0121 550 4151More than half of buyers and sellers prefer to communicate face to face with their agents.
Winkworth, which commissioned a survey of over 1,000 people who have either bought or sold a property, said it suggests that there is still real value in estate agents having a high street presence.
The survey found that 56% prefer face to face communication. Other methods were much less popular, with 16% wanting to communicate by phone, 15% by email, 5% by online chat, 2% via personal apps or dashboards, and 2% by text. Broken down by age group, the results reflect generational differences, with the highest proportion of votes for using a personal app/dashboard coming from 16 to 24-year-olds (10%); 35-44s gave the highest proportion of responses to using online chat (9.4%); and 35-44s and 45-54s had the highest proportion of votes for text communication, albeit at just 3.1% and 3.2%.
Even so, among all age groups, face to face communication was easily the most popular.
In the youngest age group, the 16 to 24-year-olds, talking face to face was preferred by 52.5%.
Winkworth CEO Dominic Agace said: “This survey demonstrates that having a physical office is clearly a big draw for clients when choosing an estate agent.
“We aren’t surprised by this, as buying or selling a property is one of the biggest transactions somebody will make and it’s reassuring to be able to pop into an estate agent’s office whenever we need to talk through things.
“The respondents also said that our offices are the main way they have come into contact with the Winkworth brand and, as an estate agency that’s committed to providing our clients with a strong network of high street offices, that’s really positive for us.”
The survey was carried out in June by Censuswide.
Article by Rosalind Renshaw The property Industry Eye 22.8.18