Online agent Settled has rebranded itself as a digital home buying and conveyancing assistant.
The brand was launched in 2014 by former Google executive Gemma Young but refunded vendors and quit agency work amid the pandemic in May claiming it was repositioning the business.
Young revealed in a LinkedIn post last week that Settled is now setup to help guide home buyers through their transaction with a “Tap-to-Buy” service.
The service covers the conveyancing side of a purchase and provides an expert who can help advise on negotiations with a vendor and guide buyers through the steps they need to take.
Once a buyer has an offer accepted on a property they can sign up for Settled’s service and speak with or email a “Tap-to-Buy” expert.
They are then given an online to-do list and must provide information for the conveyancing side that is provided by law firm Jackson Lees.
Each step can be tracked online with estimates of timings until completion.
Users pay £500 upfront to cover legal, ID and proof of fund checks and searches and for the “Tab-to-Buy” expert.
Another £1,500 must be paid once the sale is guaranteed to proceed at exchange to cover the drafting of contracts and finalisation of any mortgage work.
The £500 is non-refundable if the sale falls-through but clients won’t have to pay again if another purchase materialises.
The £1,500 is not payable if a sale collapses.
Young said: “We have a long way to go to get it to the one-tap utopia we dream of, but we’re well on our way.
“A typical process is way over a hundred disconnected offline steps involving countless hours, emails, phone calls, and a lot of coordination.
“With Tap-to-Buy, we’ve centralised the whole experience taking it from those offline, paper-based steps to under one hundred taps.
“We’ve digitised every single step, so now when a buyer is looking for a home, they’ll have a dedicated Tap-to-Buy expert supporting them from the moment they start viewing to when they get the keys.”
I’m confused (it’s Monday morning) but isn’t this just over priced conveyancing, badged as something else?
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Their transaction data (in terms of % successfully taken from offer to completion as well as the time taken from O to C) was impressive (even if their financials weren’t). This makes total sense- is £2k expensive if the success rate is higher and transaction speed faster? Personally would happily vouch for a more costly but better value product like this. I can think of a lot of agents that would too- if they boosted your success/conversion rate it may be even worth some agents contributing to the fee to make it more attractive to clients on the basis more properties sell and faster too.
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