Last week, Corum reopened our branches across Scotland and looked to kick on now that lockdown restrictions allowed us to do so in earnest.
Whilst we have been working away diligently through lockdown, it is no secret that the Scottish property market has been thoroughly halted by the restrictions that have been in place. The green light from the Scottish Government for businesses to re-open from Monday has been sorely sought after, and it has certainly marked a kick-start to our industry.
We have been absolutely thrilled at the volume of engagement from our clients, both buyers and sellers, in the first week back – so much so that we have already had to move swiftly to increase our physical opening hours to accommodate for the demand. Our branches will now be open as follows;
Mon: 9-5.30pm
Tue: 9-5.30pm
Wed: 9-8pm
Thu: 9-8pm
Fri: 9-5.30pm
Sat: Closed (open remotely)
Sun: Closed (open remotely)
As ever, we are committed to being a 7-day-a-week business and whilst our physical branches are closed on weekends at present, our teams remain active working remotely from home, conducting viewings and listings clients where safe and appropriate.
On the decision to accelerate the businesses reopening plan, Managing Partner, John Kelly, adds that “our whole business model is based around delivering exemplary and unrivalled customer service and it’s great to see customer loyalty is still prevalent despite the challenging circumstances – our branches reopened on Monday and we have been inundated across the board with customer engagement, and it is truly heartening to see. As such we need to ensure that we reciprocate the faith shown to us and are on-hand to meet our clients expectations and increasing our opening hours is essential in doing just that”.
When Corum were required to close our doors in early Spring the Scottish property market was absolutely thriving, with record levels of house sales, exceptionally strong sales prices being achieved and a marked increase on the number of new properties coming to market; things were most certainly looking good.
We were, as is only reasonable at a time like this, cautious about what customer engagement would be like when we reopened. That said, at Corum we take pride in our consultative approach to Estate Agency and have actively engaged with our clients throughout lockdown to try and gauge where attitudes may rest and it’s fair to say we did have some quiet optimism that things would pick up fairly quickly, although the opening week back has been truly stellar and has paved the way for what could be a strong few months ahead.
Since our branches reopened, we have added dozens upon dozens of new properties to the market with many more lined up for the week ahead, we are receiving hundreds of enquiries on a daily basis, diaries have been filled with viewing appointments and we were even setting closing dates within days of being back in the office.
Managing Director of our Ayrshire division, Bruce Patterson commented that “the fallout from the lockdown has given buyers time to reflect on where they want to live and what they want from their home. When you add in to the mix record low interest rates, there’s no surprise to see things picking up quickly”
All in all, it’s fair to say that we have had an electric restart to proceedings. As such we would encourage anyone who is considering selling their home or looking to make a move to somewhere new to reach out and engage our sales teams.