UK House Buyers Use the Web

Online estate agents in the UK have experienced a surge in visitors to their sites so far this year, and have been able to convert them into loyal customers, according to the latest research from Nielsen//NetRatings.

In the three months between April and June 2002, nearly two million people logged onto the web to search for a new home, with half a million people surfing from work.

The most popular site in the UK at present is rightmove.co.uk with a Unique Audience of 865,164 in the quarter ending June 2002. Assertahome.com ranks second with a Unique Audience of 556,408 people. Primelocation.com, ukpropertyshop.co.uk, homes-on-line.com and homesonview.co.uk have made significant gains in audience in the last few months to achieve at least 200,000 unique visitors in the last quarter.

Nielsen//NetRatings research shows that once attracted, new customers visit very few other sites in the category during the period of their house search, giving the website owners a high return of investment on their promotional spend. By comparison, websites of other categories such as travel and online banking share a larger number of their customers with competitor's websites.

Online house hunters view a high number of pages, with assertahome.co.uk toping the list at an average 86 page views per session. Overall, estate agency sites challenge other categories in terms of time spent, including some of the biggest portals, search engines, retailers and news and information sites as the chart below shows. The most 'sticky' site is Assertahome.com, with 33 minutes per average session per user.

Analysis of the demographics of the UK consumers who go to property sites shows that 25-34 year olds spend the most amount of time on the category and download the most number of page views. In terms of household income, a majority 27% of the audience earn £30,000 - £49,000 p.a., followed by 22% earning £50,000 or more.

Tom Ewing, Analyst at Nielsen//NetRatings believes the findings of this latest research are further evidence that the appeal of the Internet. 'Searching for a home can be a time-consuming effort, with shoppers needing to block out days and weeks to travel around to visit new areas and houses. Looking for a home online allows shoppers to visit scores of properties virtually in a fraction of the time, making the web an attractive solution for more and more people in Britain today. Given that these sites have a growing audience, high loyalty, high frequency of visit, a large amount of time spent and content viewed, they are an ideal choice for advertisers looking to sell to the lucrative home buyers market'.

All articles 2006-22 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

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