TwentyEA Blog

Market Downturn, What Downturn?  Traditional Estate Agents are Alive and Well

Written by Stuart Ducker | July 24, 2019

You'll know from the latest version of our Property and Home Mover Report that around 7% of all Sale New Instructions are taken by online / hybrid agents.

What you might not know, is how many Estate Agent branches compete for business across the whole of the United Kingdom and by each region.

You might expect that the number of Traditional Estate Agent branches in the UK is falling, given the consistently perceived gloomy outlook and with Brexit looming.

But, you would be wrong.

We've seen that the number of branches advertising properties in the UK is up 4% YoY. A rise from 17,700 to 18,400 branches.

By region, the West Midlands has seen the largest increase in branches advertising listings for sale at a massive 8.2%.

Northern Ireland is the only UK region to see a fall in the number of branches advertising listings at -0.9%.

Even Inner London saw an increase in the number of branches advertising listings by 3.5% despite the volume of listings falling by some -8.4%.

The following table breaks this down for us…

It appears therefore that in many regions, traditional agents are much more likely to have faced an increase in competition from other traditional agents rather than from the so called hybrids.

As such, it is more important than ever for agents to get a competitive edge on the competition.  

Here's a free Insight tool to see your branch's performance and track your competitors [Rank your branch]