While London landlords looking for agents on the site was only up 4% vs the previous all-time high, the rest of the UK was buoyant, with Newcastle, Birmingham, and Bristol experiencing the largest increases, all above 18% compared to previous 6-month averages.
The letting agent comparison service continued to see increases in searches for guaranteed rent services, which increased by 7% vs the previous month. Searches for guaranteed rent activities are already up 30% in the first quarter of 2021 as compared to Q1 2020.
Letting agent Google searches vs the previous years
The April Google activity, which was 24% up vs the previous month, is 47% higher than the 2017-2021 average number of monthly letting agent related searches. The April record numbers in 2021 paint a vastly different picture to the same time 12 months ago.
In April 2020, volumes of letting agent searches on Google dropped to 330,000 searches the lowest on record excluding December months. Of course, the announcement of lockdown in March 2020 brought a halt to the property market which meant landlord & letting activity was severely reduced.
On the estate agent/seller side, the search volume is buoyant however not at record volumes. April Google searches related to the estate agent world hit 837,000, this is 35,345 less than the previous record in September 2020.
Raj Dosanjh, Rentround founder, comments: "Statistics on the letting agent search terms will be very encouraging for estate & letting agents.
"We all know the impact pent up lockdown demand and the stamp duty holiday has placed the property market in a strong place. These numbers not only back that up but show that the trend is still rising, indicating room for more growth and opportunities for agents to increase revenues.
"May already looks encouraging as the current trend is on track to match, if not beat, the April record volumes. "Landlord demand has been through the roof on Rentround and we're amazed to be helping so many find their ideal letting agent.
"I'm proud of the position of both the number of searches run on Rentround last month & agents subscribed to the platform. April 2020 was a tough month for everyone, including us as agents pulled back their marketing budgets which were reflected in a drop in agents listing with us.
"Gladly now we're a bigger player for a higher number of agents, assisting them with their marketing activity to a higher degree than this time last year.
"We've now expanded to helping sellers compare estate agent fees, services & performance. This new stream only launched at the end of April but the subscribed number of agents so far is promising."
