27th
Feb 2021
According to the latest research from a customer experience company there has been a huge increase in landlords making new BTL enquiries last week.
From its property sentiment tracker which logged the number of new enquiries into properties is the highest it’s been since last September with an 8% increase in BTL investors against the previous week.
The 8% increase in landlords was for the week ending Saturday 13th February.
Although there has been a major rise in landlord’s property enquiries however the firm also found that there was a drop in numbers of renter enquiries – down by 14% from the previous week.
The firm did state that the drop in tenant enquiries was approximately the same a year ago before the full effects of the pandemic impacted the market.
The tracker also recorded a fall in numbers for both sellers and buyers’ enquiries in the residential market with a 10% drop in vendor enquiries from the previous week ending 6th February whilst buyers fell by just 1%.
This was the first week in 2021 that there was a drop in the number of enquiries from both parties possibly because of the doubt surrounding whether the stamp duty holiday would be extended further, coupled with the pessimistic economic forecasts.
In spite of the market’s falls the sector is still busy with all new enquiry indicators higher than last year’s February, such as new sellers’ enquiries being 30% above the average and 12% up on the corresponding week in 2020.
The firm also found that engagement with own-branded estate agency websites has increased again and is now 28% higher than the corresponding week in 2020, and was even 43% higher than the same week in 2019.
It states this further highlights the steady increase in digital adoption by estate agent customers and will continue to rise, and is a major reason for achieving record numbers of new enquiries to estate agents.
The founder and CEO Andy Soloman says: “While the market is somewhat directionless at the moment and some people may be holding off making new enquiries to estate agents, it is clear that record numbers of people are nosing around property websites.
“With the right stimuli, such as an extension to the stamp duty holiday beyond 31 March, there could be another explosion in demand.”
He added: “Landlords have been the surprise of the week, hitting the highest volume of new enquiries since the heady heights of last summer’s booming market.”
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