Property guide
What to set up in a property alert: area, price and bedrooms
A property alert is only as good as the search behind it. Set it too wide and you stop reading the alerts. Set it too narrow and you miss the one that suits you. This guide goes through the settings that matter when you set up an alert for a rental or a home to buy, and why.
By Snaffla · Published
Should rent and buy be separate alerts?
Yes. A monthly rent and the asking price of a home are different kinds of number, and the people who want each are looking for different things. One search cannot sensibly cover both, so decide which you are after and set up the alert for that.
A property search on Snaffla is for rent or for sale, one at a time. If you are weighing up both, set up one of each.
How do you choose the area and the distance?
Start from the places you would genuinely live, then think about how far you would travel from there. Journey time to work, school or family usually matters more than the number of miles, so a smaller distance around a well-connected town can suit you better than a wide one around a city.
You give a town or postcode and a distance in miles. A wider distance finds more listings but also brings more alerts you will not want, so it is usually easier to start tight and widen it if the alerts dry up.
How do you set a price range that works?
For a rental, set the highest monthly rent you would really pay. Decide before the alerts arrive what you would stretch to, so you are not talking yourself into a figure on the day. A minimum price can leave out listings that are clearly something else, such as a room rather than a whole flat.
For a home to buy, the price shown is the asking price, which is what the seller is hoping for rather than what the property will sell for. Treat it as a starting point for your own research.
How many bedrooms should you ask for?
Set the number you need. If you would accept one more or one fewer, set up a second search rather than loosening the first, so each alert stays easy to read. A property search uses one search slot, so a second search uses one more.
How does Snaffla use these settings?
A property search on Snaffla takes rent or sale, a place and distance, a price range and a number of bedrooms. It watches the portals that cover your area, PropertyPal in Northern Ireland and Rightmove and OnTheMarket elsewhere in the UK, and sends a push notification when a new match appears. A property search uses one search slot, however many portals it watches.
If the same property appears on more than one portal, Snaffla tries to show it once rather than alert you twice. When you first create a search, the properties already listed fill your feed without sending alerts, and after that you are alerted to new ones.
What can an alert not tell you?
Snaffla does not value property: a listing shows its rent or asking price, and you judge it yourself. An alert is a prompt to look, so read the full listing, check the photos and floor plan, and ask the agent anything the listing leaves out.
Snaffla never asks for your login on any portal, and each alert links to the original listing, so you contact the agent yourself.
Set up your property alert
Save a search with a place, a price range and the bedrooms you need, and get a push notification when a matching rental or home for sale is listed.