We are moving. After a lifetime in the capital, and more exactly the east end of London, we must move on. No longer have I the need to go shopping, see shows, and frequent bars so the bleak countryside has appeal.
Since a move some 15 years ago, the Internet has arrived to make searching for houses into a remarkable experience. In a word you can find. You can check databases of house prices; or see maps showing flood zones. You can get instant quotes, you can work out rebuilding costs, insurance costs and compare the insurance risk of different postcodes.
As well as find the empheral house, I half think that the net pushes up house prices. Before you'd need to be keen or live nearby to keep up with what is new on the market. The Internet helps to create the impression of demand and with more demand you get higher prices.
But what surprises is that in this time nothing else has moved on - solicitors still run the same procedures, the local authority search is still a paper exercise and you still hang on tenterhooks, risking time & money as the proffesionals slug along using paper and fax. It's a way of protecting the professions against the rich pool of knowledge emerging on the net.
For Tracy Spilsbury of Irena Spence and Co in Comberton, Cambridge understanding a clients needs is not her best feature. Upon receipt of a notification marked urgent, it took a week to send a letter to start the house buying process. It took two weeks to get a reply to that. And it takes one phone call to experience a 'it-takes-what-it-takes' attitude. Why use technology to go faster when there's no shortage of £1000 fee payers. We're called clients not customers by this stuffy profession that's hopefully soon to be outsourced.
