SWIPE FOR A DEAL

Could a raft of new property finding apps spell the end for estate agents?

For those who love so-called ‘property porn’, there’s a new smart - phone app that might be perfect — especially as it claims to be the property version of dating service Tinder.

Qoob ( theqoob.com) allows you to use your phone to swipe through homes on sale in the same way as people peruse potential love matches. It’s the latest of a raft of new apps and websites changing the way we buy and sell. Like taxi service Uber and bed and breakfast firm Airbnb, these apps are designed to cut out the middle-man — in this case, estate agents.

Qoob has been created by academics at the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences and it allows people to upload pictures of their homes and create a listing on their smartphones.

If another Qoob user then likes the look of the property , they can chat with you, arrange viewings and even negotiate through the app’s instant messaging service.

Qoob works in the same way for landlords who upload details, with would-be tenants spotting them on the app and making direct contact to seal the deal. It will avoid estate or letting agency fees and the app is free to download.

‘Technology puts the customer in control,’ says Thomas Fink ,a physicist from the California Institute of T echnology and Cambridge University and the brains behind Qoob. ‘F or decades agents have maintained a stranglehold on the market — now people can side - step them and secure a fairer deal.’

one obvious downside is that until Qoob takes off, it will carry relatively few listings.

Another issue is that unlike established internet agents such as Sarah Beeny’s T epilo and Stelios Haji-Ioannou’s easyP roperty — which require sellers to pay a fee — the app does not upload listings to rightmove and Zoopla, where more than 95 per cent of buyers begin looking for a new home. B ut this isn’t the only new gizmo on the block to help consumers.

The website Propcision.com has a tool that allows users to see the marketing history of homes on rightmove — including price falls — thus enabling gutsy buyers to negotiate a deal if they know a home has been on sale for a long time.

At the moment this applies only to London property, but Propcision wants to allow ‘ consumer empowerment’ with additional information for buyers, including potential rental income for would-be buy-to-let landlords.

Knocker ( knockerapp.com) is another Tinder-like app that ’s all about location. If you love a new area you’re visiting, you can use Knocker to find homes to rent nearby.

Then you can ‘pin’ the ones you like to view later, email them to a friend, or arrange a viewing there and then directly through the app — perfect for beating the rush for a rental property, for example. T o date, it only accesses properties advertised on Zoopla, but that includes homes let or sold through online agencies as well as traditional ones.

Meanwhile, the Check Before You rent app advises would-be renters by offering three key lists — first, what to ask a landlord or letting agent before even viewing a prop - erty; second, what to watch for when you look around; and third, what to check before you sign up.

It’s up to date, so includes information about what tenants should expect in terms of facilities, what safety features should be fitted, and even the controversial immigration checks that tenants will be subject to from February.

Purplebricks.com is the most successful of the new online sales services. It allows owners to sell for a flat fee of £798 upwards, which compares with the £4,500 plus VAT charged by bricks - and- mortar agents selling a £300,000 home at a 1.5 percent commission.

Compared to some online agents, you get a lot of help — an agent visits to make a valuation, prepare floor plans, take photos and put the details on rightmove and Zoopla, which is part- owned by the Daily Mail’s parent company DMGT. The downside, as with most online agents, is that owners must handle viewings themselves.

BUT although online agents offer fee reductions, they haven ’t yet persuaded many sellers to use them. A survey earlier this month showed only 3 per cent of all homes on sale in Britain were with online agents, so for buyers the stock on any one agency may have few or even no homes in a chosen locality.

An alternative is Getagent.co.uk , which is one of several websites that can help you find the best tradi - tional estate agent in your area. GetAgent is an independent com - parison service that uses an algo - rithm of criteria such the number of homes an agent has sold near your postcode, what proportion of the asking price they achieved and how long it took them to find a buyer.

It produces a league table of the six best-performing agents in your area, including online agents.

The downside is that if you then click to get a quote on your property, only those firms signed up to GetAgent will be approached — and they may not always be the most successful in your area.

other websites that can help you choose who to sell your home through include Allagents.co.uk and rateragent.co.uk, which both carry Trip Advisor-style reviews of estate agencies.