Service Announcements
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Changes to Pricing Structure
After careful thought we have decided to move away from our flat rate pricing. With average fees for Building Surveys now some 35% above HomeBuyer reports we now feel it appropriate to differentiate our fees accordingly.
Consequently from 1st December 2018 the cost per lead will change to £3.60 for a Building Survey, with all other leads (HomeBuyer, Valuation, Commercial and the various 'General Practice' options) charged at the only very slightly increased rate of £3.15.
Your first payment at the new rate will be in the middle of January. With the average number of leads returned per search less than 3.5, resulting in good conversion rates, we believe we still provide excellent value for money compared to our competitors.
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Christmas Cards 2018
Rather than send out Christmas cards as we have in previous years, we intend to donate the same amount direct to charity.
We currently support Cancer Research UK, Epilepsy Action, and the Royal British Legion, and are open to any further suggestions - if you have a charity you'd like us to consider for a donation, please email us with your suggestion.
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Average Fees in 2018 and Changes to Default Fee Matrix
We are asked quite often about the typical fee rates surveyors are offering through our site. Each year we analyse these to check that our default fees are in line with the average fees being offered.
This year we have decided to share these with you, and below is the breakdown of the average fee delivered through our site over the course of 2018. Noticeable this year is an increase in the average fee at the ends of the scale. Although the 2-3 Bed £200-400K fee ranges are very similar to 2017, fees for smaller or cheaper properties, and larger more expensive properties, have increased, in some cases quite significantly.
Obviously there will be regional variations in fee rates, but these might help you when setting or reviewing your own fees.
Our default pricing has just been updated to reflect these, to ensure that new users have a realistic guide as to the starting point when setting their own fees when joining the site.
Read more: Average Fees in 2018 - Changes to Default Fee Matrix
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Price Change from 1st February 2018
Over the last year we have continued to grow our share in the marketplace.
However this has not been without an increase in costs, and following a full review we will be increasing our price per lead to £2.95 plus VAT from 1st February 2018. This will affect all leads generated after 1st February and will be reflected in our invoice dated 28th February.
This remains well below the cost-per-lead of other providers, and with the maximum number of leads per search remaining capped at just 5 to maximise your conversions, we believe our service continues to offer excellent value for money in the marketplace, and we look forward to delivering an increasing volume of high quality leads for you.
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The Brexit Effect
Over the last few weeks we have received numerous queries about how things have been affected since the EU referendum result.
Now, nearly two months afterward, we think it a good idea to share some data about what we've seen.
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Price Change from 1st June 2016
It has been nearly 18 months since we last made any changes to our lead pricing.
Since that time there have been a number of changes and cost increases in the market, and following a full review, we will be increasing our price per lead to £2.45 plus VAT. This will affect all leads generated after 1st June and reflected in our invoice dated 30th June.
With the maximum number of leads per search remaining capped at just 5, we believe our service continues to offer excellent value for money in the marketplace, and we look forward to delivering an increasing volume of high quality leads for you.
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New look for the Local Building Surveyor site
If you haven't already noticed it, the Local Building Surveyor website has had a bit of a facelift. This is in keeping with new branding and livery.
Our original site launched in 2011 with a facelift early in 2014. The new styling is more of a transformation with a new responsive (mobile friendly) design, and a new modern layout and colour scheme more in keeping with some of our other web properties.
As well as the new look, the site has some technical changes behind the scenes, mostly aimed at improving conversion rates and reducing poor quality leads.
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Default price matrix updated
As of 5th May, our default price matrix for HomeBuyer, Building, and Valuation surveys has been updated with new prices.
The new prices reflect an adjustment to keep the defaults in line with the average survey prices being offered on the site. In general the changes involved an increase of £20-£30 to prices above £300K, and above 2 beds for properties <£300K. No prices were reduced.
This does NOT affect any prices currently being offered by you, only the default prices for new surveyors joining the service, or surveyors adding these services to their aaccounts.
If you have been using our default prices as the basis for your pricing and wish to realign your prices with the new defaults, this is very easy to do. Simply:
- go to the Services & Pricing page in your account administration,
- click on the Change Pricing link for the survey type you wish to update
- click on the Continue button on the "Reload default pricing" section to open the dropdown panel
- click on the Load Prices button and confirm.
This will replace your existing prices with the new default prices for the selected service and office.
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Local Building Surveyors v2 Launched
After several months of development and testing, we are pleased to announce the launch of LBS v2.
Most of the changes are hidden in the infrastructure of the site, and we have quite deliberately not made major changes to the appearance or apparent functionality of the site, as over the last year we've spent a fair bit of time quietly refining the user interface, and that's been paying off in terms of an ever increasing throughput of users and leads generated.
Surveyor Directory
One of the main benefits to you is the addition of a new surveyors directory, intended to help raise the profile of our surveyors. And no doubt you'll be pleased to hear that this is at no extra cost to you! All of our surveyors with active Lead Generation accounts are entitled to a free directory listing (equivalent to a Silver subscription), and this gets you a full profile page, with logo, and use of the ratings and reviews system.
You can add a listing for each of your offices, and your subscription can be upgraded to a Gold subscription which entitles you to additional links to your website and social media pages for an extra £100 per year.
The directory has been pre-populated with your basic company contact details, but we suggest that you jump in and add your full profiles and logos as soon as you can to get the most benefit.
To access the directory and expand your listing, simply login to the administration of you account in the normal way, and follow the Directory links from the main admin page. Navigate to your listing, and click on the "Edit" button to add any further information you wish.
Administration System Changes
You will also notice some general tidying up of the administration pages, notably the main admin page, to incorporate the directory and improve usability by grouping the main adminstration tools.
We have tested the new system pretty rigorously, but if you come across any problems or glitches, please let us know!
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Price increase from 1st March 2013.
Due to the growing success of Local Building Surveyors, the time has come to restructure our pricing and move away from the initial introductory lead cost which we have held for over a year, and as intimated in our email at the end of last year, it is now time to increase the price of referrals to £1.35. The additional revenue will enable us to build on success, consolidate our already strong market position and roll out yet more services and facilities which will help to grow your profile and bring you better and more diverse leads.
To offset the increase we have decided to abolish the £50 annual subscription fee, making sure our service remains very much a results driven, pay-as-you-go, service, and even at the new rate we believe our referrals offer exceptionally good value for money.
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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