It seems the UK’s financial downturn has some real estate agents reassessing their spending priorities. A survey by property specialists movewithus found that at least 20 percent see a move from their high street premises to a home office as possible or likely over the next ten years.

66 percent of the agents surveyed said they would be likely to focus on their web offering over the next decade, with a further 28 percent seeing it as a possibility. If you’re also considering this move, but aren’t sure where to start, be sure to check out our guest post from Ryan Hinricher: “4 Essential Building Blocks for Agents New to Online“.

Robin King, director of movewithus, summed up the situation on myintroducer.com:

“With the average high street office costing an estate agent anything from £50,000 p.a upwards, the move to embrace technology is a canny one on the part of the estate agent in terms of getting more bang for their bucks.

Many business sectors are focusing a higher proportion of their efforts on developing business online and service businesses like estate agency can learn from some of the successful trailblazers among larger travel and retail organizations.

The high street office may become a bit of a ‘white elephant’, as although customers seek the help of a professional, to advise and negotiate on their behalf, they are initiating their search and seem more comfortable with online brands.

In the next ten years we are going to see increasing numbers of agents developing their technology in order to meet this type of customer, whilst becoming more cost-efficient and covering a greater area of the market through their online offering.”

With the majority of UK agents looking to focus on their online business over the next ten years, our only question is, what will the 6 percent who don’t plan to focus on the Internet be doing?