New site to launch Facebook property app in January – (Landlord Zone)

For the first time home owners and landlords will be able to advertise property for sale, rent and room-share via their Facebook profile with the launch of Property Place later in January 2012.

Property Place makes it very easy for people to rent or sell their properties (or rooms) as it gives them access to the huge membership and recommending abilities offered through Facebook. Its working beta version (http://apps.facebook.com/propertyplace ) already has over 400,000 properties available to search.

Unlike the dominant website property portals RightMove and Zoopla (which only take properties from estate agents (Property Place) is accessible by everyone.

The vision for creating a Facebook property platform came from founder Sohail Rashid after he read the Office of Fair Trading’s Home Buying & Selling report published in February 2010. This study highlighted the lack of innovation, transparency and control in the current UK property market which is costing consumers dear.

Sohail set out to change this by using the power of social media to allow homeowners and landlords to sell and rent their properties more efficiently.

Sohail Rashid, founder of Property Place, says: ”Property Place is all about helping people find properties to buy and rent quickly, while allowing people to market their properties or spare rooms cheaply. For those who are struggling financially in the current climate of austerity Britain it allows them to sell their home without the estate agent commission and also the opportunity to boost their income by letting a spare room to someone in their extended network or beyond.

“With nearly 30 million UK users, Facebook is the ideal place to advertise your property as it provides the added Facebook features such as sharing with friends, like buttons and commentary. This allows people looking to buy, sell or rent a home to use their extended social network to find suitable people quickly”.

Sohail Rashid, who is still in his 20s, is an experienced conveyancing lawyer and prior to setting up Property Place he co-founded iConveyancer Limited, a specialist conveyancing firm. He also has strong IT experience, and during his legal career worked with Steria International, a major global IT and data management company to create a revolutionary legal outsourcing transactional platform.

http://apps.facebook.com/propertyplace