FLOORPLANS
integral part of any set of property details both online and in print. We offer a variety of floorplans from our standard and most popular 2D floorplans to 3D, 360 degree and interactive property tours,” says Ray Dowling. “Floorplans offer vital information on room dimensions, layout, and orientation to the buyer. We can produce any layout, design and style to suit your requirements, making your floorplan look attractive and simple to understand. These can be designed and coordinated with an agent’s brochures and photography to form a complete package. “Whether you require plans for print, or
online listings, we can provide them in any format or size at no extra cost. We believe that location is a key selling point to any buyer, therefore we can draw and design bespoke location maps of your property including local amenities and transport links,” he says. Also committed to providing the highest
possible quality, Datography provide RICS compliant floor plans to some of London’s leading agents. The company employs skilled Datographers who draw an initial sketch of the property according to RICS measuring practises. The sketch is then sent to their CAD team for overnight conversion before being verified and delivered the next day. The ultimate floor plan format provided by Datography is their ZoomSharp floor plans. Co-invented with Webdadi software specialists, they allow viewers to zoom into specific areas of the floor plan without losing the image quality or distorting. Datography Manager Elliott Rowland
says, “ZoomSharp floor plans are ideal for high resolution screens as well as those with limited or partial vision, offering agents the ultimate illustrative property guide.” This is a brilliant USP, if there is one thing that renders some floor plans useless, it is not being able to see what you need to see as the image is so distorted; a common feature in many property sites.
sales up as floorplans roll out The rise of floorplans has been quite sudden, despite their thirty year history. Marc Blomfield says, “They were very much something that was done in the commercial property market, but they’ve only really been rolled out widely in residential since the HIP was introduced, but this year, business has really grown.” Although a floorplan was not required
in a HIP, it seems that the focus on providing a complete dossier of property
32 SEPTEMBER 2010 PROPERTYdrum
details naturally spurred agents on to include one. While, according to Farrell, only 10 to 15 per cent of properties on the market had a floor plan five years ago, at the top end of the market, now over half of all properties marketed include a floorplan in the details. In fact, Metropix’s latest stats show
52.6 per cent with a floorplan, which has doubled just in the last 18 months, while the number of agents using Metropix has risen 20 per cent in the last year.
“In the early days,” he says, “our market
was always the strong independents. They used to use colour photos, then everyone else started doing it and floorplans were the new USP.” But now, the corporates have followed suit; Metropix claims 95 per cent of the top 25 agents now have floorplans on their websites, though not necessarily for all their properties. While some of the major agents are only
Floorplans now come in all shapes and sizes to fit your budget.
using floorplans for some of their properties, he says it is becoming common to give all properties the treatments; two of the majors are now doing 1,000 to 1,200 floorplans a month.
ConvinCing the letting agents But while sales agents have adopted floorplans with enthusiasm, lettings agents seem to have held back. James Davis says 90 per cent of The Mobile Agent’s customers are on the sales side, lettings agents haven’t been convinced that floorplans will get them more lettings or instructions. The basic ‘plain vanilla’ floorplan is 2D
black and white, and that’s still what many agents are using. But agents who want to differentiate themselves and offer a higher level of service have a number of options to choose from, including 3D, animated, and interactive floorplans. Metropix claims about 30 per cent of customers are now using 3D graphics. But Brian Farrell gets most excited when
he’s talking about interactive floorplans. They’re impressive, but don’t demand more work from the agent, he says. “The agent doesn’t have to do very much; we do it for them.” While interactivity was previously an added extra, Metropix has now made it part of the basic package. It can be used, for instance, to show not just how a house looks now, with photographs of the rooms accessible from within the plan, but how it might look if redecorated in a more contemporary or more classic style. That can be particularly useful when a slightly ‘tired’ property is being sold. Brian Farrell says, “I think on the floor
plan front the UK is more advanced than many other countries, it’s standard for new properties in Europe, but not for resale.” Metropix is certainly thinking about
moving into continental markets, but it may have to push quite hard to get the early adopters on board. On the other hand, real estate in
continental markets is generally sold with a statement of total area in square metres, whereas the UK has generally been
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