Rightmove visits soar as portal use returns to pre-lockdown level

Rightmove says it enjoyed 5.3m visits on Tuesday of this week - up four per cent on the comparable day of 2019 and the busiest day for portal visits this year since March 5, well before the lockdown began.

“One week on from the surprise opening of the housing market and agents are still showing caution and quite rightly putting safety first, but many had already started to prepare during lockdown and so have been able to start reopening their branches and conducting viewings” says Rightmove’s housing market expert Miles Shipside.

“The activity jump on Rightmove proves the determination of home-movers to continue with their plans over the next few months. The pause button put many of the usual metrics we report on out of kilter and so a week’s worth of data should only be taken as an early indication of activity, but it’s certainly encouraging” he adds.

Rightmove says that overall demand for property for sale is now down just seven per cent compared to this time last year, and up 120 per cent compared to the final week before lockdown was eased.

Almost 11,000 new sales listings have come to the market since the first day of reopening, 65 per cent down on the same week last year although improving from 90 per cent down during lockdown

Total available stock for sale is down 2.5% since before lockdown

In terms of prices only one per cent of properties up for sale have been reduced over the past week, compared to two per cent over the same week last year.

And the average size of a reduction over the past week was 4.5 per cent, the same size of a reduction as in the same week last year

Finally, average asking prices of all property up for sale are up two per cent on last year, the same as before the lockdown. The current average is £311,828 across all Great Britain.