Property experts have joined forces to call for more to be done to speed up the property transaction process.
It is generally felt that the Private Treaty process would benefit by providing upfront information for buyers and sellers.
Ben Ridgway, managing director at iamproperty, which launched the end-to-end platform, iamproperty movebutler earlier this year, commented: “Combating high fall-through rates should always be high on the agenda, and whilst the SDLT holiday gave the property sector a much needed boost, I wonder at what cost for buyers who were delayed in the process and pushing through sales in the last run.
“For such a significant drop, from almost a third of sales to just one in ten, with little else than pressure to explain this, compromises have likely been made by the buyer to get to completion ahead of deadlines.
“When under pressure, it’s hard to make informed decisions. As an industry there has been a growing issue with the collation of material facts and creating a full and informed picture for the buyer has not been as easy as it should be. Add on top of that a strict deadline and low stock, and buyers could have made decisions without enough consideration.”
Ridgway generally believes that there is a major opportunity to address these processes now that the stamp duty holiday is over.
He added: “If there’s to be a lull in the market, it’s time to use it to the sector’s advantage and for agents to embed processes that address issues at their source and improve the moving experience for everyone involved, including the collection of robust material facts, without increasing the administrative burden.
“I believe the only way that this can be done is for the sector to modernise, collaborate and embrace tech-led solutions which ensure efficiency and transparency at every stage of the transaction. We created iamproperty movebutler to solve these problems and drive real change for the sector.”
The high volume of sales that the property industry has witnessed over this last year have amplified some of the key fragilities within the sector, according to Phil Natusch, managing director at mio.
He said: “The high volume of sales that we’ve seen over this last year have amplified some of the key fragilities within the sector. Yes, the sector moved quickly, house prices increased, and agents enjoyed a strong performance period, but completion times rose to 17.6 weeks in September alone, which creates a really drawn out and frustrating process for the buyer and seller.
“The infrastructure that supports the conveyancing sector created a bottle neck and delays with the collection of material information exposed antiquated processes. Seeing more adoption of PropTech and agency digital transformation is really encouraging, but we need to go further to keep innovating, streamlining, and simplifying the processes.”
Conveyancing expert, Beth Rudolf said: “Buyers are not only contending with finding themselves saddled with the aftermath of inflated prices, but they may have also accepted issues with properties which they might not have had the process not taken as long or more information had been available from day one.
“With the SDLT pressure, the formerly non-negotiables which often cause a buyer to pull out, may have been accepted in case the buyer could not find another property before the SDLT deadline. Buyers deserve to be able to have the full picture to make informed decisions and conveyancers work extremely hard to create that picture, it’s the process that lets everyone down and causes huge delays.
“More emphasis needs to be placed on the collection of material facts from the start, so that buyers are able to make an informed decision about whether to proceed and agents are able to find the right buyer for that property.”
Comments (2)
Look … I don’t want to take anything away from these industry experts.
However.
With this beating drum for upfront information slowing fading into the irrelevant pile, I think the question needs to be asked.
What deals fall apart due to information coming available that should have been made available at the start.
Obviously with all this effort having been put in over the years into property log books and those BASPI forms … I’d love to see what problems these solve.
I feel an article coming on ….
I’m not so sure you would ‘love’ to see the problem upfront information (BASPI etc), log books and pro-forma searches solve. Acknowledging what the problem is is potentially a route to a paradigm shift in the way things are done and that change could have a significant effect on revenues, referral fee and employment.
There is no fighting CPR- material information, that has been law for 12 years. Agents are required to provide information that influences a consumers decision to view and buy property. A lot of that information is currently not made available till after the memorandum is sent out, searches applied for & returned and clarification is eventually sought from the seller.
Collating all of that information earlier in the process, as legislation dictates, has implications for all the stakeholders. It either means conveyancers are engaged earlier in the process or agents take on a some of the work currently done by the conveyancer.
Innovative agents are driving this change already. They are seeing the benefits of having listings more ready for sale and vendors demonstrably more committed to sell.
Vendor uncertainty, people who simply change their mind and decide not to sell after an agent has listed and marketed a property, conducted viewings, negotiated a sale and got the buyer heart set on a home is probably the main problem all this effort addresses. the fact a vendor can change their mind right up to exchange of contracts without penalty and very little cost (issuing a contract) is problem that needs resolving most.
When 60 or 70 stakeholders sit and listen to changes that are being driven from a level above it’s a sign change is happening and already being adopted. The industry is already beyond the early stages of change management and because the benefits are demonstrable change will likely continue.