BREAKING NEWS – top 5 stories 23/04/2021
PROPERTYMARK TO GAIN INSIGHT FROM PROPTECH COMPANIES
Mark Hayward, ex CEO and now Chief Policy Advisor for Propertymark, is to talk to five of the seven Proptech companies in the REACH UK accelerator. This can be nothing but a good thing, as definitely the world is now digital and it is time that real estate the bastion of legacy systems and analogue realises it needs to service digital natives, who want instant UX.
With my other hat on I must admit to being a mentor for REACH UK, and with another hat on I have to declare an interest, as at least one client who is in the programme happens to be a client of mine, at Proptech-PR.
But the message I would like to convey as an analogue agent of more than 30 years in a previous life, is Countrywide Plc failed because it became a dinosaur, digital is the best way to de-risk any business that touches the asset class of property. Closed minds equals closed doors.
MOOVSHACK AND CENTURY 21 UK TIE UP IN WHITE LABEL COLLABORATION
Mick Silver CEO and Founder of Moovshack, a platform-based App, has announced a tie up with the UK arm of the global property group Century 21. Which means that these agents, and their clients will have access to this all singing all dancing property connector.
Mick Silver’s Moovshack, is a next generation property platform/App where the consumer and the agent and other stakeholders can do business together in one place, originated some years before the trend of UX for the consumer became trendy. Many other tech companies in 2021 are now ‘pivoting’ towards interactive ways to do business with the ‘digital native’ public. But, Moovshack already owns this space, and C21 in the UK have done extremely well to seize on this opportunity.
For the longest time agents have seen property portals as the display cabinet for their inventory, and their CRM’s as their toolkit. Moovshack realised that the public though, going on a portal only to see what they want to buy or rent and then having to jump off the site, hoping the agent engaged, is a broken process.
Moovshack is the modern solution, an App where you can view all the properties, whichever portal they are listed on, and stay in that space and directly transact things with agents, rather than hoping the agent picks up on the portal lead.
And as you progress through the transaction Moovshack is where you go to see where you are on the route map, together with the other stakeholders. In a property world of miscommunication and indifference, Moovshack provides transparency and insight at pace.
Again – I must admit that Moovshack is a client, but in no way does this detract from significance of this venture, as the digital empowerment of real estate is very much front of mind at present for all in the industry.
FOXTONS WILL PAY THEIR CEO HIS £1M PAYCHECK
Despite some shareholders dissent, Nic Budden CEO will get, what is in effect a £1m pay check, even though Foxtons are sitting on government backed funding due to Covid.
SEQUENCE NEW HOMES DIVISION AND SPRING DO DEAL
Sequence a sister company to Connells (Countrywide) all owned by the Skipton building society, has done a deal with Spring who are a quick property purchase facilitator with a multi-million- pound level of funding.
This will let Sequence be in the position where it can help out national homebuilders and developers by having an extra avenue to ‘capitalise’ inventory that they would normally be sitting on during a typical part exchange scenario.
WILL RENTERS REFORM BE A PLANK IN THE QUEENS SPEECH IN MAY
In a little over a fortnight the Queen will outline the policies moving froward that the government will be looking to explore and execute. Within this the phasing out of Section 21 provisions has been widely flagged, though it is not a done deal, may be front and centre.
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