Sites for buyers and sellers in Britain

Every estate agency has its own site but you can see them aggregated at portals such as www.rightmove.co.uk, the UK's largest, boasting details from 20,000 agent's offices. The most popular for homes priced £500,000 or more is www.primelocation.com.

www.periodproperty.co.uk is, as you can imagine, the place to find a thatched, listed or historic home, while www.propertyauctions.com lists dates and reserve prices on upcoming auctions plus tips for those bidding for the first time.

www.firstrungnow.com targets first-time buyers and has information on low cost properties for sale. Young buyers wanting to pool resources can find a co-buyer on www.sharedspaces.co.uk or www.co-buywithme.co.uk.

If you can splash the cash on a one-off property - a cave that's now a home, a disused fire station or that sought-after converted public toilet - visit www.property.org.uk/unique.

You must research a locality before you buy, and www.nestoria.com has top notch data from car parks to pubs, while www.ukvillages.co.uk is good for maps and aerial views of where your new home is.

Whatever you buy or sell, you will encounter a Home Information Pack. See what you're in for on www.homeinformationpack.gov.uk.

Which?, formerly the Consumers Association, has a guide for inexperienced buyers and sellers on www.which.co.uk, including a model contract and tips on dealing with agents. If you run into problems, complain via the Office of Fair Trading (www.oft.gov.uk) or the Ombudsman for Estate Agents (www.oea.co.uk).

Sites for Buying Overseas

Anyone experiencing Heathrow Terminal 5 may struggle to believe it but Britain is advanced when it comes to technology - at least where property websites are concerned. Even sophisticated nations with many international sales, such as Spain, France, Bulgaria and Dubai, have few agents' websites and those that exist are often out of date.

So www.properazzi.com is invaluable - it is Europe's largest property portal, has good navigation and great maps of homes for sale. Try bizarre searches such as 'one-bedroom flats in Croatia' and it usually delivers. Likewise, www.globalpropertyguide.com has excellent news on national markets and prices, plus investor information on yields, taxes and laws in different countries.

Guides on how to buy in different countries are on www.buyassociation.co.uk and www.worldproperties.com. If you want to just give up and pay for someone to find a home for you, www.relocationagents.com lists good overseas buying agents.

Building a new life overseas once you have a home is a lot easier thanks to www.expatica.com (for Britons moving to mainland Europe) and www.direct.gov.uk/en/BritonsLivingAbroad (for tips on taxes, pensions, and how to gain residency overseas).

Spain remains Britain's favourite holiday home location. Impartial information is hard to come by but www.kyero.com, a sales site, has good price data and www.spanishpropertyinsight.com gives neutral views on local markets.

Wherever you buy, you need independent advice; www.mortgagesoverseas.com has loans for more than 40 countries while www.lawoverseas.com has good legal information.

Sites for Interior Design tips

The definitive interior design website is the Victoria and Albert Museum (www.vam.ac.uk), allowing you to see the world's finest examples of ceramic tiles, furniture, glass, metalwork and textiles. If you want an eco-friendly house or garden, green tips are on www.energysavingtrust.org.uk, www.saveenergy.org and www.energywatch.org.uk. You can order household green gadgets from fair trade furniture to bowls made of recycled vinyl LPs on www.ethicalsuperstore.com.

There's plenty of celebrity expertise when it comes to interior design. www.choosing-paint.com does not look glamorous but is written by Channel 4's Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud and offers the low-down on choosing and mixing colours.

If you roll up those inimitable Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen ruffs and type www.llb.co.uk into your computer you will see the great man's design website, including images of what he has done to houses across the country.

Then there is an impartial guide to gadgets from futuristic light bulbs to an Organic Light Emitting Diode (it makes a plasma TV look old-fashioned) by channel Five's techno-expert Jason Bradbury on www.jasonbradbury.com.

Sites for Price Trackers and Property Aficionados

Dinner parties just aren't the same these days now that boastful comparisons of house prices are out. But if you have to talk property, websites can keep you informed.

The three most respected 'private' pricetracking websites are www.hometrack.co.uk, www.hbosplc.co.uk and www.nationwide.co.uk, based on estate agents' data or mortgage offers.

Official prices - based on completed house sales, so lagging behind the others by about two months - are on www.landregistry.gov.uk, www.ros.gov.uk and www.irni.gov.uk.

There are a few edgier price sites, too. www.zoopla.co.uk spills the beans on sale prices of homes bought recently in each postcode and gives a rough guide to prices today. Some estate agents use it to work out valuations. www.propertysnake.co.uk gives the lowdown on how many homes have reductions, be they incentives from desperate developers or price cuts from anxious private sellers.

Property anoraks can vent their spleen at www.housepricecrash.co.uk and www.globalhousepricecrash.com, both arguing for serious price falls. They have a cultish tone and are fierce rivals: one blogger on the global site advises contributors to the other to "get out of that swamp and leave the bigots to it". The Register of Estate Agents on www.roea.co.uk allows you to submit your own experiences of buying and selling, and rank any estate agent you deal with. You can also see how other agents are ranked before you instruct them.

Perhaps the most informed property enthusiast's website is www.theratandmouse.co.uk, a highly readable mix of fact and irony. It culls papers and magazines twice daily for property gossip, whether it is the latest legal action against a dodgy estate agent or the scoop on Bruce Willis buying in Marylebone.

Sites That Are... Strange

Some may think the £70 million house and £95,000 parking space on Rightmove are jokes in themselves but they are not. www.ralphbending.com is the site we wish every estate agent would write. He describes a flat as "once dirty, now nice" and says a cottage for sale "could be good or even great with a stiff brush up and a tin of Vim." The site is for real but it's only for homes on sale around Glastonbury. For a more cynical read, try www.agentsdiary.blogspot.com - it's a disillusioned agent's whinge.

If you have a beef about the people next door, you can blog on the Neighbours From Hell website, www.nfh.org.uk. But if you want to try a little transatlantic cyber-stalking, look at Hollywood stars' homes on www.celebritymaps.com, or satisfy the weirdest of whims by looking at www.stardriveways.com - yes, it shows where Nicholas Cage and Keifer Sutherland park their cars.

A unique bit of Blighty property porn is www.readersheds.co.uk, where you can see full frontal shots of greenhouses, outside loos and workshops.