Yomdel Property Sentiment Tracker – Second lockdown bounce sees new home mover enquiries surge once more

17 NOVEMBER 2020. A second coronavirus lockdown in England appears to have sparked another surge in new enquiries to estate agents from home movers and investors; with vendors, buyers and landlords all reversing recent losses to fire more warmth into a gradually cooling market, the Yomdel Property Sentiment Tracker (YPST) showed.

Highlights (versus previous week):

ALL TRENDS REMAIN UNSEASONABLY HIGH

  • New Vendor enquiries:  UP 5% (Last week DOWN 7%) (+12% ABOVE AVERAGE)
  • New buyer enquiries: UP 16% (Last week DOWN 2%) (+22%% ABOVE AVERAGE)
  • New landlord enquiries: UP 22% (Last week DOWN 31%) (-3% BELOW AVERAGE)
  • New tenant enquiries: DOWN 0.2% (Last weekDOWN 6%) (+2% ABOVE AVERAGE)

Traffic to estate agent websites 25% above the average, and 37% above the same week last year.

As happened previously in April and May, the new lockdown in England, coupled with restrictions across the rest of the UK, has sparked interest online once more, with visitors to own-branded estate agent websites growing a huge 14% in the week ending midnight 15 November, leaving visitors and new leads via live chat some 37% and 52% higher than the same week last year, respectively.

Vendors grew more than 5%, and buyers more than 16%. Landlords reversed the previous week’s record 31% slump to bounce back 22%, with all numbers bucking expected seasonal slowdown trends.

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 15 November 2020. The website visitor data is a sample across major estate agency groups in the UK and covers in excess of 44 million unique website visits back to January 2019.

YOMDEL PROPERTY SENTIMENT TRACKER (w/e 15 November 2020)

Yomdel Property Sentiment Tracker – Second lockdown bounce sees new home mover enquiries surge once more

Andy Soloman, Yomdel Founder and CEO, said:

“Despite serious concerns of sales progression bottlenecks due to record demand in recent months, coupled with the deadline to benefit from the Stamp Duty holiday being upon us, people still seem determined to keep moving.

“We saw it in the last lockdown, and we’re seeing it again this time. The mix of many people being at home with time on their hands and being connected online means they have turned to digital channels in ways never before seen. This is not the time for estate agents to rest on their record order books, as demand continues to buck just about every established trend out there.”

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 gained 5.3%, or 5.61 points, to end the week on 111.55, which left them 12% above the pre-covid-19 62-week average and a huge 48% above the same week in 2019.

Buyers surged 16.02%, or 16.84 points, to close at 121.95, some 22% above the pre-covid-19 average and 38% above the same week last year.

Landlords recovered 22.45%, or 17.87 points, to finish at 97.46, some 3% below the average and 7% higher the same week in 2019.

Tenants were static, dipping just 0.20%, or 0.20 points, to close at 101.68, some 2% above the pre-covid-19 average and 17% higher than the same week last year.

 

The following graph looks at the relationship between website visitor volumes, live chat volumes and the volume of leads generated. The data samples more than 44 million visitors to estate agent websites from Jan 2019 – 15 November and shows how web traffic  (blue line) is 37% 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) are 37% and 52%, respectively, above the same week 2019.

YOMDEL ESTATE AGENT WEBSITE TRACKER

Yomdel Property Sentiment Tracker – Second lockdown bounce sees new home mover enquiries surge once more

 

Kindly shared by Yomdel

Main article photo courtesy of Pixabay