Saturday at 11am has been identified as the busiest hour of the week for property viewings, according to new data from Alto, a property software provider. Over the past year, nearly 250,000 viewings began during this one-hour slot, representing 4.6% of all weekly viewings recorded in their data.
The five busiest viewing times all fall on a Saturday, with 10am, midday, 1pm, and 2pm following the 11am peak. In contrast, Friday at 4pm is the busiest non-Saturday slot, though viewing volumes are reportedly 45% lower than the Saturday peak.
The data also indicates that viewing activity remains concentrated within traditional agency hours, with 95% of viewings taking place between Monday and Saturday, from 9am to 6pm. Only 4.69% of viewings occur on Sundays or after 6pm. Saturday generates 11.5 times as many viewings as Sunday.
Despite being busy, the most popular viewing periods also experience some of the highest cancellation rates. Approximately 23% of viewings scheduled for 10am on Saturday are cancelled, which Alto states is the highest cancellation rate for any hour of the day. Conversely, 7pm has the lowest cancellation rate at 19%, a figure matched by Sunday's overall cancellation rate.