A huge 23% fall in new enquiries from landlords to estate agents in the past week coupled with further falls in new vendor leads, piled yet more pressure onto hard-pressed agents who remained awash with prospective buyers but rapidly dwindling stock, the latest data from the Yomdel Property Sentiment Tracker (YPST) showed.
In the week to midnight Sunday, landlords took their two-week decline to a combined 28%, leaving them a worrying 14% below the pre-Covid 62-week average and some 35% below the same week in 2020. While new vendor levels remain 31% above the pre-Covid average, they did fall 8% on the week and are too few in n umber to meeting strong buyer demand.
But the market remains extremely active, with traffic to own-branded estate agent websites 44% above average, some 62% above the same week last year and 38% higher than the last “normal” year in 2019. In turn this traffic is generating 29% more live chat engagements than average which deliver 42% more leads than the pre-Covid 62-week average.
“It’s a right old roller coaster. Warning lights this week are flashing above landlords to join the alarm bells over dwindling sales stock in the face of extreme buyer demand. Rightmove reported this week that average house prices across the UK are at an all-time high as people rush to secure homes almost as soon as they are listed,”
said Andy Soloman, Yomdel Founder & CEO.
“Quality lead generation is key here and with the supply-demand squeeze unlikely to ease any time soon agents should be salivating over all-time record levels of website traffic and seeking ways to engage online with vendors and landlords as early as possible,”
he added.
