First home in Britain to be sold over Facebook with live viewing hosted by homeowner

A three-bedroom semi-detached bungalow in Rainham is to be the first home in Britain to be sold over Facebook.

The East London property is being sold by home owner Shanty Helim, and is currently valued at between £470,000 and £475,000.

Viewers will be able to see inside the house via a Facebook Live stream, and make offers on the home using the Facebook Messenger app.

Shanty Helim was chosen to take part in the Facebook Live trial from among online estate agency Housesimple’s customer database.

Her house is also listed on the Housesimple website and distributed across websites including Right Move and Zoopla.

“I took part in Housesimple’s livestreaming service because I wanted to sell my home as simply as possible,” said Ms Helim

“Arranging a viewing over Facebook Live seemed to me the perfect way to allow potential purchasers to ask me questions, look around the house, and make an offer, in a much more convenient way.”

Housesimple claims that technology is having a big impact on the speed of property sales. The fastest time between a home being registered with Housesimple and the property being sold currently stands at 50 minutes.

“Organising a viewing live using social media is a good way to make something that can be difficult to attend more convenient,” said Sophie Gosling, co-founder of Housesimple.

“We advised Shanty to livestream the viewing at 1pm so that people would be able to see her lovely house during their lunch break, which is one of the busiest times for our site.

“We’ve got our fingers crossed that she will even sell her home during the livestream.”

The livestream will start at 13:00 BST on Thursday, June 22. It will be viewable on Housesimple’s Facebook page .

Courtesy Mirror.co.uk