Only four in 10 home buyers find their property through online portals, reveals a new home-moving survey by UK website Which?.
Its 2016 survey of home-buyers revealed 55 percent used traditional methods such as looking in an estate agent’s window or the local newspaper, while 45 percent used more modern – usually electronic – methods.
Of those surveyed, 37 percent discovered their new home by searching a property portal while 6 percent found their home via an automated email from a portal, and 2 percent did so via a smartphone app notification.
First-time buyers were even more likely to find their home using traditional methods (60 percent) rather than property portals or apps (40 percent), despite usually being younger.
The most common traditional methods were seeing a property in an estate agent’s window (11 percent) or a phone call or email from estate agent (11 percent) followed by a ‘For sale’ sign outside property (10 percent), word of mouth (9 percent), local newspaper (6 percent), approaching the property owner directly, eg by leafleting (3 percent) and property auction (1 percent).
