A UK based property-tech firm has developed an online report that allows potential buyers to check out their new neighbourhood before they sign on the dotted line.
Rather than taking a drive to scope out your new locale, Area Autopsy checks 47 graded measures on any UK location for you – allowing buyers to understand the area around their potential new home before making the all important decision.
For less than a cup of coffee, users can enter a postcode or area name and receive a report that runs 47 graded checks across factors including:
- Crime
- Schools
- Transport
- Housing
- Local amenities
- Environment
- Demographics
- Parking and accessibility
- Noise and other potential considerations
The thinking behind the report is simple: you check the house, Area Autopsy checks the neighbourhood.
Co-founder Zaradan Rumbelow said: “People can spend hundreds of thousands of pounds buying a property and hundreds more having the building checked, but sometimes the research into the actual area consists of driving around for 20 minutes and looking at Google Maps. You can change the kitchen, decorate the bedrooms and replace the bathroom. You can’t move the road, the railway or the neighbourhood. We want checking the area to become as normal as checking the house.”
While Area Autopsy isn’t going to give potential buyers a definitive verdict on a given area, it does bring together disparate information from different sources to allow for an informed decision.
Rumbelow adds: “There isn’t really a universally ‘good’ or ‘bad’ area because everybody wants something different. A busy location with great transport links could be perfect for one person and completely wrong for somebody looking for peace and quiet. We’re not trying to make the decision for people. We’re trying to give them more information before they make it.”
Area Autopsy is also intended to give greater transparency for renters. As reforms from the Renters’ Rights Act bed in and the private rental market changes, tenants find themselves with greater choice and flexibility. Therefore, understanding a new community before moving in becomes more important.
This would also be beneficial for landlords, potentially avoiding ending the tenancy early and racking up associated costs and paperwork landlords and their letting agents.
The data sources used by Area Autopsy include many you might think to check yourself, and plenty that you may not. As well as obvious things like the Land Registry for house prices, the Environment Agency for flood risk and local crime statistics, it also checks for school inspection ratings (in England), air quality, who your local MP is and where the nearest Parkrun happens.
Each check on Area Autopsy costs £1.99 and delivers “…A blunt verdict [with] one honest line per check, no jargon, so you know within seconds whether it’s a strength, a niggle or a red flag.”
The ambition behind the business is not just selling individual reports on an ad hoc basis. Area Autopsy wants to establish the idea of an “area check” as a normal part of the process of moving house.
Rumbelow adds: “When you buy a used car, you wouldn’t just look at the photographs and hope for the best. You check its history.
“Property is probably the biggest purchase most of us will ever make. We think knowing more about the area before committing just makes sense. Our message is simple – don’t buy blind.”
