AT THE TOP end of the property market it is unthinkable to sell a property without the production of a glossy brochure, involving a professional photoshoot (plus helicopter hire for those “idyllic setting” shots), location descriptions that hint at a bit of background research and plenty of local information. The majority of us, however, have to make do with sheets of A4, in varying degrees of quality.

VLM, a printing company that produces marketing material for estate agents such as Spicerhaart and Savills, has carried out an interesting piece of research on sales particulars, which ought to be circulated to every agency in the country. In a survey of 100 people, 90 per cent said they would opt for an estate agent on the basis of the quality of their marketing material. Is this unsurprising? With so many of us now searching for properties online and downloading sales details, rather than making the miserable Saturday trudge down the high street, presentation is crucial.

A few weeks ago I mentioned that Cluttons was taking this a step further by marketing a property using a DVD tour produced by Estrella Media, yet now barely a day goes by without this office receiving details of properties on DVD and boasting of virtual tours online.

The respondents in VLM’s survey were given details of five similar properties in one area — four-bedroom terraced houses in Southfields, London — and asked to rank them in order of price. Needless to say, the properties produced on glossy paper with high-resolution pictures were perceived to be on sale for a much higher price than they actually were, while the more expensive properties were considered to be cheaper, based on the poorer quality of their sales particulars. When the respondents were asked what influenced their decision, 86 per cent said that it was the quality of the pictures.

A quick trawl through the property websites immediately shows the huge disparity in the quality of agents’ details — sometimes even those going multi-agency on the same house. Declan Malone, managing director of VLM, said: “In the current environment estate agents need to pull out all the stops to get potential buyers to view properties on their books. Improving the quality of a sales detail is a small investment to make if it sells the property and increases instructions. With the onset of digital technology it is now easier than ever for estate agents to quickly compile bespoke professional material at an extremely competitive price.”

And therein lies the bigger problem for agents. Because technology has moved on and into the reach of so many people, many of us are deciding to have a go at these sorts of things ourselves. The proliferation of sell-it-yourself websites and kits such as Lawpack’s Sell Your Own Home package has meant that the number of private sales is on the increase — more than 50,000 last year, according to figures from the Land Registry.

And now to go along with online sales particulars, the DIY seller can now make their own floor plans (and three quarters of the respondents in VLM’s survey considered these an essential part of the sales particulars) or even a 3D walkthrough to give prospective purchasers a better feel of your home. Metropix, which originally launched its service for commercial users, has now made its online software available to the public, and with the price for a walkthrough starting from just £ 9 the temptation to have a go yourself is almost overwhelming. Users simply create a floorplan on the website, www.metropix.com, and in 24 hours this can be magically transformed into an electronic trip around your house.

But it’s not just estate agents who should be concerned with this new development — it’s also architects and builders, according to Brian Farrell, of Metropix. “Originally we had created the service with estate agents in mind, but we found that, as more and more people are choosing to extend or adapt their current homes rather than move house, we were starting to get interest from individuals who didn’t want the expense or hassle of engaging an architect. Metropix lets users visualise the extension very cheaply and easily. It means you can do much of the initial planning yourself, without the expense of bringing in a professional.”

So this leaves us with just one area to work on: the sales pitch. Apart from the more florid representations used by agents (and, of course, the much-missed truthful descriptions of houses and owners by the late Roy Brooks, founder of the South London estate agency), particulars are, in the main, of the pedestrian “double radiator and power points” type.

Perhaps there’s a market for an online particulars generator, where you can simply type in all the salient points about your home which, at the push of a button, is then transformed into a glorious piece of prose. Although, as we’re talking about making the professionals redundant, maybe the software might in future be extended to produce newspaper columns . . .

catherine.riley@thetimes.co.uk

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