Zoopla reports a 30% year-on-year increase in ‘quality’ home buyer inquiries. – TNT

Zoopla points to key improvements including increasing the visibility of new-build homes on the Zoopla website, particularly on its most viewed pages. This has helped to encourage more consumers to consider a new build property.

Specific buying scheme filters and call-outs have also been added to the search experience, resulting in a 40% increase in new home leads from this specific buyer journey on the Zoopla website.

New homes specific selling schemes to support home buyers purchasing new homes has been a consistent feature of the market in recent years. Help to Buy was the main government backed scheme which has now ended while current schemes available include Own New – Rate Reducer and The Deposit Unlock Scheme which enables buying a new home with just a 5% deposit.

Affordability is becoming an ever greater influence on home buyer demand. In order to address this need, Zoopla has developed and launched a new affordability tool which is currently being tested by four major housebuilders.

The tool seeks to help serious buyers assess their budget and matches them to new home developments that meet their budget and property requirements within an end-to-end journey.

Zoopla research has revealed that 70% of buyers are open to new builds, but only 7% explicitly look for them and this exciting new tool is designed to encourage more would-be buyers to consider new build properties.

Alex Rose, commercial director at Zoopla, commented: “Zoopla empowers consumers to make more confident moving decisions. This includes encouraging potential buyers to consider all types of properties, including new builds. Our dedicated new homes product team has made some big strides over the last 12 months and these innovations we have implemented are driving direct benefits for our homebuilder customers..

“This is just the beginning for Zoopla and we are focused on introducing further improvements to maximise the visibility of new homes on Zoopla’s website and app in the months to come as we look to drive a stronger ROI for our housebuilder customers and boost the pool of potential demand for new-build properties.”