The biggest investment that most people will ever make is purchasing a new home and many people have a wish list of everything that would be a priority for them.

A recent survey carried out by GoCompare has highlighted the top 20 features that buyers are looking for and a good, reliable broadband connection comes in at number 5 on the list, with 59% of respondents saying it’s important to them.  This comes above more traditional priorities such as having a driveway (number 8) and friendly neighbours (number 12).

Recent data from the trade website ISPreview indicates that an average purchaser would be happy to pay an additional £6,500 for a property if it meant they were guaranteed excellent broadband speeds.

Unfortunately for sellers the same data also shows that 71% of all house hunters would reject an ideal home if it offered broadband speeds of less than 100Mbps, while a third would negotiate a lower price.

The bare minimum deemed necessary to cope with modern internet requirements is 10Mbps, however, a recent survey has found that a quarter of all homes in the UK struggle to attain this speed or above whilst one in eight crawls along at less than 5Mbps.

A recent report in the Daily Mail highlights that the fastest broadband in Britain is 2,000 times faster than the slowest, which would take a staggering 102 hours to download a 2 hour HD film on Netflix.

Which such low broadband speeds people who work from home will face a frustrating challenge.  Currently over 4 million people (13.7% of the workforce) now work from home and this is expected to rise to 50% by 2020.

So how can Northcott Beaton help?  We have teamed up with Slingshot Six to provide the only independent Connectivity Search report which accurately predicts what speeds buyers can expect in their new home and from what providers, including 3G and 4G.

If you are buying or selling we highly recommend checking out Connectivity Search’s website at www.connectivitysearch.co.uk