The problem with online property searches

In 1966, the legendary adman David Ogilvy set out to buy a home in France. He boarded a transatlantic liner to meet a French estate agent who had a perfect house waiting for him in Paris, but while still in mid-ocean he heard he had been gazumped.

There were presumably other houses on sale in Paris at the time, but it seems the agent did not show David any of them. Instead he suggested they board a train to Poitiers, 200 miles away, to an area David later described as ‘the South Dakota of France’. On the banks of the Vienne stood a decaying 13th-century château with around 30 bedrooms and a network of dungeons. David bought that instead. He lived there from the mid-1970s until his death in 1999. Restoring the building and gardens was one of the great joys of his life.

I have always wondered who that estate agent was. Perhaps he or she never had any intention of selling the house in Paris and this was a canny example of what salesmen call a ‘bait and switch’. After all, it is relatively easy to find buyers for townhouses in Paris, while only a tiny niche can be persuaded to buy a dilapidated château in the back of beyond.

I was reminded of this story when talking to the boss of one of London’s largest estate agents. I have long instinctively felt that online property search is a very bad way of buying a house, and he was able to explain why. An online search merely shows you what you think you want. When people buy through a human estate agent, however, they very rarely end up buying something matching the specifications they set in advance.

In decisions of this kind, the search process is highly recursive.