Is the London Property Market Going to Become Increasingly Reliant on Digital Marketing because of the Long-Term Implications of the Pandemic?

By Charlie Firebrace, Sales Director at Wonderhatch, a creative content agency specializing in film and photography. In this article, he explores whether the pandemic will make digital marketing more important than ever.

At the start of January, PwC published its report on the UK and global economic outlook for 2021. One of the biggest takeaways from the report? The fact that PwC believes that both the birth rate and population of London will decline this year for the first time since 1988.

The Office Of National Statistics had predicted up until this point that the population in London will continue to rise each year up to 2025. But the report from PwC rather strikingly contradicts this with a projected drop in the number of people living in London by as much as 416,00 people. Roughly 4.5% of the city’s population.

PwC has conducted their research through surveys of Londoners living both within the city centre and the boroughs. The increase in remote working opportunities, alongside a projected rise in unemployment, indicates that London is not going to hold the same appeal to younger people entering the workforce. What’s more, people already living in the city are re-thinking their living circumstances, and some have already decided they see their future elsewhere.

The south of England is one area that has seen a surge in property activity throughout the last year. The main cause of this has been put down to people moving out of London and making the most of the flexible working arrangements that are in place now, and look to be remaining that way for the future.

It seems that all the signs are showing there will be a significant change to both living and working in London. If the population of the city is set to decline sharply within the next year and potentially, continue to fall even after that, then what will this spell for the future of the housing market in London?

Is the Universal Appeal of the London Property Market Coming to an End?

So we have a shrinking job market, rising numbers of unemployment, fewer graduates taking positions in the city and more people wanting to move out from it. This all means we can expect fewer people to be interested in purchasing property in London at present, and in the future, right?

Well, no. London’s property market has had considerable international appeal for quite some time. There are varying numbers on how much of the market is actively owned by foreign interests, but last year, according to London Central Portfolio, 22% of all prime London properties were purchased by overseas buyers. None of these purchases had a single viewing of the property.

Does this mean then that we can expect buyers to continue purchasing property in London no matter what state the city may be in? Perhaps to some extent, yes. London will always have an appeal in the world of property and not just to international buyers either.

But we also must not rely solely on unconcerned buyers snapping up anything they see as a good deal without much further research or investment into even living in the property. We don’t just need people buying property in London. We need people living here too.

So going back to those who are responsible for the 22% of purchases last year, surely, they have to be looking at or seeing properties listed somewhere? With such ease of access now to just about everything in the world we could want to look at, courtesy of the internet, we must be seeing more and more sales for property in London coming online during the pandemic.

So is now the time, perhaps, to go all-in on digital marketing to attract buyers to a city they might not want to live in? We think so.

Is Going Digital Going to be the New Normal?

The importance of digital marketing has never been so great to those working in the world of property. For property developers and estate agents, engagement has always been crucial to the way that business works. Relationships are built and maintained in the physical world to further future acquisitions and sales of property.

Naturally, operating in a pandemic has meant that we have had to contend with some very serious restrictions limiting our capacity to interact with each other physically. The world is not quite as severe now as it has been in the last year or so, but everything, from property viewings to just peering at properties listed in an agent’s window on the street, has been a lot more challenging at times.

Consequently, as busy as many of those working in property have found themselves in this last year despite the pandemic, the way they have been working has seen some significant changes. Unsurprisingly, virtual viewings are up, in a very big way. Purple Bricks conducted a survey of London residents in March that indicated a staggering 43% of Londoners would be happy to purchase a property after viewing it online!

Now, of course, the pandemic has played a very big part in increasing the number of viewings being carried out online. The first thought one might have is that this trend will not continue after society is released from all social distancing measures currently in place. But we wouldn’t be so sure. The benefits of online viewings are considerable.

The fact is, online viewings are a viable medium for the public to access, whether we are in a pandemic or not. They save time, both from travelling to the viewing location itself and the duration of the viewing. They are more convenient to arrange thanks to the flexibility with the time a viewing takes place, opening up a chance to be guided through a property at any hour of the day.

At the end of the day, despite whatever a property agency may want its potential buyers to do, it is them who remain at the mercy of the buyer, not the other way around. If buyers are happy to continue viewing and ultimately buying property online, then the property market needs to do more than just support this. It needs to actively encourage this.

Why the Growth of Digital Property Marketing Is Vital for the London Market

Going back over everything that’s been discussed in this article, with a shrinking population in the city, foreign investment still coming in from abroad without the need for viewings in person, and continued interest in doing everything digitally, it seems like a no brainer to focus more on digital marketing for the future of London Property.

A new buyers market has to be discovered, outside of the city, if the property sector is to last past the aftershocks of the pandemic. Some people are leaving the city, more than those who are wanting to move in right now, it seems. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t more people who might want to move into the city.

Investment is going to be needed to ensure that the digital presence of London’s property market succeeds in attracting this new market of buyers. Relying on wealthy foreigners buying the best property on the market will not be enough to offset the potential population decline we will see in the city for the next few years. But where to start?

We don’t think everyone needs to start setting up accounts on TikTok to reach out to millennials and persuade them to buy flats in Kensington. But the power of social media platforms as a pulling force for sales in every field is well-known. Property, as anyone with a Facebook profile has known for the last few years, is already changing hands thanks to social media. But it isn’t simply about selling.

This new audience needs to be found online for them to buy what you want to sell, so how to achieve this? Every property agency needs to start seriously looking at its social media presence and asking if it’s doing anything. A lack of social media presence will result in a lack of brand awareness. A lack of brand awareness will not help bolster an agency’s online presence, which will not do anything to help the sale of a property.

It is not out of the question that the property industry is going to have to get very creative in inventing new ways to entice buyers into London, or even potentially, reinvent the entire property market within the city. If the predictions about London’s population decline prove to be true, then the impact of this will be significant for the entire property market of the city.

If there is no one left within the city itself to buy property, then the industry needs to start looking outside of London for investment. The digital market is the most obvious starting point for this, and it should arguably be front and centre for all property companies operating within London at the moment and potentially, the foreseeable future.