Yomdel Property Sentiment Tracker – Property market powers on as ‘new normal’ activity reaches 3 months

11 AUGUST 2020. Despite week by week ups and downs in property website traffic volumes, the record level of demand for estate agency services reaches its third month, following post-lockdown recovery, the latest data from the Yomdel Property Sentiment Tracker (YPST) shows.

Highlights (versus previous week):

ALL STATS REMAIN NEAR RECORD HIGHS

  • New Vendor enquiries:  DOWN 2% (last week DOWN 8.51%)  –94% ABOVE AVERAGE
  • New buyer enquiries: DOWN 1% (last week DOWN 6.32%)  – 80% ABOVE AVERAGE
  • New landlord enquiries: UP 4% (last week DOWN 2.35%)– 40% ABOVE AVERAGE
  • New tenant enquiries: UP 6% (last week DOWN 2.33%)– 51% ABOVE AVERAGE

New vendor and buyer demand remain at 84% and 70%, respectively, above the same week in 2019, while landlords remain 38% above a year earlier. These levels are also around 50% higher even than during the fabled Boris Bounce of February this year, when the market bounced back after a very subdued 2019. Bounce back this time around is much stronger and appears to be holding firm.

This is a very strong indicator that customers requiring property services are no longer put off by ongoing restrictions, or localised lockdowns, and have adapted swiftly to new ways of engaging with agents.

For the week ending midnight 9 August, estate agency website traffic rebounded again to 31% above the 62-week pre-covid-19 average, and the numbers of people using live chat on estate agent websites is still 72% above the pre-covid-19 average, with lead volumes up overall at an incredible 105% in the same period, reinforcing the fundamental shift in consumer behaviour and how people are now contacting estate agents online in real time.

Yomdel provides 24/7 managed live chat services to 3,800 estate agent offices in the UK, handling more than a 1.5m chats per year. It has analysed the data and leads captured in live chat going back to January 2019, up until week ending 9 August 2020. The website visitor data is a sample across major estate agency groups in the UK and covers in excess of 35 million unique website visits back to January 2019.

YOMDEL PROPERTY SENTIMENT TRACKER (w/e 9 August 2020)

Yomdel Property Sentiment Tracker – Property market powers on as ‘new normal’ activity reaches 3 months

Andy Soloman, Yomdel founder and CEO, said:

“All the news is now reporting a strong sustained recovery, as it now translates into business wherever possible, but we have seen the engagement levels that predated this for several months, and they show no signs of stopping.

“Customers are ever more confident with new ways of working, and to date we only saw the early adopters. Every indication says this will get stronger as the broader population also adapts to a new market, using digital channels and virtual services to supplement necessary face to face activities. Some agents appear to still be in ‘lockdown mode’, but the strongest have moved fast to capitalise on this seismic shift, and are surging ahead.”

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.

New vendors dipped again by around 2%, just 4.91 points lower on the week, at 193.64, perhaps finding a new level which remains an astonishing 94% above the pre-covid-19 62-week average.

Buyers dropped only 1%, or 2.14 points, to close at 179.41, still 80% above pre-covid-19 average.

Landlords rebounded yet again, and were up 4%, or 8.66 points, to end the week at 143.48, highlighting the weekly volatility but also the sustained new level of this market, 43% above the pre-covid-19 average.

Demand from tenants also surged once more, with new enquires now back to 4% above the same week in 2019. They ended the week 6% up, or 12.47 points, at 151.16, but still a tremendous 51% above the pre-covid-19 average.

Soloman said:

“Fixed weekly measurements will often show a volatility in a changing market, but when we see ups and downs around an emerging trend line, that’s when we know we have a consistent new level. This is when agents must seize the moment and focus their energies, resources and investment on their digital channels to harness the market demand.

“Online is overwhelmingly dominant, and this measured traffic is on agents’ own sites, at which point significant marketing budget has already been spent to get prospects there. Converting them to active leads at this point is crucial, as visitors now expect new levels of service online.”

 

The following graph looks at the relationship between website visitor volumes, live chat volumes and the volume of leads generated. The data samples over 35 million visitors to estate agent websites from Jan 2019 – 9 August and shows how web traffic to estate agents’ websites (blue line) is an incredible 26% higher than the same week last year. The volume of people using live chat (red line) and the numbers of new business leads captured (purple line) have increased exponentially, with live chat adoption and leads generated 72% and 105% above the pre-covid-19 62-week average, respectively. Before coronavirus all three (visitors, live chat engagement, leads generated) tracked each other, but not anymore.

Yomdel Property Sentiment Tracker – Property market powers on as ‘new normal’ activity reaches 3 months

 

Kindly shared by Yomdel

Main article photo courtesy of Pixabay