Property Industry Can Improve If We Listen To Fresh Voices

If brokers were hoping for a quiet start to 2022, then they will have been in for a rude awakening.

From the conversations I’ve had with brokers, business is as busy as ever, with significant numbers of clients approaching them in the hope of moving to a home that better meets their needs this year.

I want to move - I just don’t like doing it

The activity levels of the last couple of years have been extraordinary, and while some have been quick to point the finger at the encouraging impact of the stamp duty holiday, the reality is rather different. While that particular tax perk obviously encouraged plenty of people to push forward with a move, even now, months after it finished, interest from buyers and sellers alike remains high.

Rightmove for example has just reported its busiest every January, with buyer demand not only up by 16% on last January but by 24% on January 2020, before Covid reached our shores. Encouragingly, this has been accompanied by a rise in listings too, with the number of potential sellers contacting estate agents for valuations up by 27% on last year.

There is a clear message there - normal people want to get on with moving house. This is all the more notable given how many of them know that they will not enjoy the process, with buying and selling a home still pinpointed as one of the most stressful events you ever go through.

Surely we can find ways to improve the process so that people don’t end up proceeding with sales in spite of how miserable the experience will be?

Getting industry insight

Unfortunately, the prospects of making progress in improving the way our industry operates is all too often held back by the way that the authorities engage with us.

It seems like whenever the Government holds a consultation with the property industry, it only ever speaks with the exact same trade bodies and organisations as previous industry studies. Progress is always going to be difficult if the authorities only ever speak to the same old names, so it’s not hugely surprising that they are lacking when it comes to fresh ideas. In some cases, this is deliberate - there are some who are only too happy for the property market to continue in its current state, as they benefit from it. For others, the lack of fresh ideas isn’t intentional, it’s simply that they cannot see beyond the status quo.

Yet this blinkered approach does everyone a disservice. Those of us working in the industry end up getting ever more frustrated by a plodding process that has failed to move with the times, while our customers continue to find the prospect of a home move daunting because they know it will take a mystifyingly long time.

We can also see how damaging this approach is in practice. Look at the farcical and long-winded way that the Government has addressed the cladding issue afflicting high rise buildings.

For years now we have known that high rise buildings across the country still have this dangerous cladding in place, yet actually tackling that problem has taken far too long. Last year we had the Government announcing that some of these costs would have to be borne by the leaseholders, a situation that was always difficult to justify, only for this idea to be pulled recently.

The cladding furore has also left thousands of property owners unable to switch mortgage deals due to questions over the potential presence of cladding, leaving them unable to move house or even remortgage, trapping them on potentially costly deals with no real end in sight.

It’s not only a deeply troubling state of affairs, it was also completely avoidable.

It doesn’t have to be like this

As they currently work, industry consultations are usually little more than a missed opportunity. Yet they do not have to be.

If the government invited disruptors around the table and picked the brains of businesses who are trying to do things differently in order to deliver a better experience, then we could see real progress.

We pride ourselves on being forward-thinking at eConveyancer, having embraced new ways of supporting brokers, conveyancers and clients on property deals. Investing in our DigitalMove platform, which brings all of the stakeholders together, is a perfect example - it improves communication, reduces the chances of brokers having to take calls from stressed and underinformed clients, and helps cases complete far quicker.

That sort of innovation comes from speaking to brokers, getting to grips with how things can work better and then taking decisive action.

If the Government took a similar approach to the industry as a whole, speaking to a broader base of people and then acting on their feedback, then we could see tangible and lasting improvements for everyone involved.

Karen Rodrigues, Director of Sales, eConveyancer