Property Natter – why is the property market joining the podcast party?

If there’s one thing that received a boost as a result of Covid and lockdowns, it’s podcasts – which reached whole new audiences as people sought to while away the extra hours at their disposal.

They were nothing new – first receiving real prominence with the podcasts featuring Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington – but received a major boost as anyone who’s anyone, from Louis Theroux to Peter Crouch, got involved with the podcast boom.

There are a huge range of podcasts out there covering pretty much every topic, from cooking, crime, sport and music to politics, science and history. Popular platforms for podcasts include BBC Sounds, Spotify, Audible, Google and Apple.

Some of the most popular podcasts include Off Menu with comedians Ed Gamble and James Acaster, My Dad Wrote a Porno, Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett, The Adam Buxton Podcast, That Peter Crouch Podcast, Newscast, Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe's Parenting Hell and No Such Thing as a Fish.

Well-known TV shows frequently have podcast spin-offs nowadays, while sites like the Guardian and the Telegraph have popular weekly pods discussing football, business and politics.

Most podcasts are either half an hour or an hour in length, although this varies, and typically have a clear structure, format and tone that is utilised in each episode. People often listen to them while they’re commuting, out on a walk or run, while driving in the car or during their lunch hour.

Many have built loyal and large followings who eagerly wait to tune in each week, and are often encouraged to get involved in the podcast itself via various means. Some have even turned successful podcasts into live shows to physical audiences.

And now, it seems, property is keen to get in on the podcast act. Just in the last few weeks, OnTheMarket, buying agency Black Brick, The Guild and Just Move In (featuring former Propertymark CEO Mark Hayward) have launched podcasts.

There are also longer-running property podcasts such as The World Class Agency podcast with Homesearch’s Sam Hunter and love2move’s Mark Worrall, and the two Robs (Rob Dix and Rob Bence) who focus on everything to do with property investment in their podcasts over at Property Hub. Plus, of course, property royalty and EAT columnist, Phil Spencer, has a regular property podcast through his Move iQ platform.

Whisper it for now, but the Today sites hopefully has a podcast offering in the offing, too – watch this space! This comes as news sites increasingly tap into the power and reach of the humble pod.

Why are they becoming more popular?

Podcasts have become a trend that is hard to ignore – and have fully established themselves alongside radio, TV and audio books in the nation’s psyche. Their popularity, as mentioned before, was given a massive boost by the pandemic.

With more spare time on their hands, and more hours spent walking, cycling and running, people turned to podcasts to accompany them on these pursuits, to distract their minds, to allow them to escape to somewhere else.

The very best podcasts captivate you for 30 or 60 minutes and leave you constantly wanting more. They can be used to entertain, inform and educate, making them perfect platforms for major property discussions.

But they also thrive on personal or funny stories, or getting to know someone or something you previously had little knowledge of.

They can be longer-form, more spontaneous and more conversational than video interviews or traditional Q&As. They can help to go in-depth on a particular topic or offer pithy bite-sized summaries of a major topical discussion point.

From a property person’s point of view, they allow more exposure – on social media and elsewhere – the chance to build brand awareness, the chance to be seen as an authority on a given subject, and also the chance to entertain, inform and educate listeners, offering a human side to the property market that is too often overlooked.

This excellent article from Simply Business helps to explain how people should go about launching a podcast if they’ve not done it before.

Will they be a short-term fad or something more long-term?

This will largely depend on the success of the new podcasts that have recently hit the market. For all the joy, escapism, information and educational content they can provide listeners with, they do also take a lot of time, effort and organising.

If this isn’t reflected in strong listener numbers, enthusiasm for making them could start to wane. There are a few property podcasts that have already established themselves, including the aforementioned World Class Agency Podcast with Sam Hunter and Mark Worrall, and the team at Property Hub, but property podcasts do remain niche for now.

That is starting to change with more and more now offering podcasts, ranging from agencies and trade bodies to portals.

It will be interesting to see how these go down with audiences as the property market continues to become more multi-media than ever.

Here at the Today sites, we’re always looking for ways to make the content we provide as engaging and interactive as possible, and podcasts could be the next stage of that evolution.

It’s certainly something to keep an eye on over the next months to see if the post-pandemic podcast boom continues.

Award-winning editor

For the Today sites, we’ve always been keen to have the very best in the business penning our daily breaking news stories. For years, multi-awarding winning journalist Graham Norwood has been doing fantastic work across a number of our publications. When he stepped down from Estate Agent Today earlier this year, we hired Marc Shoffman to take over.

We knew we were getting a respected and award-winning journalist when we signed him up, but it’s excellent to have that reaffirmed by fresh awards success.

On Thursday night, Marc won Freelance Journalist of the Year at the Headlinemoney awards 2022. Here’s what the judges had to say about him:

“With so many freelancers plying their trade in the financial space this is always a competitive category to win. As it turned out, one name had already emerged from the shortlist after the first round of judging. When the panellists convened to make their final decision, it was a relatively straightforward task to go on and name Marc Shoffman as the winner for the second year in a row.

“Marc is a top-notch freelancer with an eye for an exclusive and the journalist nous to dig into tough topics, get results and convey that well in his writing,” one judge commented. “A clear stand-out with excellent investigations into issues that are likely to impact many readers, with evidence of enacting real change,” said another.

An outstanding achievement and we’re very glad to have Marc and the consistently excellent, and equally award-winning, Mr Norwood on board. Keep up the great work, chaps!

Until next time…

*Nat Daniels is CEO of Angels Media, publishers of Estate Agent Today and Letting Agent Today. Follow him on Twitter @NatDaniels.