Property Market Activity During Lockdown

Update to our clients sent on 14th April

Dear All,

I hope you had a peaceful Easter weekend. I wrote to you three weeks ago as we went into lockdown and it seems an appropriate moment for me to update you on what the team and I have been experiencing since then and share a few notable achievements!

There is no doubt that this is an awful moment in history; all our thoughts are with those who are suffering and the essential workers who are bravely caring for them. There are a number of our clients who are working round the clock at the moment and I am sure you will all join me in saluting them. They have a far greater responsibility than me but you will be anxious to know that we are still doing the job you gave us before the crisis.

So has lockdown brought everything that we would normally be doing to a standstill? NO. It has withdrawn our ability to do three things that traditionally form part of our operation – manning the office at 31 Shad Thames, photographing and filming new listings and showing people around property. We are also hindered by the restriction on surveyors performing mortgage valuations and on solicitors committing to completion dates. This has been a fascinating and quite valuable experience in determining what aspects of our operation could be adapted temporarily, it has forced us to see what can be done better and perhaps inevitably it has confirmed what we cannot do without. Although the property market could not function in the medium term like this, I am glad to say that we have adapted the best we can and have plenty to do and achieve.

Our marketing continues at pace and, although we cannot do physical viewings, enquiries from the websites are steadily rising as are the number of video views on our YouTube channel. To give you some specifics – activity on rightmove in the last week is now only 25% down year on year (and is rising) and in the last 28 days we had 3,500 views of our property videos on YouTube which is 9% up on last year. All the people who agreed purchases before the crisis are still committed and are patiently hanging in there as the transaction inevitably slows down. I am pleased to tell you that in the last three weeks we have agreed two sales and two lets and we are in negotiations on two more. On the service side of the business, we have been helping a reassuringly small number of our tenants through some short-term financial distress and of course there are plenty of boilers in London that don’t care that it is harder to find a plumber at the moment!

So, although the lights are off in 31 Shad Thames, Anderson Rose is fully operational and on the case. If you would welcome a call (or a video chat!) please don’t hesitate to get in touch. In the meantime we will continue to do our very best for you and I will update you again soon.

Yours as ever,

Jon

Jon Byers

Founder