The real key to a quick sale is to have a cunning plan

New technology that puts a floor plan at your fingertips is shaking up the marketing of homes. Chris Partridge reports

Glossy brochures with colour photos and detailed floor plans used to be the preserve of the rich selling their mansions. But the endless property programmes on the telly have educated buyers these days - and sellers feel the need to market their houses properly. A recent survey found that more than 75 per cent of house sellers believe a floor plan to be vital information for buyers, and 79 per cent believe professional photographs plus a floor plan will help sell their property faster.

Glossy brochures with colour photos and detailed floor plans used to be the preserve of the rich selling their mansions. But the endless property programmes on the telly have educated buyers these days - and sellers feel the need to market their houses properly. A recent survey found that more than 75 per cent of house sellers believe a floor plan to be vital information for buyers, and 79 per cent believe professional photographs plus a floor plan will help sell their property faster.

Computer technology has made it possible to produce glitzy brochures much more cheaply, including full colour photos and floor plans.

Many estate agents are arming themselves with digital cameras, laser tape measures and mobile computers to collect the materials for colour brochures when they take instructions. It is even possible to upload the details to the agent's website via a mobile phone, before they even leave the property.

Unfortunately, few estate agents possess either the technical or artistic skills to do this - after all, they are only salesmen, poor loves. So Charlie Wright set up Big Property Marketing to do it for them.

"There is an explosion of digital photography by estate agents themselves, with results that are at best mediocre," he says. "We introduce more creative photography to capture the 'lifestyle' of the property and what the area is like."

Wright realised that although estate agents rarely make decent photographers, any photographer can be taught to measure up a house. "Just stick to the rules and you won't go wrong," he says.

So Big Property Marketing set up a nationwide network of professional photographers with the necessary training in the requirements of the Property Misdescriptions Act. "We still get agents ringing up and asking if we could airbrush out the block of flats next door," Wright says with a sigh. "Though we can still take out the boards of rival agents."

For a fee somewhere between £100 and £300, they will photograph the property and create a floor plan on graph paper. The details are then sent via the internet to graphic designers around the world for processing overnight. The next morning, an e-mail with the images and floor plans should arrive in the agent's inbox, ready to be included in the website and inserted into the printed details.

The photographers have reported a big increase in demand for floor plans to go with the images, says Wright. "When we first started, only one in 10 used floor plans - now four in 10 do." Whereas the camera cannot lie, only make omissions, it is essential for the floor plan to be absolutely accurate. "There are agents who are out by as much as 20 per cent, as recent court cases have shown," Wright says. "One of the things we have to do is indemnify agents if we get it wrong, but we haven't had any claims yet."

Getting a professional photographer-cum-mapmaker in can seem like overkill, however, and many estate agents are trying to cut costs and speed up the process by doing it themselves with the latest handheld technology.

Chris Sample, director of Milestones estate agents in Exeter, uses a digital camera to take the pictures, a laser tape measure to take the dimensions and a palmtop computer to develop the floor plan on the spot. "Digital photography has been a revelation," he says, explaining that they eliminate the delay and expense of couriering films to developers and allow him to print off details almost immediately.

The laser tape measure and palmtop computer make drawing a floor plan almost as quick. A basic square on the computer screen can be pulled into shape using a stylus, the dimensions magically changing as you do it. Features such as windows, doors and stairways can be inserted from a menu, and the whole put together easily to create the complete floor plan.

The software even adds a standard description of each room, so the details can appear in real English instead of estate agent's babble.

At the end of the process, the floor plan can be shown at once to the client for approval. Back in the office, it can be downloaded to a desktop computer and added to the property details. "Floor plans make you stand out from the crowd. We are the only agents in Exeter doing it at this price band," Sample says.

Learning how to use the technology was not simple, he admits: "You have to be fairly persistent with it - I do know agents who find it a nightmare and have basically thrown it in a corner but once you are au fait with it, it is invaluable."

It is, however, not wise to allow inexperienced negotiators to play with the technology. "We don't allow inexperienced people to draw floor plans, as it could potentially bring problems under the Property Misdescriptions Act," he says.

Stuart Davis, sales manager at software developers The Mobile Agent (www.themobileagent.com) claims that more than 2,500 agents now use the system.

"You can get to grips with the software in a couple of hours, but most agents need to take time to practice using it, as creating floor plans is a skill in itself," he says. "Buildings are often not put together as neatly as we'd like."

Entering the dimensions directly into the computer has the big advantage that most mistakes are instantly visible - wrongly entered dimensions will result in a shape that looks wrong, for example. "The system also helps because there is no possibility of figures being mistranscribed by a secretary back in the office,who may type 4.5 metres as 45 metres," Davis says.

The next step is to link the laser measuring tape directly to the computer using the new Bluetooth radio system, so pressing the button on the tape automatically updates the plan.

Agents who just want a good floor plan with no trouble might look at www.floor-plan.co.uk. Nick McConnell offers few frills - he goes out to the property, draws the plan on squared paper and transfers it to computer back at the office. Then he e-mails it to the client. Simple.

His floor plans cost between £100 and £600 for a substantial country house. "They add substantially to the value of a brochure and more and more agents are seeing the benefits of it."