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Holidays more important than new home

13/10/05

A survey has found that Britons spend more time shopping around for holidays than they do researching houses.

The website What House? found that 43 per cent of Britons were more likely to closely research where they next spend time in the sun than where they will spend most of their lives. Some 73 per cent admitted that they only drove around their local area when looking for a house.

The survey also discovered that the likelihood of homebuyers investigating houses properly varied according to region. The group most likely to use the internet to conduct homebuying research were those who live in London and the Home Counties and are aged between 18 and 34-years-old.

Just under three quarters of those in the south-west said that they do not have the time to bother to look properly, whilst 67 per cent of those in the East Midlands enquire about property in their local estate agents. Thirty-six per cent of people in the north-east are likely to spend more time looking into car prices then researching a house.

What House? provides an internet service for homebuyers who wish to check the value a property was bought at against how much it is being sold for, using data from the Land Registry. It also allows homebuyers to look at local schools in the area as well as see what kind of transport links are available.

The news came after the Joseph Rowntree Foundation discovered that almost a million first time buyers cannot afford to get on the property ladder but earn too much to gain housing benefit. It suggested that the government should take action to deal with the issue.