Is this the death of the high street estate agent?

New statistics indicate that nearly everyone's first port of call is the internet when looking for a new home

Digital has not only changed the future of retail, publishing and the music industry, it’s now changing the future of the property market at a rapid pace, marking the possible death of the high street estate agent.

Results of a new survey undertaken by Property Reporter reveal that just 1% of house hunters search for properties on the high street whilst a huge 99% turn to the world wide web on the hunt for the property of their dreams. Is this the end for estate agents on the high street?

Warren Lewis, online editor at Property Reporter says:

"Whilst these figures are unsurprising, I wasn’t expecting such a leap between the search methods.

The digital world has changed the way many businesses work and this has contributed to a wide difference in buyer behaviour. Businesses are making their products and services more accessible via the internet and the property market has been at the forefront of digital developments in order to make products and services more accessible to customers.

Many letting agents have become savvy with embracing the digital world and I think estate agents will quickly follow suit. We may find that it will soon become normal procedure for a buyer to view a property online from the comfort of their own home whilst others who may not choose to adopt such strategies may be missing a trick.

Buyers will always need to physically view a property but online platforms give an instant indication as to whether a viewing would be worth their while, saving time for both buyer and the vendor."

There are approximately over 6 million global monthly searches for ‘estate agents’ made via Google per month however; it seems that property portals are being used as the preferred house-hunting tool. Rightmove.co.uk currently dominates the online market with an estimated 40 million visits per month to their website.

What do you think?  Have your say in the comments section below.

source: Property Reporter