New figures from telephone answering and live chat provider Moneypenny show a boom in enquiries to estate and letting agents following the December election.
Data from Moneypenny, which provides telephone answering and live chat services to more than 2,500 property businesses across the UK, showed a 22% increase in phone calls asking for property valuations, a 30% increase in calls to arrange viewings and a 9% increase in calls to make offers on properties in the week following the election, compared with the same period in 2018.
Heightened activity could also be seen across live chat – which is an increasingly popular way for home buyers and sellers to start relationships with estate agents, request information and book appointments, at any time of day or night. The week following the election result saw a 17% increase in the number of live chats requesting home valuations and a 16% increase in the number of live chats to arrange viewings.
Moneypenny’s figures support recent data from house buying website Rightmove’s House Price Index which has reported a 2.3% increase in the price of property coming to market, 7.4% growth in number of sales agreed and a 15% interest in buyer enquiries following the election result.
Joanne Tattum, Channel Manager – Property at Moneypenny, believes the data is a positive sign for the year ahead. She said:
“The General Election result brought a year of political and economic uncertainty to an end, which in turn helped to improve the confidence of house-buyers and encouraged them to put their plans into action.
“Unusual and unexpected spikes in enquiries such as this can often leave estate and letting agents overwhelmed as a result of inadequate resource, which in turn can lead to the loss of valuable business and a damaged reputation. By investing in outsourced support, property agents can cover all bases and rest assured that every lead is captured – no matter what new challenges the market presents.”
She added:
“This ‘Boris Bounce’ has provided a real boost to estate and letting agent enquiries across both traditional and digital channels and we expect to see this flurry of extra activity continue well into 2020.”
Rob Sabin, Director at Miles & Barr in Canterbury said:
“We have seen a really positive start to 2020 with new valuation enquires up 43% on the same period in 2019. All branches are reporting increases in applicant registrations and viewings so all bodes well for a strong 2020 with increased political certainty following the election result in December.”
Moneypenny handles 13 million calls and 2 million live chats each year. Established in 2000, Moneypenny is the world’s market leader for telephone answering, live chat, outsourced switchboard and customer contact solutions. In total, more than 13,000 businesses across the UK benefit from Moneypenny’s mix of extraordinary people and ground-breaking technology.
For more information about Moneypenny’s work with the property sector, visit www.moneypenny.co.uk/property
This article was submitted to be published by Moneypenny as part of their advertising agreement with Today’s Conveyancer. The views expressed in this article are those of the submitter and not those of Today’s Conveyancer.
