We surveyed over 560 real estate professionals on how coronavirus was impacting their business. Responses to our survey came from real estate professionals including agents, principals and marketing staff.
The results demonstrated an attitude of resilience and a recognition of the importance of digital outreach to their clients.
We are now looking to expand the survey even further. How has COVID-19 impacted your business? Take the survey here.
Despite the US being reported as two weeks ahead of ANZ regarding the spread of coronavirus, agents in both regions share an almost identical sentiment towards the state of their respective markets. Though there is a substantial amount of uncertainty, the majority of agents, approximately 45% across both geographies, feel as though the market will take a small hit but bounce back.
The majority (49.97%) of agents are looking for innovative tech solutions to best serve their clients in this remote working environment. A well-prepared 40.23% of agents believe they have the right systems in place already. US agents are less likely to cut technology spending compared to ANZ agents with a 5% variance.
By far, the majority of agents are taking this opportunity to personally reach out to their contacts during this time. 81.33% of respondents are adapting to the new circumstances with either a shift to more online & virtual channels to interact with clients (39.32%) or by making their interactions more personalised (42.01%). The minority (18.75%) across both regions are making less calls and emails.
Unsurprisingly we see that there is significant uncertainty around how businesses will perform throughout the pandemic. Given we are at the beginning of a difficult period that looks like it will extend for several months, it is heartening to see that over 26% of agents from both regions are positive and continuing to grow their business.
Email marketing remains the most popular option with an average of 91.68% of agents voting that they will likely maintain or add this to their toolkits in the next six months. The whitepaper Digital Marketing in Real Estate: A guide to better ROI highlights why this might be the case, with email generating $42 per $1 spent.
Direct mail & flyers are at the highest risk of being reduced or cancelled, with an average of 40.25% of respondents indicating they will be looking to do so.
There is little variance in the results between ANZ & USA (between 1-3%) regarding direct mail, email & property website results. However, the US agents are approximately 10% more likely to reduce seller lead generation compared to that of the ANZ agents.
