Rightmove soon to show broadband speeds to potential house-buyers

Property listing website Rightmove will soon be listing broadband speeds alongside other home details in its property listings, reports this week suggest.

It seems that speed of internet access is now so important to people that it has become a consideration when buying a new home - alongside location, local schools and access to public transport.

The property listing website, which lists some 90 per cent of properties for sale in the UK, will be providing the information in association with BT, according to The Telegraph. Speeds will be shown alongside the other standard information provided about a house, such as number of bedrooms and access to parking.

A spokesman for Rightmove admitted that superfast broadband services were of interest to Rightmove, but denied that it was in partnership with BT - even though the listings will also indicate whether the property will be covered by Infinity, BT's new 40Mb fibre-optic broadband service.

“Today, access to broadband is as important a consideration for home-buyers as having hot water or electricity.  With Rightmove’s decision to publish broadband speeds on all of its listings, we could start seeing a type of “broadband industrial revolution“, where people living in rural communities actively move to urban areas in order to get a faster broadband connection,” commented Nick Thompson, Director of Consumer Services for Hull-based broadband provider KC.

Would you change your mind about a house you'd picked out because it had slow broadband? What if it had no broadband at all? Or would you move just to get a better broadband connection? Comments welcome below....