More than half of buyers and sellers want face to face contact with agents – ‘showing value of high street presence’

More than half of buyers and sellers prefer to communicate face to face with their agents.

Winkworth, which commissioned a survey of over 1,000 people who have either bought or sold a property, said it suggests that there is still real value in estate agents having a high street presence.

The survey found that 56% prefer face to face communication.

Other methods were much less popular, with 16% wanting to communicate by phone, 15% by email, 5% by online chat, 2% via personal apps or dashboards, and 2% by text.

Broken down by age group, the results reflect generational differences, with the highest proportion of votes for using a personal app/dashboard coming from 16 to 24-year-olds (10%); 35-44s gave the highest proportion of responses to using online chat (9.4%); and 35-44s and 45-54s had the highest proportion of votes for text communication, albeit at just 3.1% and 3.2%.

Even so, among all age groups, face to face communication was easily the most popular.

In the youngest age group, the 16 to 24-year-olds, talking face to face was preferred by 52.5%.

Winkworth CEO Dominic Agace said: “This survey demonstrates that having a physical office is clearly a big draw for clients when choosing an estate agent.

“We aren’t surprised by this, as buying or selling a property is one of the biggest transactions somebody will make and it’s reassuring to be able to pop into an estate agent’s office whenever we need to talk through things.

“The respondents also said that our offices are the main way they have come into contact with the Winkworth brand and, as an estate agency that’s committed to providing our clients with a strong network of high street offices, that’s really positive for us.”

The survey was carried out in June by Censuswide.

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8 Comments

  1. Mark Connelly

    The young smartphone social media savvy generation struggle to have a conversation with each other if it’s not via a keyboard. Once they stop typing long enough to learn some social skills and realise that “face to face” offers some real insight into whether you are being the told the truth. They may come to embrace this whole, talking, meeting thing. In the meantime an app will do.

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    1. Pollard36

      The massive generalisation you’ve come out with for this post is shocking.

       

      Not only does it make you sound like you’ve never spoken to a young person in your life but it also shows you’ve ignored the face to face results in the article.

      I’d never claim that all old people are racists or anything of the sort off the back of recent referendum results, and it’s strange that you would.

      That being said, I’m sure I wouldn’t say anything to your face…

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      1. Mark Connelly

        Okay Pollard on reflection it is a sweeping generalisation but see how you veered into a passive aggressive accusation of racism. That’s a worry but thanks for not hating everyone over the age of fifty for Brexit. My faith in youth is restored.

        BTW did the survey mention to the 16 to 24 age group that the Live chat assistant doesn’t count as ” face to face”

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  2. marcH

    Oh for the Like Button !!

     

    (PS. Why were the buttons removed?)

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  3. Head_Shepherd#2

    So…determine the answer you want from your survey and then build the questions to ‘prove’ you were right…..

    What’s missing here is not the fact the people might want face to face contact (we all do on occasion of course), but does this ever happen in a High Street shop, or is the contact preferred at a property that someone wants to buy or sell?

    In my experience, no-one ever goes into a High Street office by choice ‘for a chat’, but they do value face to face contact when they are buying or selling – most critically during viewings.  So not sure what the story is here?

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  4. marcH

    So…why Mr Head Shepherd are Ewemove planning on moving into high street premises (through acquisition, if not by other means)??!!

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    1. Head_Shepherd#2

      This reasearch doesnt have anything to do with having a High Street office – that’s my point.  But to answer your question…..we’re not planning on moving into High Street Shops.  We never have.  But our model supports it should a franchisee want to do, or if they already have one from their independent business when they move across to EweMove.

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  5. Bless You

    If it worked someone would have done it years ago. It took purplebricks to make it work… and even that is debatable.

     

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