Alistair shares the story of Smart Finder Home...
Smartfinder came out from my own experience, back in 1996 when I was looking for a house in the Var.
It seemed to me a hit and miss process, yet getting the right house was an investment decision of a lifetime.
In the end, I couldn't find the house I wanted for the budget I had, so I decided to buy the land and build the house I really wanted.
In the meantime, I helped family and friends find houses in the Var, and became an estate agent for a short while in 2003.
If I was about to buy a house today in 2014, what would I have done differently?
Well first, the major change is the Internet, with almost 99% of houses for sale present now on the Internet. So I would spend hours trawling through the different websites, looking for a home, just like you.
Now with the housing market at near rock bottom, a very wide choice of houses available and mortgage interest rates under 3%, today I would buy a house rather than build one.
Then why Smart Finder Home ?
Because I would like the house search, website search and market research to be have been done once, and have this information available so I can use it. Its a question of efficiency - why should each person have to re-invent the wheel, and work out for himself how to do a search and find out the best websites covering his area or find the directory listing of all the websites...
Second, I would like to speed up the process with modern technology - use a form that will send an email to all agencies concerned in 1 click.
Third, if I have not found what I want or want to save time, I want to get help and unbiased advice on the best location, prices and all my other questions, that puts my interests as a buyer first. And that clearly needs to be a house hunter who does not have his own stock of houses to sell, but can address the full market. Hence the idea of Smartfinder Var to fill these needs for buyers.
So with these 3 objectives in mind, Smart Finder Home started (Smartfinder Var was the initial name)..
Smartfinder came out from my own experience, back in 1996 when I was looking for a house in the Var.
It seemed to me a hit and miss process, yet getting the right house was an investment decision of a lifetime.
In the end, I couldn't find the house I wanted for the budget I had, so I decided to buy the land and build the house I really wanted.
In the meantime, I helped family and friends find houses in the Var, and became an estate agent for a short while in 2003.
If I was about to buy a house today in 2014, what would I have done differently?
Well first, the major change is the Internet, with almost 99% of houses for sale present now on the Internet. So I would spend hours trawling through the different websites, looking for a home, just like you.
Now with the housing market at near rock bottom, a very wide choice of houses available and mortgage interest rates under 3%, today I would buy a house rather than build one.
Then why Smart Finder Home ?
Because I would like the house search, website search and market research to be have been done once, and have this information available so I can use it. Its a question of efficiency - why should each person have to re-invent the wheel, and work out for himself how to do a search and find out the best websites covering his area or find the directory listing of all the websites...
Second, I would like to speed up the process with modern technology - use a form that will send an email to all agencies concerned in 1 click.
Third, if I have not found what I want or want to save time, I want to get help and unbiased advice on the best location, prices and all my other questions, that puts my interests as a buyer first. And that clearly needs to be a house hunter who does not have his own stock of houses to sell, but can address the full market. Hence the idea of Smartfinder Var to fill these needs for buyers.
So with these 3 objectives in mind, Smart Finder Home started (Smartfinder Var was the initial name)..
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