From time to time, I come across people and products/services and ask them to write a guest post. Alex at Estate Apps is just that. I am not promoting the service .. I just thought you might like to hear from someone else from a rather good product ...
With the current state of the housing market, the average
age of a child leaving home is getting higher and higher. Within recent years
we’ve seen the average age for a child to leave home hit 27 while it’s 37 before
most of us take the first step to becoming property owners. Much of this is
down to housing prices rising at a record pace over recent years; most of us
simply can’t afford that initial leap.
As a “young person” who lives in London, escaping the clutches
of my childhood bedroom is becoming harder and harder. However, I’ve persevered
and I’ve got myself to a point where it might just be financially viable to fly
the nest! Result! So why am I still stuck at home? Well, agents, I’m
looking at you...
I work 9-6 Monday to Friday and it just so happens that’s
when estate agents do most of their work too. By the time I’m on my way home,
so are the estate agents (sure, there’s a few exceptions but by and large
that’s the way it is). So what options do I have if I want to look for a
property? Rightmove, Zoopla or the estate agents own website.
From the outset my entire search is only possible when I
have an internet connection (unless I want to travel all the way to my local
agent to look in their closed shop window).Where it normally all kicks off is
in the palm of my hand, from there I can find all the various property apps and
visit any websites that catch my attention. From there I can see what’s in my
area and what sort of price I’m looking to pay. Once I’ve found a few
properties that have caught my eye, I’ll often go through to an agents site to
see who I’ll be dealing with and if they have any other properties that I might
like.
After I’ve made it this far, I often find my search for a
property comes to an abrupt halt. Being out and about a lot of the time, I make
the most of my time commuting and travelling by looking for properties
on-the-go. For someone like me, it’s a real pain in the neck if your website
doesn’t work on mobiles. In my experience, me and many others my age will check
out an agents website before getting in touch and if your website doesn’t work
on my device of choice, you may well have just lost a lead.
Times are changing and people are becoming ever more reliant
on technology, be that to communicate, shop or even navigate. It’s up to you,
the businesses owner, to keep up with that. There are young adults in their
early twenties that have grown up living a life not knowing a time before the
internet, as such they expect businesses they want to deal with to be online.
The time is upon us where this connected generation is now looking to buy or
rent their own properties and it’s up to you to keep up, not on them to slow
down.
For you business owners out there, keeping on top of new technology
can be a bit of a daunting task. It seems that almost on a monthly basis we’re
getting new news and new updates in Website, Android and iOS app technology, it
can all get a bit much. You’ve already got enough to worry about, this is why
there are companies out there (like us at Estate Apps) that will do that for you. From
new operating systems that power your native apps to new techniques in website
design, we do our best to keep your businesses digital heart beating so the
physical you is always moving forward.
So make sure you keep up with the new generation of tenants
and buyers or they may just favour your more technically minded competitors.