Getting a quick idea of how much property costs in any town around the country has just got much easier – and much more fun. A new online tool created by Thomas Sanderson, called Property Wars, lets you compare house prices in different streets in a colourful, board game-style format, taking you through a range of price bands, from cheapest to more expensive.
Simply enter the location you're looking at and the house prices in descending order will be presented on a virtual board (see below). You can then simply click on the location to have a street view of the road. You can also click to see the streets highlighted on a map.
So, for example, at a quick glance, we've discovered that the cheapest average property prices are in Durham, where average house prices on Etherly Close were £11,165. The most expensive were on The Boltons in London, where average property prices were at £37,720,000.
All good fun so far – but other than diverting us, how can the tool be made really useful? Richard Petrie, marketing director for Thomas Sanderson comments, 'It can often be a hard and convoluted process to find out the cost of properties and how they compare to other areas and other cities, particularly for first-time buyers. We created this tool so that potential buyers can easily find out the average cost of properties in a given city and have a quick browse at what they look like.'
So, moving to a new city has suddenly become easier: you can compare then view different streets in an area you've highlighted as of interest. But we think it's an opportunity not only for first-time buyers: would-be private landlords and second home buyers looking to snap up a property in a part of the country they're not overly familiar with will find this tool handy, too.
It's not fail-safe and, of course, you can't buy properties from the website, but it's a good place to start your research.
