Real-Time COVID-19 Market Movement Dashboard: How is the pandemic impacting sellers and agents?
Estate agent comparison site, GetAgent.co.uk, has released its live, interactive dashboard detailing how the Coronavirus pandemic is impacting UK property market activity, as well as the results of its market sentiment survey of home sellers and estate agents, and their feelings towards current market conditions.
While uncertainty around the current pandemic and its impact on the market is causing many to speculate and predict what might happen, GetAgent’s dashboard shows what is happening, as it happens, based on a number of market metrics. These metrics include the number of properties being listed, the average number of views each listing receives, the number of new leads and search volume for seller and buyer keywords.
The interactive dashboard also allows users the ability to enter their postcode to see how the pandemic is influencing their local market on a granular level.
What’s happening right now?
The dashboard shows that at a top-level, property listings have plummeted from a peak of 8,535 added per day in February to just 672 (6th April).
The average number of views per listing has also dropped considerably, along with the number of new home seller leads which are down to four (6th-12th April) from 82 (17th-23rd February).
Search volume of buyer and seller keywords on Google are also down -54% and -62% respectively since the middle of February.
The dashboard provides a look at market activity in real-time and updates each day.
Home seller survey results
The impact of the Coronavirus on home seller sentiment is clear, with 42% ranking their concern 10 out of 10 when it comes to the impact of a planned sale, while 46% of buyers said they would not put an offer on a property under current conditions.
The spread of the virus has caused many to reconsider, with 29% of those planning to sell delaying by at least four to six months, with a further 28% expecting delays of between seven months and more than a year.
However, 76% of all respondents still plan to take their property to the market within the next year, despite the current restrictions.
Communication with the sale process appears to be an issue, with 36% of sellers unaware as to whether or not their sale has been suspended or delayed in any way. That said, it’s heartening to see that estate agents did score an average of 6.4 out of 10 for their handling and adaptation to the crisis.
Estate agent survey results
When it comes to the other side of the sale, 56% of agents ranked their concern over the impact of the Coronavirus on the property industry as a whole at a 10.
88% have chosen not to conduct in-person valuations while social distancing measures are in place.
More than half of the agents surveyed have furloughed over 81% of their employees, while 68% had also significantly reduced advertising and 50% were extremely concerned over cash flow in the next month.
The brighter side is that 55% still expect to make progress on some sales, with 16% expecting to make progress on all of their current active sales. 60% of agents have also continued to market at least 90% of their properties.
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