Service Announcements
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Coronavirus Update 4
A couple of weeks ago we gave you an update on what we'd seen happening in the surveying market up to the 9th May.
Since that time things have moved on quite significantly! On Sunday the 11th May, in an address to the nation, Boris Johnson stated that the government would be starting to ease the restrictions on some businesses, details of which would be published over the course of the following week.
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Coronavirus Update 3
As we are now some weeks into the coronavirus lockdown, and the potential lifting of property market restrictions still some indeterminate time ahead, we feel it time to share a little of what we've seen happening in the surveying market over the last couple of months.
The new year started very full of promise, with trends very much on the up following the General Election. That continued until March when awareness that the new coronavirus was becoming not "just another sort of 'flu", but an imminent global health crisis.
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Control Panel Update
We are pleased to announce a significantly updated version of our account control panel went live last week. The changes are more than just cosmetic, with some quite major changes to the underlying system. From a user's perspective, the only significant change has been to separate the Offices management from the Company Details page; there is now a link from the main menu to the new Offices area. There will be new enhancements of the system appearing in the next few weeks.
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Coronavirus Update - #2
Activity
What a difference even a few days makes!
With the country now 'locked-down' for the last week, we think it a good time to share some information on what we have seen happening over the last couple of weeks
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Coronavirus Update
Up to now we have resisted the urge to tell you about what we're doing about the coronavirus situation, but the Government's announcement last night of further severe movement restrictions warrants something more than just trying to continue with 'business as usual'.
Not surprisingly, we have seen market activity reduce considerably over the last couple of weeks, and with the latest set of restrictions we anticipate that new buyers in the market will be pretty scarce over the coming months, with a consequent knock on effect on the demand for surveying services.
We are intending to continue to promote the Local Building Surveyors website in order to generate leads where there is still demand, however we are fully aware that you may not wish to carry out surveys at present, and may not require leads.
We fully understand the position - to remind you, ours is a pay-as-you go service, so if you wish to suspend your leads until things improve, that is fine.
Should you choose to do this, there are a couple of simple ways that you can do this via your control panel:
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Optimising Your Account
With the property market seemingly more active, some of you are seeing significant increases in the number of leads being delivered. Whilst for many this is welcome new business, for others it can result in receiving more leads than can be easily followed up or converted. So we thought it an appropriate time to share a few tips on ways in which you can optimise your leads to get the best from your account.
We provide a number of ways in which you can optimise your account to restrict the number of leads and manage your costs on a permanent or temporary basis.
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New Pricing From January 1st 2020
Unfortunately we are not immune to inflation! We have worked hard over the year to contain our costs and over the year have succeeded in growing lead volumes, but this has not come without an increase in costs, particularly advertising and promotional costs which we are not able to fully absorb.
Consequently from 1st January 2020 the cost of a basic lead for HomeBuyer, Valuation, and all 'General Practice' services will increase very slightly, by 0.15p to £3.30. Building Survey leads will increase to £4.15 to more realistically reflect the differential between HomeBuyer and Building Survey fees.
Your first payment at the new rate will be in the middle of February. With the average number of leads returned per search less than 3.7, resulting in good conversion rates, we believe this still provides excellent value for money compared to our competitors.
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Local building Surveyors now an RICS Tech Affiliate Company
We are delighted to announce that AZAB Ltd / Local Building Surveyors has been officially recognised as an RICS Tach Affiliate company.
This doesn't mean any change to what we do, but it is nice to be acknowledged as being of value to RICS Surveyors by the RICS!
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Additional Property Value Bands
With the average price of a property in many areas continuing to increase over the year, we feel it time to introduce additional property value bands at the upper end of the market. We have therefore added 3 new property price bands: £1M-£1.25M, £1.25M-£1.5M, and £1.5M-£2M.
To speed up the implementation of the new price bands we have added new fees to all existing user accounts for these property bands. The prices added are not 'standard', but are calculated in 5% increments from your existing £901k-£1m pricing for each service, thus creating logical step increases consistent with your current fee rates.
The price bands are not yet available to the public, but will be switched on in about a week's time. In the meantime we suggest you log in to your account control panel and review and amend these fees to make sure they are right for you.
