Trade Me sees record property browsers

Head of Trade Me Property Brendan Skipper says the website had 1.1 million unique browsers and 140,000 email enquiries sent to Trade Me property listings. There are usually about 100,000 enquiries a month.

First National general manager John Stewart says contracts generally tend to peak seven to eight weeks after online viewing peaks, so it could be mid-March before quantifiable results are seen in sales from the Trade Me figures.

He also says that First National had a record number of browser viewings for 11 of the last 13 months and "have we had record sales? No, it's been very tough".

Both Skipper and Stewart agree that today's buyers can get a whole lot of information without an agent by being savvy and researching on property websites.

"People are doing the research themselves and then coming into see an agent having decided the properties they want to look at a lot of the time, people are being very selective about buying," says Stewart.