Prospective house-buyers will soon be able to look up crime rates and employment statistics by postcode before making that all-important decision on where to live.

Fish4homes.co.uk, one of the UK's leading property web sites, has signed a deal with Experian, the global information solutions company, which will enable visitors to the site to build up complete neighbourhood profiles.

Fish4homes is the first web site to offer the facility to search for a new property and to supplement this search with demographic data on individual homes and locations. Never before has such detailed information been made available direct to consumers.

The data will highlight UK black spots for burglary and motor theft, and alert consumers to those areas of the country which enjoy low crime levels. In addition, visitors will be able to look up data on income, age profile, family expenditure and household composition by area.

Anyone worried about the possibility of high insurance premiums can assess the risk of subsidence, flooding, land erosion and windstorm damage for every property in the UK. Families can take advantage of the performance data on primary and secondary schools, as well as more general information on local amenities, council tax rates and weather trends.

Fish4homes carries details on over 110,000 properties - equivalent to more than a quarter of all residential properties for sale in the country. The site already offers a mortgage centre which provides a step-by-step guide to finding a mortgage, including a "best-buy" table, interest rate table and mortgage calculator, and an insurance centre which carries advice on ways to reduce and calculate insurance premiums. Users can obtain quotes and apply online for both mortgages and home/contents insurance.

"As the UK's most frequently-visited web site for sourcing residential properties, we are committed to bringing consumers the best possible content to assist them through the house-purchasing process," said Jonathan Turpin, chief executive of Fish4. "The data from Experian will enable our visitors to make informed choices about the property they are planning to buy and the area in which they plan to live, and will prove particularly invaluable to anyone moving to an area of the country with which they are unfamiliar. With its UK-wide network of regional web sites, Fish4 is already uniquely positioned to provide consumers with information on specific areas of the country."

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