People sure are nosey, aren’t they? If we’re not gathered at the water cooler getting the latest in office gossip we’ve got our noses buried in glossy magazines or scrolling through twitter feeds to find out who Taylor Swift is dating right now (#hiddleswift, we’re looking at you!). Sure, we’re not all into celebrity news but we’re all only human, and that means we yearn for information in some form or another, even if that does make us a little nosey.

I’m sure each of you reading this blog has your own vice when it comes to wasting time, it might be football stats, it might be politics or it could even be something as simple looking at recipes you’ll never actually get around to cooking. Whatever it is that eats up your time, it’s mostly likely something that’s important to you and impacts your life in some way.

So why am I waffling on about peoples’ curiosity and how we waste our time?

What if I told you that you could harness peoples’ nosiness for your business? Now if only you worked in an industry that matters to literally everyone… Something like property perhaps?

For you estate and letting agents out there, you’re lucky enough to work in an industry that affects everyone of us. We all need somewhere to live and everyone cares about their property but, more importantly for you, everyone cares about the value of their property.

The average joe on the street doesn’t know the exact value of their property, they need an expert to advise them and that’s where you come in. You’re there to get them from clueless to clued up and reassure them if they’re considering selling. But how can you make their search for information benefit your business in the early stages?

People like to get as much information as possible as long as it’s fast and easy. Much in the same way we design our estate and letting agent websites to be fast and easy-to-use, people want fast, easy and convenient ways to get more information on their own properties. This is why we’ve seen a growing trend in online valuation tools.

Online valuation tools for your estate agency website provide your users with a great reason to interact with your business. Just a few details from the user will provide them with meaningful information about their property. For them, they have a better insight to their value, while you get the details of a potential seller at the earliest point in their sales journey. Win-win!

While these valuation tools are fantastic for your visitors, they can sometimes be a little inaccurate or provide too much of a general insight as opposed to an accurate in-person valuation, but I think that may even help you more. Giving a ball park figure will help those who are on the fence take the next step to an in-person valuation but will also help weed out those who are just being nosy from taking advantage of no-obligation valuations.

We recently reached out to Valpal for their expert insight to why they believe valuation tools are growing and we heard this back from Craig Vile, their director:

Agents are realising that engaging with their vendor and Landlord audiences to the same level as buyers, is key to the growth of their business.

There is an increasing realisation that up to 50% of potential Clients visiting agent’s websites are looking to sell and get an idea of the value of their property. Astute agents are looking at the needs of this audience and how to engage with them.  Online valuation tools, such as ValPal, are a fantastic instant gratification for vendors and a way for agents to obtain this warm lead.

Agents using the ValPal tool on their website report:

•       A higher percentage of web traffic converting into vendor and landlord enquiries
•       A doubling and even trebling of the amount of leads an agent receives
•       Avoiding missed opportunities, and people leaving their sites and engaging with
         competitors

As we’re becoming a more digital focused society, it’s going to be harder and harder for traditional estate agents to stand out against the online models. Great online features like automated valuation tools will help you turn that online traffic into real world business. All this and we haven’t even touched on how appealing these sorts of services can look on social media!

We’ll be looking into social media advertising and how valuation tools can help in a future blog so be sure to follow us here, here and here and keep your eyes peeled.

If you want to know any more about valuation tools or digital marketing for your estate / letting agency in general, get in touch with us and we’ll be happy to help!