BREAKING PROPERTY NEWS – 03/11/2021
Daily bite-sized proptech and property news in partnership with Proptech-X.
- Propflo property platform is open for business
- Rightmove market analysis for October points to a positive one
- Build to Rent demand is growing says Foxtons
Propflo property platform is open for business
Propflo, a Bristol-based proptech start-up, today announced that it is open to consumers and property professionals for pre-registration, bringing a new approach to trust and transparency when buying or selling residential property.
Powered by machine learning, Propflo was founded by entrepreneur Luke Loveridge and geospatial data scientist Dr Daniel Moyo.
The business has a strong advisory team including industry expert Verona Frankish, who has worked at the Mortgage Advice Bureau as head of business development.
The platform itself features a dynamic property scoring system, as well as support to get buyers and sellers prepared. Propflo also enables professionals to have more meaningful interactions, allowing buyers and sellers to see key information when searching through property portals.
Luke Loveridge, founder of Propflo said: “There are over 225,000 property fall-throughs per year in the UK costing over £600m; and I’ve been one of those! Our research shows that some of the main reasons for these failures is people not having key information earlier on in the process and both buyers and sellers not being prepared enough.
“I’m also shocked by our research showing that most people rank sustainability, including energy efficiency, last when searching for a new home. There are transparency and sustainability awareness issues we need to address. Our mission at Propflo is to empower people to make the best and most sustainable decisions when buying or selling their home.”
Other features of the Propflo platform include a sustainability investment checker, so users can see how much work is needed to improve energy efficiency and what the financial return is, and also Improve My Score, a feature where strengths and weaknesses on the property and your readiness are highlighted and recommendations are given on how to improve them.
After pre-registering, the platform will be available to consumers and property professionals in 2022. Click here to pre-register.
Rightmove market analysis for October points to a positive one
Every month, Rightmove lists the largest amount of inventory after a rundown of the activity in the previous month in a report. This, as expected, happened in October, and this time it seems that a lack of property on the market is keeping prices buoyant.
“The price of property coming to market has surged past last month’s record and jumped by an average of 1.8% (+£5,983) this month. This is the highest percentage monthly rise at this time of year since October 2015. In addition, this is the first time since March 2007 that Rightmove has recorded a ‘full house’, with all market sectors and all regions of Great Britain having hit new record price highs in the same month”
Rightmove’s Director of Property Data, Tim Bannister said:
“Competition for property for sale remains hot this autumn, with average prices jumping by almost £6,000 in the month. Although more properties are coming to market, the level is still not enough to replenish the stock that’s being snapped up.
“Consequently, new price records have been set across the board, with every region of Great Britain and all of the three market sectors of first-time buyer, second-stepper and top of the ladder hitting all-time highs. This ‘full house’ is an extremely rare event, happening for the first time since March 2007.
“The stock shortages started after the first lockdown, and they look set to continue with the underlying housing market fundamentals remaining strong, and an additional incentive to buy and fix your mortgage interest rate before a widely expected rate rise.
“This high level of demand is stalling a recovery in the depleted available stock for sale despite a continuing upward trend in properties coming to market. The latest weekly snapshot shows that the number of new sellers coming to market is still marginally down on the same period in 2019, but only by 3.2% as opposed to 9.3% for the period as a whole.
“Estate agents report that owners who are motivated to move are putting their property on the market before they have set their heart on an onward purchase, and once they have sold their own subject to contract their new status as a ‘power buyer’ helps them to secure a suitable property when it comes on the market.
“2021 has been the year of the power buyer, with those in the most powerful position to proceed quickly and with most certainty ruling the roost over other buyers who have to sell but have yet to come to market.”
Build to Rent demand is growing says Foxtons
Sarah Tonkinson, the head of Foxton’s Build to Rent arm, kicked off their latest quarterly London Lettings Report with a bold statement.
Tonkinson said: “There’s a rental revolution happening here in London and across the wider UK, and it’s called Build to Rent (BTR)”
For Foxtons, that may indeed be the case. It says that 8% of its long-lets in 2021 were BTR developments, up from 2.2% just four years ago.
However, the truth is that BTR makes up just 1% of the private rental market in the UK, so it’s not exactly a precious commodity just yet with renters feeling the pinch.
BTR carries a premium mainly because the buildings are new, plus the developers build around the idea of community. It is often seen as a distinctly American approach, but it’s also very popular in Holland and Germany.
Now it looks as though the Foxtons of this world are starting to amp it up this side of the pond, with keen-eyed developers looking to get a piece of the pie, too – one that is an $80 billion market stateside.
If you have a view – please let us all know by emailing me at editor@stagingsite.estateagentnetworking.co.uk – Andrew Stanton Executive Editor – moving property and proptech forward.
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