A new survey suggests that face-to-face contact is still valued by buyers and sellers.

Questioning over 1,000 people who have either bought or sold a house, revealed that 56 per cent said they preferred to communicate with their estate agent face-to-face. 

Other methods of communication were much less popular, with 16 per cent preferring to communicate over the phone, 15 per cent via email, five per cent via online chat, two per cent via an app or dashboard and another two per cent via SMS text. 

“Having a physical office is clearly a big draw for clients when choosing an estate agent. The respondents also said that our offices are the main way they have come into contact with an estate agency.

However, there are clear generational differences.

The highest proportion of votes for using a personal app/dashboard comes from 16 to 24 year olds on 10 per cent, while amongst 35 to 44s there was the highest proportion of responses to using online chat - 9.4 per cent. 

“This goes to show the importance of adapting to changing attitudes and offering a flexible service where clients can contact their agent in a way that suits them. It’s clear from this feedback that people’s preferences stem from lifestyle and familiarity with certain technologies, so it’ll be interesting to see how communication evolves when the younger generations start to join the property ladder in years to come”.