Strong increases in new business enquiries to estate agents continued across the board in the past week as consumers turned to agent websites to try and arrange house sales and home moves, the latest data from the Yomdel Property Sentiment Tracker (YPST) shows.
For the week ending midnight on 26 April, significant growth was seen in new enquiries from vendors, landlords, buyers and tenants, signalling that pressure from pent up demand for home moving services was pushing against restrictions from the four-week-old government-imposed coronavirus lockdown.
New vendor enquiries continued to recover for the fifth consecutive week, up 16%, or 10.29 points to 74.60, still more than 25% down pre-COVID-19 average, but up 115% from the low hit during the first week of lockdown ending 30 March.
Buyers have stormed back into the market to rise above the pre-COVID-19 average and finish the week at 104.91 points. This was up 16.96% on the previous week, rising 15.21 points, but still some way off the 2020 high of 135.63 reached on 26 January.
Landlord enquiries continued their recovery, gaining a further 12.08% or 9.75 points, to end at 90.42, and making up ground towards this year’s high of 127.24 reached on 12 January.
Tenant enquiries rose a further 17.35% to 156.81 points from 133.63 last week. This places tenant demand at an all-time high their highest level reached on the YPST, 182% up on their lockdown low.
“At this difficult time, it’s really heartening that more and more people are looking for ways to be able to sell or let properties or move home.
“And with estate agent offices closed it is technology, and in particular live chat, which is enabling this behaviour,” said Andy Soloman, Yomdel Founder & CEO.
“Of course, while the sentiment is clearly that people want to get on with things, the real challenge is that under the continuing coronavirus lockdown it is simply not yet possible to do many things.
“But people clearly want to start planning for when restrictions begin to be lifted,” he added.
“These are incredible figures, and while transaction volumes remain depressingly low, the smart money would now be on planning for the next phase.
“Tenants are doing deals now, and customers need support.
“Those agents offering support will be those that win the new business.”
The YPST methodology establishes a base line average shown as 100% or 100, calculated according to average engagement values over the 62 weeks prior to the lockdown, and plots movements from there according to the volumes of people engaging in live chat, their stated needs, questions asked and new business leads generated.
Data is measured over full 24-hour periods.
The past week saw 46.1% of all chats occur outside standard business hours.
And they can view too.
Yesterday I did some research; and contacted a variety of estate agents pretending to be a buyer. Almost every agent was offering viewings on empty properties with no issues at all.
As time has dragged on the initial strict approach to lockdown has dribbled away as more and more companies decide for themselves what they are doing is safe.
Scientists say stay at home and protect the NHS. The housing minister says that estate agents are not key workers.
Estate Agents say “we know best” and do what they like.
Interesting times.
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It’s not just key workers that are allowed to work though. We are perfectly entitled – even encouraged to carry on working – as long as we can work within the guidelines.
I must admit we’re not doing viewings – that’s just not safe or reasonable at the moment, but we are fielding enquiries and providing video tours of all empty properties along with all the other day to day stuff.
We have shut the office to the public
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We have been impressed by how many agents that we work with have looked for ways to adapt to the restrictions. It is well documented in other places, but with the shift online and virtual activities we are getting more and more examples fed through of agents having real success with virtual viewings and virtual valuations. One of our clients said he successfully had a 3-way virtual live stream viewing where the vendor was an 83-year-old man who did an amazing job. It just goes to show that things previously thought impossible are now possible, and in some cases, even desireable. And I can say that out of the thousands of offices we are working with, there is not one that is offering traditional viewings of occupied properties, irrespective of whether the occupants are present or not. The public is savvy enough to know what they should be doing, and they are looking for reassurance from agents that their welfare is being considered. We are also seeing more and more agents seeking contact with removal firms to make provisional bookings for when restrictions eventually ease as they fear being at the back of the queue.
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Did you try for a viewing on occupied properties?
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They are a no-no, but some agents told me that some clients were doing their own viewings when requests come in………
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