Hortons has dismissed claims by some estate agents – fuelled in part by a marketing push by the main property portals – that Boxing Day is one of the ‘busiest days of the year’ when it comes to property enquiries.
In the run-up to the festive period, several estate agents and online portals, including Rightmove and Zoopla, launched new advertising campaigns as they braced themselves for an increasingly busy post-Christmas rush of online house-hunting, known as the Boxing Day bounce.
But Hortons rejects the idea that there is a surge of interest in buying homes on Boxing Day, and believes this marketing strategy ‘is detrimental to property sellers’.
The hybrid agency says that it has analysed the latest Rightmove statistics and claims that the first working day in January creates a spike in traffic leading to one of the busiest days since mid-September – the peak of the buoyant Autumn market.
The company has provided the following graph containing data released by Rightmove that it says shows online traffic – and therefore enquiries – is much lower throughout December, but peaks in early January.
Adam Hortons, founding director of Hortons, commented: “After doing some detailed analysis of the data we could see that traffic was a lot higher on the first working day of the year, which was different to what we had previously been told.”
““On average 50% of the enquiries and interest any property receives happens in the first two weeks of the market. This means it’s essential to time the launch of a property in line with the uplift in traffic and enquiries,” he added.
Hortons will launch its own New Year campaign today with all new listings and price reductions set to go live at 9am.
Comments (3)
Am I the only one to have noticed that Mr Horton is banging on about TWO YEAR OLD “data” for this? What about last New Year – isn’t that more relevant?
If this is “latest Rightmove statistics” as suggested, then you’re all paying for stuff that is historically dead in the water. Old news, in other words – today’s chip papers.
“Hortons will launch its own New Year campaign today with all new listings and price reductions set to go live at 9am.”
And so they have. All twenty-odd of them.
Now don’t forget, Horton states, “50% of the enquiries and interest any property receives happens in the first two weeks of the market”.
Interesting then that looking at the graph he places so much weight upon, “Pageviews” over the two weeks following New Year actually reduce, before picking up to consistently higher numbers at the end of the month…
…meaning that by his own words they banged on all those “new listings and price reductions” this morning a week or so TOO EARLY to catch the real surge.
If two year old data is anything to go off, that is…
“On average 50% of the enquiries and interest any property receives happens in the first two weeks of the market. This means it’s essential to time the launch of a property in line with the uplift in traffic and enquiries,”
B******s. Mr Horton (among others) needs to learn that “enquiries” and “interest” mean absolutely nothing if the right buyer isn’t looking.
Detailed analysis??? did they just look at the graph?