Death of the High Street Estate Agent ?
It’s official: the world is going online and, what’s more, its happening faster than we think. The latest industry to be hit hard by the online craze is international property investment and domestic residential purchases, with higher and higher numbers of buyers staying at home and trawling the portals rather than the high street agencies.
In a survey conducted by HotProperty.com, 71% of agents surveyed agreed that high street agencies are still in demand, but only 38% of respondents thought they would be relevant after a decade and a tiny 28% thought high street agencies would be of any practical use within 20 years.
While it is recognised that potential buyers do like to browse agents’ windows, this doesn’t seem to be the purchasing method of choice any longer for the serious buyer, with those looking to buy overseas often buying off-plan on the web.
Nonetheless, there was some good news for those of us who like a bit of human contact in our business dealings. Respondents to the survey admitted the importance of having some sort of high street presence, albeit not that of the traditional small, local agent. Predicting that future trading would be split cleanly between online and high street presence, agents foresaw a rise in the use of serviced offices, thus maintaining the importance of face to face contact and securing that all-important ‘walk-in’ business.
The rise and rise of the portal comes at a time when that other staple medium of sales, the print industry, in particular the classifieds sections, are reporting dramatic slumps in their advertising uptake, with classified overseas property advertisements appearing in all the UK national and Sunday newspapers in June 2007 down by a massive 19.7% (or 319 advertisements) according to Nelson Media Research.
Martin Croker said,
December 13, 2007 @ 10:47 am
This is a really thought provoking article and we have seen the dramatic effects of the web in other industries. The key to the problem for the bricks and mortar businesses is developing a business model which satisfies the present and future needs of your customers, probably through the right mix of online and high st…sounds simple, not so easy in practice.
Anthony Duggan said,
December 14, 2007 @ 12:55 am
Hi Martin,
I couldn’t´t agree more, we had UK and Spanish high st. outlets up to about 18 months ago, but have switch to the net. The downside is being able to list re-sales, this expense has risen as the ads. have to be paper ads. but as we probably didn´t get one walk in buyer over the last 9 month´s of the offices the savings of not have the overheads of high st units far out ways this.
But it´s not as easy as a lot would think you need to be promoting all the time on the net and this becomes very time consuming..
Then there is the adverse of not being able to join an industry association, and the rumour has it in Spain, that Spanish companies won´t be able to trade without high st offices, so where´s that going??
Sugarloaf Real Estate said,
December 14, 2007 @ 6:03 pm
I have to agree with Martin’s comment. I could not agree more.
Fine article, keep up the good work!
Tom Smith said,
December 15, 2007 @ 8:22 pm
Good article but investment in bricks and mortar is still a very important marketing tool for realtors and such investment often benefits the staff working in quality environments. True the location of realtors may not necessarily be on the high street in the future but retaining knowledgeable staff in the future requires quality offices in accessible and lively neighbourhoods.
Anthony Duggan said,
December 17, 2007 @ 12:11 pm
Hi Tom,
I suppose it might be that you require for the higher end of the market a high st presence, also being in London perhaps.But for myself and probably 95% of overseas property agents, as the first contact is by the web then it isn´t at all necessary to have a high st presence