchange. If that is the case then why have you titled the article "New part exchange website launches"?? (and more than once) Surely the whole point of a property swap site is to be just that???

    • 05 December 2008 08:29 AM
  • icon

    Just tried to view homes on PropertySalesExchange.com - all I got was this error message - Fatal error: Call to a member function getName() on a non-object in /home/p/r/propertysalesex/public_html/xml/templates_c/%%42^426^4269C680%%result.html.php on line 440

    You might want to sort out your own site (and get some properties) before you knock other sites?

    • 05 December 2008 06:01 AM
  • icon

    Dear 'Interesting Concept' - please do not use EAT for SPAM. Your website is a JOKE - £300/branch/year for a site that has practically no properties, keeps showing error messages and looks like it has been cobbled together to jump on any bandwagon that happens to be coming along is really a complete waste of our time.

    • 05 December 2008 05:47 AM
  • icon

    Great idea but PropertySalesExchange.com is already gaining critical mass and is actually a portal for all properties not just those who want to swap/exchange. It also provides genuine referals to agents for free valuations, viewings and mortgage appointments - the best of all worlds for hardly any cost at all at only £16 per month.

    • 03 December 2008 07:15 AM
  • icon

    To have any chance of success the site should be 'free' for the forseeable future. This is how the likes of Rightmove started out. By charging a fee it becomes a 'catch 22' scenario. Good looking site but needs heavy backing to be a success.

    • 02 December 2008 11:51 AM
  • icon

    oh sam - "The technology to provide the scenario where BOTH properties match with eachother is neither cheap, nor easy to do, hence our confidence over our prices" - well I am sorry - but the technology is cheap (mySQL database FREE!!! and a PHP "script kiddy" for 50 hours @ £20 an hour = £1,000 - pretty CHEAP!!!). What is expensive is the marketing to get a meaningful number of agents on board and I note that a Google of "house swap" does not show your website but does show the competition. If you haven't got a budget for Google Adwords even you are probably going no-where with this - again Rightmove will finish you when they take up my suggestion - sorry.

    • 01 December 2008 01:41 AM
  • icon

    Brilliant analysis Brightmove - up to your usual standard of penetrating and insightful comment... (or should that be 'waste of time self-promotion'.

    • 01 December 2008 09:20 AM
  • icon

    So sorry Sam but I share the general negativity about your site - not only on EAT but amongst my colleagues. You claim to be "the only swapping/matching/exchanging site which is both providing 2 way matches and is working properly" - this is clearly UNTRUE - as anyone with access to Google can demonstrate. You claim to have over 1000 properties on the site - I tried searching 200 miles around Newcastle, London and Birmingham - result ZERO properties and a wasted 10 mins - so this claim is probably UNTRUE as well.

    For now I shall look at partexmyhome.com and myhomeforyours.co.uk - both sites are offering free listing/registration and both ensure that enquiries are made direct to me as an agent - the latter site even seems to display Agent's own websites so that I could gain exposure of my non-partex properties as well as partex - the low charges for both sites absolutely blow yours away!

    If you are still around in 6 months or so - please blow me a raspberry and tell me I was wrong ...

    • 29 November 2008 08:47 AM
  • icon

    In 4 weeks we have over 1000 properties on the site, and it is being used by large syndicates of estate agents, mainly in the North East, but also in London and Essex, having never being designed for the general public. So far we are the only swapping/matching/exchanging site which is both providing 2 way matches and is working properly, and is in daily use within the profession. We don't provide pictures or details of properties, as we are not a portal, and the database is for those logged on to the site. The idea has been there for a long time, but matches are, in the main, one way. The technology to provide the scenario where BOTH properties match with eachother is neither cheap, nor easy to do, hence our confidence over our prices. The service and professionalism we provide, so we are told by our registered Estate Agents, is what has made them choose us over other sites. We run a free 30 day trial with no tie ins, and of course we don't keep any client data should an Estate Agent choose not to continue,so give the site a go, what have you got to lose?

    • 29 November 2008 04:09 AM
  • icon

    sorry to be negative about this business model - BUT - it can only be of value with a huge database of registered agents and properties to match - of course right now it must have very few - therefore of little value - hence why would an agent fork-out this high reg fee (£850 pa)??? - but this is biggest issue - all rightmove or globrix (choose your portal) need to do is offer house-swapping search/matching criteria to agents and off yo go with a database of properties that make it meaningful - I would sell the idea to rightmove but OOPs I've already given it away for free!

    • 29 November 2008 11:34 AM
  • icon

    My experience is that house sellers want to sell high yet buy cheap. It will be interesting to see if this type of scheme really takes off!

    • 28 November 2008 02:32 AM
MovePal MovePal MovePal