UK House Hunters Would Pay 5 Per Cent Extra for Faster Broadband Homes

A new trial conducted by independent estate agents Delaney’s in Essex (England, UK) has revealed that houses which were advertised alongside their broadband ISP download speeds were twice as likely to get a viewing request and scored 40% more online web page views in general.

The study, which involved BroadbandChoices.co.uk, also found that a third of the 2,000 strong house hunting respondents would be willing to pay between 2% and 5% extra for a home if it meant they could have a “high speed broadband” connection. That could mean adding anything from between £4,000 to £10,000 on to the price of a home advertised at £200,000.

Crucially one in five checked broadband speeds while investigating a house and one in ten potential buyers had even rejected a home purely because of its poor internet connectivity, which shows just how important it is for sellers to make sure that you’re getting the best speed possible for your area.

Rob Delaney, Delaney’s Spokesman, said:

“As with good schools and south-facing gardens, people are now on the hunt for homes with fast broadband. It is a sign of the times. But we were still really surprised with the results of our trial. We’re now displaying broadband speeds on all our property details because it’s clearly what customers are looking for.”

Meanwhile 21% of people whom had picked a new home also arranged for their electricity supply to be sorted first, which was closely followed by broadband (19%), gas (10%) and then television (8%). Well there’s not a lot of point in sorting the broadband if you don’t have an electricity supply to recharge or run your related devices.

The study is similar to one we conducted in February 2012 (here), which found that broadband was “Critically Important” to 80% of the respondents home life and 57.4% said they would be willing to pay more for a house with superfast broadband (25Mbps+). It also revealed that 80.4% would be discouraged from buying a new home if it lacked good broadband connectivity. In terms of speed, the majority aimed for their new home to deliver speeds of anything from 10Mbps to 40Mbps.

But at the same time it must be remembered that measuring value vs broadband quality in any new home would be a highly subjective matter and thus not one that can easily be pinned down through generalisations. Similarly you might not technically pay more for a better connection unless it came down to a bidding war.