Ready for the Easter Property Hunt?

Even though we certainly are living in strange times, the Easter holidays have always been one of the busiest periods of the year for the property industry and this year will be no different.

Due to restrictions and being confined to our own four walls, we have never thought so much about where we live and the property we live within. Not only that, we have never thought so much about whether it is suitable or not and if not, how can we live somewhere even better!

Statistically we holiday least between January – March and have always spent more time indoors mulling over our options, during this period anyway. This cultivates the ideas of improved home ownership experiences and come the spring weather and some time off work, the Easter holidays culminate in THE time we want to get out and look at houses. When you overlay the restrictions we have been put under, then these ideas are multiplied. Bake-in some supporting measures from the recent Budget regarding the stamp duty holiday, (extended to the end of June), this will mean that many home buyers will be frantically looking around from now to Easter aiming for a fast completion date.

Whether it is buying or renting your new home, with a strong demand already from the start of the year (see below), it could be the busiest few weeks the property industry has seen yet.

ARLA Private Rented Sector Report, January 2021

Surge in the number of prospective tenants seeking properties:

• In January, the number of new prospective tenants rose by more than 25 per cent to 81 per estate agent branch.
• The number of properties managed per branch decreased.
• Less than two in five agents witnessed landlords increasing rents in January.

Demand from tenants:

• In January, the number of new prospective tenants rose by more than a quarter (27 per cent) to an average of 81 registered per branch from an average of 64 in December.
• Year-on-year this is marginally lower than in January 2020 when the figure stood at 88 but is higher than January 2019 when the figure stood at 73.
• Regionally, Yorkshire & the Humberside had the highest number of new tenants registered per branch with an average of 138.

Source: arla.co.uk

Fortunately, the property market is allowed to undertake COVID compliant viewing to allow the industry to continue, especially given its important role to the overall economy in this country. One of the upsides is that virtual viewings have been a fantastic way of reducing some of the workload. Those potential new owners or tenants have had the ability to get an idea of the property, already filtering those who are more interested towards the 2nd physical viewing. This in turn has saved many hours of time for Agents. A great step forward in reducing the workload, but what other measures could Agents make in order to be well prepared for the big Easter Property Hunt?

Ensuring all your current paperwork and management of existing business has got to be one of the best ways of organising your time now to free you up for the big push at Easter. Having all your documents and communications in one place and shared with your team to improve not just external but also internal communications surely is the way forward. Mapping out your tasks over the coming weeks so that your team are fully prepped for what could be the busiest work calendar yet for an Agent is surely also very prudent.

Rentancy.com can help you with your spring clean of your business operations, freeing your time to maximise this seasonal spike in new business. For more information please go to rentancy.com where you can easily get started and save your energy for the big Easter Property Hunt.