One of the industry’s leading automated valuation services says it’s running at approaching 1,000 leads a day for agents even during the lockdown.
The ValPal Network - which has some 800 brands and 4,000 agency offices amongst its members - says it recorded over 49,000 leads in March despite the social distancing, self-isolation and lockdown measures which deterred transactions for around half of the month.
Daily figures now, 10 days into the lockdown, are running at just under 1,000 leads for agents: in two days in the second half of March, despite the virus crisis, leads topped 2,250 daily.
"Our figures show that despite much of society coming to a halt, thousands of people continue to request instant online valuations of their homes from estate agents” explains Craig Vile, director of The ValPal Network.
"Although they may not be able to get deals done at the moment, agents need to keep on marketing to capture the contact details of prospective clients” he adds.
"People are at home with not much to do - so the chances of them thinking about moving and wanting to know how much their home could be worth are increased.
"Effectively filling sales funnels over the coming weeks will be absolutely crucial to the prospects of long-term survival for many agencies. Those that continue to engage with consumers now can build up a massive bank of leads to nurture ahead of the market resuming in the future."
* The ValPal Network is a product of Angels Media, publisher of Estate Agent Today and the other Today industry titles. And a reminder that The ValPal Network has started daily tips on what furloughing is, how firms are doing it, and what it means when the virus crisis finally ends. You can check it out by subscribing here.
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Every property is different. Automated valuations are only any good as a rough guide where there are a large number of similar properties in the same neighbourhood. Every agent is told on his first day of training that you cannot value a house accurately without seeing it and automated valuations are not proof of due diligence in a court. The vendor might just as well do the valuation himself online.
all i want is leads - I love telling people who've filled in a val how useless machines are and how good we are at doing accurate vals!
Just tried out ValPak. It can't cope with my individual property (nothing special but an individual house like tens of thousands of others) and said it would put me in touch with an agent to arrange for a conventional market appraisal. So much for automated!
If they were accurate to the point sellers could rely on them and people realised that, you and they would have no reason to have a conversation when the lead comes through, in fact it would become an obstruction. How the leads are handled is critical to converting them, and it's the inaccuracy of the online valuation that enables this to be done more effectively.
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