The supply-demand imbalance continues to be an issue within the market as tenant and buyer leads outpace landlord and vendor leads, new research shows.

According to the latest data from the Yomdel Property Sentiment Tracker (YPST), buyer and tenants leads have remained above the 62-week pre-Covid average since the start of 2022.

Richard Combellack, chief commercial officer at BriefYourMarket, parent company of Yomdel, said: “The 62-week pre-Covid average is an excellent baseline, as all data during the pandemic would obviously not give us an accurate picture due to the unprecedented circumstances influencing the market.

“While vendor and landlord enquiries were elevated at the start of the year, we have seen figures return to baseline numbers, which means we are seeing a more normalised market in terms of the numbers of vendors and landlords leads. Conversely, buyer and tenant leads have remained elevated during the first two quarters of the year.”

He added that according to the data, the seller leads generated by the live chat was at 137.05% or 37.05% above average in January this year, however, the leads have slowly subsided and returned to baseline figures during the second quarter of the year.

A similar pattern can be seen with landlord leads, starting at 117.49% in January.

“New buyer enquires were at 102.46% at the end of June with demand 2.46% above the pre-Covid average. This has dropped from the 2022 buyer enquiry peak of 142.98% seen during January but is still higher than the baseline,” said Combellack. “In the lettings sector, tenant enquires were at 186.80%, or 86.80% above the average at the end of June. June was a record month for the year in terms of tenant enquires, with the all-time high seen in May 2020 when tenant enquiries reached 250.19% or 150.19% above the baseline.”

Since the start of the year weekly visitor numbers to agent’s websites have remained consistent, at around 10% above the average. At the end of June live chats were at the baseline, while live chat leads were at 22% higher than the average.