A NEW tool that lets homeowners ask their smart speaker to value their property is "no substitute for the real things", says a Cumbrian estate agent.

Nick Miller, who runs two Fine & Country branches in Penrith and Carlisle, said he believes the valuations given by Alexa - Amazon's voice-controlled virtual assistant - will be so vague they will be virtually pointless, and in some cases misleading.

The technology has been developed by franchised estate agency Hunters and draws its information from Zoopla’s valuation estimate tool. It is claimed to be the first of its kind in the UK.

Homeowners are asked questions about their property before being given an estimated valuation.

But Mr Miller said it would be "almost impossible" to replace the knowledge an experienced individual will have about market trends, geographical quirks in the market and the supply and demand of a given town or city’s marketplace.

"We embrace many new methods of working to ensure our Fine & Country offices remain at the forefront of innovation and industry change," he said.

“But not everything shiny and new is necessarily a step in the right direction and I believe the Alexa-powered valuation skill is a good example of this.

“There are so many variables in a local property market and many of them will be taken into consideration when a home is being valued.

"An individual property may have features or selling points which a valuer will take into account, but which Alexa would not.

“So while this new technology may be OK for a very general view of a property’s value, the message has to be that in this case, there’s no substitute for the real thing.”