According to the lastest Yomdel Property Sentiment Tracker, demand for estate agency services exploded in the past week to smash all records as people rushed to take advantage of the official easing of coronavirus lockdown restrictions and the government green light for estate agents and removal firms to reopen.
For the week ending midnight 17 May, landlords and vendors, sensing it may now be possible to value and list their properties drove the gains.
Enquiry levels from vendors, landlords, buyers and tenants are now all significantly above pre-covid-19 average levels, Yomdel said.
“In six years of Yomdel we’ve never seen anything like this, demand just went off the scale and all records were smashed to smithereens,” said Andy Soloman, Yomdel founder and CEO.
“People have been indicating for the past few weeks they need to get moving and now with the lockdown easing they’ve been given a glimmer of light and it sparked a stampede.”
“This is not only Yomdel seeing this trend, but agents themselves report phones ringing red-hot, and many agents are now struggling to safely open offices, unfurlough staff and find ways to meet this demand. It’s nuts,” he added.
New vendor enquiries surged 67.13% or 55.89 points to 139.15, smashing through the pre-covid-19 average and ending the week just a few points off the New Year “Boris Bounce” high of 148.97 hit on 12 January.
Buyers kept pace with vendors, soaring 80.93 points, or 63.24%, to 208.90, a new all-time record to mark demand of more than twice the pre-Covid average.
Landlords weren’t ready to be left behind either, and they gained 38.98 points, or 41.9%, to finish at 132.11, strongly above the pre-Covid average.
Already the poster stars of lockdown, tenant demand finished the week up another 55.13 points, or 28.27%, up to finish at 250.11.
This puts tenant demand at 150% of the pre-Covid average.
“With economic activity grinding to a halt under lockdown, it has been clear for several weeks now that people were simply sharpening their running spikes ready for when they could get moving,” said Soloman.
“Equally fascinating is the data also reveals substantial shifts in consumer behaviour.
“We’ve seen almost three times as many people choosing to use live chat than ever before, and we believe this trend is set to continue meaning agent websites are more critical than at any time in the past.”
Comments (3)
That puts to bed all those arguing that the housing market would collapse, not be on hold. As if people were never again going to sell, buy or rent again. We have seen massive uptake in enquiries this week and as the story highlighted had been sharpening their running spikes ready for when they could get moving.
Good point about Live Chat. Agents recommended to take notice, even thought it takes longer to communicate in a conversation so really isn’t time effective.
Sentiment Tracker
Since it was announced that today was going to be the hottest day of the year, my friend the ice-cream sellers is convinced he will sell more ice cream than possibly any other day so far this year.
He is confident that he will sell more ice cream than January and possibly more than April, as it was sunny but not that hot.
Looking forward, provided we don’t have too much cloud and rain, he is expecting a slight drop on the volume of ice cream sold today but still believes it will be higher than April.
Hmm. In my experience people often use 2 decimal places to imbue a sense of authority where it may not exist.