50% of UK homes to be sold online by 2020

A new study predicts that the number of UK homes sold online will rise from the current 4% to 50% within four years. This rapid potential increase is believed to be partly due to a series of investments by Countrywide and Zoopla into proptech start-ups such as Trussle and Fixflo.

It’s official, the new kids on the property block are beating the old guard of high street estate agents at their own game – or so the media hype would have us believe. Every day we see more reports of online-only brands such as Purplebricks, Zoopla and Rightmove tapping into the disruptive sharing economy initiated by the likes of Uber and Airbnb, with customers recognising that the savings in both time and money when buying or selling a property are more than worth a little DIY on their part.



However, industry experts estimate that only around 4% of all homes in the UK are sold online each year, which is hardly an overwhelming figure, but it becomes alarming for traditional estate agents when considering that this figure is expected to rise to an astounding 50% by 2020.

Further fuel to the fire comes in the form of news that Countrywide and Zoopla have invested in property tech startups including Trussle (an online mortgage adviser), Fixflo (a platform for requesting repairs in rented properties) and Landbay (a peer-to-peer mortgage provider), signalling that traditional players are feeling the squeeze in an increasingly diverse marketplace.

Purplebricks estimates that around 70% of its business takes place outside of normal working hours, which is a clue as to what the UK property market is looking for: convenience. It simply isn’t good enough for busy professionals to be expected to race around in their lunch hour to find their perfect property. And the emergence of portals such as OpenRent suggests that it’s not just the inconvenience of property hunting, but also the exorbitant fees that are driving people to look elsewhere for rentals.

However, there is more to the story than this – after all, despite many industry predictions to the contrary, the high street doesn’t seem to be disappearing. Consumers are still drawn to the physical realm for purchases such as clothing and food, where the look and feel of a product is just as important as its price. This is a major reason why the desperate need for some heavy-duty disruption and innovation among bricks-and-mortar estate agents seems like a no-brainer. When homebuyers traipse from viewing to viewing, it definitely isn’t for the fun of it – it’s because the look and feel of a home is one of the most pivotal factors in making a purchase decision.

It’s astounding that the estate agent industry hasn’t jumped at the chance to breathe new life into its often dull in-store experience. There is so much potential to make it more than the sum of its parts, and yet time and time again we see the same beige interiors, the same sad window displays and mountains of dreary paperwork being pushed back and forth over desks. To make matters worse, there is a lack of consistency in the service provided from branch to branch, which means that for a lot of prospective buyers and sellers, visiting a high street estate agent isn’t just a drag, it’s also a gamble.

But what about the high street brands that are doing it right? The property industry can learn a thing or two from the travel sector. Take, for example, Thomas Cook. It has introduced virtual holidays in-store that inspire customers using immersive 360-degree tours of hotels and resorts via an Oculus Rift headset. Or Virgin Holidays, which has taken the concept of try-before-you-buy to a new level by allowing customers to peer through a Google Cardboard set.

The property industry finally seems to be making its first forays into the world of immersive experiences – in 2015, we saw the first virtual open house take place on Facebook, where prospective buyers could tour through the rooms of a property in London while bidding on it. I believe high street estate agents of the future will offer more flexibility in their offering in terms of products and service models, allowing them to become a one-stop shop for everything related to moving house.

Learning from examples of in-store innovation – with brands making visits to their physical stores engaging and enjoyable (and, crucially, one that can’t be achieved just by going online) – traditional estate agents will future-proof their position in the digital economy.

Peter Veash is CEO at The BIO Agency

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