Note: if you do not wish to be returned for searches in these price bands for any reason (e.g. issues with PI cover etc), simply remove the fee from the matrix, leaving it blank, and you will not be returned in results
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Reviews Feedback
As you may already be aware, we use an independent review company (reviews.co.uk) to gain reviews and feedback about our service (and yours!) from the public.
Over the next few months, we will be making more efforts to encourage users to review both us and you, using both reviews.co.uk and our own inbuilt review system.
You should be pleased to hear that general feedback is excellent, with an average score currently of 4.1 from 5 from over 660 reviews.
But one of the most common 1 star negative comments we get are surveyors not honouring advertised fees. You are not legally bound to adhere to the advertised fee, but clearly not doing so can create a good deal of bad will, and seriously damage your chances of converting the lead to an instruction, so now might be a good time to check that your advertised prices on the site are in line with your actual fees.
Also proudly powering the surveyor search on...
Great easy process and better for those who have no or little idea of the actions taken for the cost involved. Thanks for this and hope that will help in the future.
All good thanks
Our sincere thanks to Tom (and Alison) at Herongate Surveyors. We were extremely impressed with the service we received throughout our recent house purchase. The team were professional, thorough, and incredibly helpful from start to finish. Tom took the time to explain everything clearly in straightforward, layman’s terms, making sure we fully understood the findings and what they meant for us. Their knowledge, attention to detail, and willingness to answer our questions gave us great confidence and reassurance throughout the process. We wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them to anyone looking for a professional, knowledgeable, and approachable firm of surveyors. An excellent service from start to finish.
The site was so simple to use providing a lot of information enabling me to choose a surveyor. We chose GTA surveyors and we made a good choice. They were so friendly and helpful and in constant communication with us. Our level 3 survey date was booked promptly. Our surveyor, Glen, gave us a full comprehensive report covering all aspects and followed this with a informal phone call covering any questions we had. Would definitely recommend to anyone and would use as again.
Easy to use, returned a good selection of surveyors, one of whom we uased and was excellent
Excellent service. I was able to locate a Surveyor very quickly and booked in within a day. Survey has been completed now.
I was given a list of Surveyors and I selected one which turned out to be to my satisfaction.
Local building surveyors made it super easy & quick to find me someone to do my survey. I provided all the information on Wednesday night, Thursday morning I had several companies contact me with quotes & I managed to book a company for the Friday! Using this site made it super quick & easy, I would highly recommend!!! All the companies that contacted me were certified by RICS which was very important to me too
Site was easy to use, responsive. Property fell through so never used anyone
Very quick, professional service and comprehensive report. Highly recommended.
Easy to set up and initial communication very good. I did however have to chase up the result of the survey but responded well when I did so.
I recently purchased a home survey from Independent Home Survey and was extremely impressed with the service. It was very cost-effective without compromising on quality. Hugo Howe was professional, knowledgeable, and thorough throughout the process. He explained everything clearly and provided a comprehensive report that gave me confidence in my property purchase. I would highly recommend Independent Home Survey, especially Hugo Howe, to anyone looking for an excellent, reliable, and affordable home survey service.
Found a surveyor in fact all were responsive and this service proved a little easier to use than the RICS own web site.
I used SPG Surveyors. Dan arrived at the appointed time. He was very polite, knowledgeable and professional. I would highly recommend.
Having found a good few surveyors through this site, I emailed 5, 3 days ago, still awaiting replies so cannot say for sure if my experience will be a good one.
Very helpful site. Gave me some local surveyors to call and I had an excellent response from all three. Unfortunately my sale fell through so I was not able to proceed.
Very happy with the survey. All the imformation you would want to now of the buiding. Recomend the site if asked how it went.
I found the form easy to complete to get quotes for a building surveyor. 5 quotes were sent through and we did engage one of these to do our RICS Home Buyer 2 survey. This was carried out within a few days. Now waiting for the official report.
I was very happy to find this site, that had all the information needed to review & select a RICS recommended surveyor, namely River Crest Surveyors of Eastleigh. i have found them professional, diligent and very helpful and would recommend their services.
very easy process, a good range of surveyors suggested. The company i picked from that selection was very efficient, helpful and good value.
Straightforward to book. The Level 2 Home Survey was delivered on time and gave invaluable insights with lots of photos and explanation. An excellent service. Highly recommended.
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