Ever strolled down a street and wished you could live there? PrimeLocation.com’s new iPhone app can help make this dream a reality.

The new app, which was featured in The Guardian’s Apps Rush this week, brings PrimeLocation.com’s luxury feel to your iPhone with it’s premium augmented reality tool. This tool uses your iPhone’s camera and GPS to show you a view of your surroundings, but overlays this with all the nearby homes for sale or rent.

You can also view property images in landscape carousel mode, which makes it easy to see what each property has to offer. When you see something you like, the iPhone app allows you to save searches, ‘favourite’ properties and share your discoveries via Twitter, Facebook and email.

Download the app now.

PrimeLocation.com has developed a property search app for Android phones and we’re launching it today. The app is for the millions of smartphone users in the UK using Android handsets – such as the HTC Desire or Samsung Galalxy IIS  - and offers a clean and simple way to find your next prime location while on the move.

The app offers both traditional postcode or area name searches as well as a one-touch ‘my location’ search too. To download go to the Android Market on your phone and search for ‘primelocation’ and the app is free to install.

If you don’t have an Android phone but want to search while out and about then one alternative is the PrimeLocation.com iPad app, launched last year to much acclaim and already downloaded 150,000 times.

Want to buy a home overlooking the sea? Then any estate agent will tell you that whether it’s in the UK or overseas, expect to pay a premiumof up to 20% despite the risk (in some areas) of coastal erosion. But a seaside home that’s different in almost every way may soon be on offer, if billionaire dot com entrepreneur Peter Thiel (pictured, bottom) can get his latest big idea off the ground.

Thiel, who is the founder of online payment firm Paypal, has sunk (sorry, invested) £700,000 in a plan to create a floating island (pictured, above) not governed by the rules of any country.

The structures will reportedly have a displacement of 12,000 tons, be diesel-powered (so not that green) and initially be home to approximately 270 people. By linking the islands together they could grow to eventually support millions.

Thiel plans to anchor the islands in international waters making them therefore exempt from jurisdictions covering taxes, regulations, building codes, welfare requirements and weapons restrictions.

In 2009, a 3D design competition was held to help people visualise what these sea-bound communities may look like and the winning entry by Hungarian architectural cum graphic designer András Gyõrfi is described as a ‘recreational resort’, complete with grass, trees and a large communal swimming pool.

But what at first looks like a floating apartment block is in fact a experiment in creating a new society – which Thiel hopes can be achieved on the islands. Prices for properties have yet to be released, but despite it’s utopian aims, PrimeLocation.com thinks they won’t cheap.

Do you watch Kevin McCloud on Channel 4′s Grand Designs TV show and think ‘that could be me building my own home?

Then from 7th-9th October Birmingham is where you should be for inspiration. The live version of the TV series is at the NEC exhibition centre this year, which will be hosting the all-painting, bricklaying and roof tiling Grand Designs Live starring the ever-eloquent Mr McCloud.

Kevin McCloud speaking at last year's Birmingham Grand Designs event

Hundreds of suppliers and experts will be joining McCloud at the show so if you want advice and information about building your own home including interiors, technology, bathrooms, kitchens and much more, then PrimeLocation.com the show’s official property partner, has a 2 for 1 offer on tickets to the event. To find out how to take advantage of this deal and for terms and conditions go to the PrimeLocation.com website.

Everyone loves a winning loser and if there’s one man who fits that bill perfectly at the moment it’s last night’s Apprentice winner Tom Pellereau who, despite losing eight tasks during the 14 programme series, made it through to win the £250,000 prize.

The cash, which will be invested in his business by Lord Sugar, along with the considerable free publicity it will create, comes at a time when Pellereau had been facing a difficult period in his life, he says.

Before appearing on the show inventor Pellereau had already launched several successful products including an ergonomically-designed nail file and a range of baby goods. But he told reporters recently that, after his most recent business venture faced an uncertain future, he sat in his London flat and decided it was time to be on the show.

But we can reveal that Tom, who proposed to girlfriend and ‘fellow-geek’ Sarah Fawcus just three weeks before the final last night, remains a home boy.

Despite renting in London and being holed up these days more and more at Sarah’s flat in Camberwell Green, South London, Tom’s life is still strongly tethered to his family home back in the wilds of Hampshire between Winchester and Basingstoke in a small hamlet called Swarraton.

The inventor and businessman is still registered at his parent’s address to vote in Hampshire where his family have a detached country home with a swimming pool and large garden.

Tom’s mum and dad bought the house for £480,000 in 2002 but it’s now worth at least £1 million – so perhaps the couple might want to jump in with Lord Sugar and help him fund his now promising but young business.

We’ve heard there has been some protest over the fact that we’ve closed the nominations for our blog awards already.

We admit that launching the competition so close to Christmas may have meant that many of you were too busy tucking in to your turkey to get your nominations in. So, we have bowed to the pressure and are pleased to announce we’ve extended the deadline for nominations until midnight on Sunday 10th January.

Keep those nominations coming!

Calling all property bloggers… We want to celebrate your writing.

Whether dozens, hundreds or maybe thousands of people follow your thoughts on bricks and mortar why not win yourself a bit of  hard, ‘put it on your mantlepiece’ recognition?

Because we’re announcing the launch of our very first blog awards – and we’re looking for your nominations.

The categories are:
Best blog
Best blog post
Best newcomer (for a blog that started in 2009)
Users’ favourite blog

And the prizes?
The winner of the Best blog category will win £250 of Habitat vouchers. The winners of the other categories will win £150 of Habitat vouchers.

You can nominate any property blog (including your own) so please email your nominations to editorial@primelocation.com, with ‘blog awards’ in the subject line.

Nominations close at midnight on 3 January 2010, and we’ll be announcing the winner towards the end of January.

From the nominations for the Users’ favourite blog category, a shortlist will be posted on this page in the middle of January 2010, giving you a chance to vote for who you want to win.

Good luck!

Our favourite new toy at Primelocation.com is Twitter. I’ve been contemplating how to explain Twitter to those of you who haven’t yet had the pleasure of tweeting and being tweeted at, but then this chap wrote a fun little ditty that I think sums up the experience quite nicely. (Er… sort of.)

(Oh, and if you’d like to follow us on Twitter or you just want to see what the fuss is about, please check us out or perhaps join the twitterverse.)