A good internet connection can determine a property purchase

I spoke to my Estate Agent friend who works for ReMax. She said she had never been asked about this, but thought it was a good idea to include this in a house's prospectus. Her agency sell about 25 houses a month in Cape Town southern suburbs.

So, thanks for the tip Jeremy
 
Is this in SA or in the UK?

Because I can imagine for the UK population this is important. In SA, I doubt it. It might start to change though - I know a number of people who have purchased houses only to find out afterward that
a) They don't have Telkom lines and Telkom have no idea when they will have, or/and
b) The wireless guys don't cover them, or/and
c) The estate/complex has some sort of internal internet connection option, which usually sucks,

and they are usually disappointed and irritated by this. I for one specifically asked my estate agent whether there was Telkom lines and she said yes, the estate has them. Only afterwards did I find out that the REST of the estate has them, but as my area is still being built, Telkom has not yet added lines! :(

Would probably have looked a bit longer if I knew this.
 
While I do agree that it is important to have "good web connections" in your home and to be considerate of it when buying, I don't see how it has become a priority if only 1/10 people turned away from buying a property because of a bad connection - that means the other 9/10 people were not too concerned about it and therefore is not a priority...

If "good web connections" was one of the top 10 considerations when buying a house then that would make sense - displacing perhaps (for example) offstreet parking or schools.

I do not see any estate agents knowing how far the house is from the closest exchange and for me, there are other things that are more important the the speed of the connection when buying a house.
 
This means the estate agent did not bother to find out.

When neighbour bought a new house recently, there was a damp black patch in the kitchen on the floor next to the sink. She asked who was going to fix it and was told the previous owner. So she wrote this in the offer to purchase. The seller crossed this out, but the agent did not tell the buyer. When she went to move in there was this big puddle of water, turns out the pipe to the tap was leaking in the wall. After 10 days messing about, she had a plumber in who fixed it for R 1500, then a carpenter who replaced rotten floor joists for R 8000. The agent denied all responsibilty. So buyer got a lawyer involved and it got to court. On the morning of the hearing, the estate agents lawyer tried to negotiate 40%, then 50%, then 60% of the total sum, but less costs. So they went inside and the magistrate asked if they had tried to come to an agreement. Since the hearing had already started, buyer's lawyer costs went up R 5000, so total costs were R 17000 odd. Magistrate tore strips off estate agent and said it reflected badly on the industry and awarded all costs and denied an appeal.
 
I considered it when I bought my house - at least decent 3G signal is a must!

Told her I wouldn't sign if at least one network wasn't decent. Turns out it was 8ta and the others are DEAD
 
personally, I would not make a move without first investigating the Internet Options, but I can't see that being a huge requirement for most people.

Most only seem to ask about it after the fact.
 
Im with Gary on this. I wont purchase a place unless I am sure there is uncongested ADSL there. My wife and I turned down several beautiful options because of low connectivity issues.
 
I don't want to move out of my current flat because it took me six month to get ADSL and don't want to go through the same pain again at a new place.
 
It was one of the first things I checked when I was house hunting. Did the house have access to a Telkom Line, and how far from the exchange was it.

I need the Interwebs for my work, so it was a non-negotiable, and 3G is not good enough.
 
ghoti said:
Im with Gary on this. I wont purchase a place unless I am sure there is uncongested ADSL there. My wife and I turned down several beautiful options because of low connectivity issues.
Click to expand...
How about posting a speedtest results on the house advert :)

Quote from the Mirror.co.uk article
And online adverts which included the speed alongside house price and number of rooms attracted 40 per cent more page views than those without.
Click to expand...
 
It's amazing how many people come onto this forum and complain that they've just moved house and there's no Telkom line or 3G signal at their new place. When you ask them why they didn't check this out BEFORE they moved there they always say they didn't think about it. If internet is so important to them then surely this would be the very first thing you would check when moving house.
 
I would rather buy a crap looking house with a 10/20 mps dps then the better looking one without dsl ,IF was looking for a home the first thing i would check if it had 10mps dslam nearby.
 
deweyzeph said:
It's amazing how many people come onto this forum and complain that they've just moved house and there's no Telkom line or 3G signal at their new place. When you ask them why they didn't check this out BEFORE they moved there they always say they didn't think about it. If internet is so important to them then surely this would be the very first thing you would check when moving house.
Click to expand...

Well, one poster did and was told it was ok, only found out after moving in that no lines had been supplied
 
chrisc4290 said:
Well, one poster did and was told it was ok, only found out after moving in that no lines had been supplied
Click to expand...

Yes, but surely you would physically check this before signing on the dotted line and not take the estate agents word for it? It's not hard to look for the telephone jack.
 
I gotta agree with the general feeling here. Good bandwidth is a must. When I recently moved to a new flat, I had the ADSL up before I even moved in!
 
The previous owner of our current house had ADSL, although only 384k. As ADSL is a major source of entertainment in our household, it was pretty essential to have it available to us. I find that new complexes are the main source of headaches for owners, seeing as Telkom are so slow to install new infrastructure. My boss pulled a couple of strings and had his estate connected, but seems that if you don't know the right people, you can wait a very long time indeed to get connected.
 
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