BREAKING NEWS – top 5 stories 01/07/2021

Estate Agent Networking Breaking News

Daily bite-sized proptech and real estate news in partnership with Proptech-X. Today, Stanton looks at Rightmove, Virtual Reality, Freeths, and more.

 

  • Rightmove analysis shows 1.3 million benefited from SDLT holiday
  • Is Virtual Reality becoming the homebuyer’s best friend?
  • Propertymark ratifies its two new Presidents
  • Freeths annual survey throws light on tech use in Real Estate
  • Chris Whitty’s assailant was an estate agent

 

Rightmove analysis shows 1.3 million benefited from SDLT holiday

In recent research just announced by Rightmove, a huge swathe of buyers have had some if not all of their stamp duty offset by the Chancellor’s initiative when buying a primary property. Rightmove also points out that in the last year house prices have moved skyward, increasing by over £15,000 on average. It begs the question, is huge house inflation during a pandemic a sign that the Chancellor missed the mark? An overheating market causes many problems.

 

Is Virtual Reality becoming the homebuyer’s best friend?

Perhaps sped up by the pandemic, 27% of buyers would feel comfortable experiencing their next home for the first time through the use of Virtual Reality, a study has just shown.

As Strutt & Parker have documented previously, “Virtual Reality, or VR, is an artificial, computer-generated environment that you experience as if you were inside the image. By encompassing your field of vision, and being responsive to movement, wearing a VR headset tricks your brain into thinking you’re in a completely different place. Basic virtual reality headsets have been around for a while, but with the technology improving in leaps and bounds, the applications for its use are increasing … all from the comfort of your own home.”

Investment in VR and ‘gamification’ for tech natives has increased by 320% in the past 18 months, with a raft of proptech companies looking to build and offer the definitive solution.

 

Propertymark ratifies its two new Presidents

It’s that time again… the rotation of Presidents at Propertymark. For the NAEA side, we have Liana Loporto-Brown moving into the post, and on the ARLA side of things, we have Maxine Fothergill.

Interim CEO Nathan Emerson said that the c-suite team and the board are “looking forward to working with both Maxine and Liana in order to drive Propertymark further forward.”

 

Freeths annual survey throws light on tech use in Real Estate

Freeths, a legal services company extremely switched on to the application of tech, annually look into how tech is expanding within UK Real Estate. It recently stated that during lockdown the biggest winners were video conferencing, specifically the huge uptick in Microsoft Teams and Zoom. The biggest takeaway was that over 70% of those asked said that, moving forward, having meetings in this way rather than face to face would be the norm.

 

Chris Whitty’s assailant was an estate agent

After the news broke that Chris Whitty was manhandled whilst out in the park in London, many chalked it up to a couple of drunken yobs enjoying the sun. It’s now come to light that one of the persons involved in the manhandling was an estate agent based in Essex.

Apparently, Lewis Hughes, who has since lost his estate agent job, protests that he was just taking a selfie, and was not in any way wanting to cause distress when he made contact with Mr Whitty.

Andrew Stanton

CEO & Founder Proptech-PR. Proptech Real Estate Influencer, Executive Editor of Estate Agent Networking. Leading PR consultancy in Proptech & Real Estate.

You May Also Enjoy

Breaking News

UK monthly property transactions for May 2025

Headline statistics from the latest transactions data include: the provisional seasonally adjusted estimate of the number of UK residential transactions in May 2025 is 81,470, 12% lower than May 2024 and 25% higher than April 2025 the provisional non-seasonally adjusted estimate of the number of UK residential transactions in May 2025 is 80,530, 13% lower than May 2024 and…
Read More
Breaking News

Construction Skills Mission Board (CSMB) shows the Government has a plan

The Construction Skills Mission Board (CSMB) held its first board meeting today (26 June 2025), where it set out a roadmap for recruiting 100,000 more construction workers a year by the end of Parliament. Richard Beresford, Chief Executive of the National Federation of Builders (NFB), said: “The Construction Skills Mission Board (CSMB) is a recognition…
Read More
Paint Stripper Tools
Estate Agent Talk

5 Strategies to Optimise Your Warehouse for Real Estate

The term fixer-upper can mean many things, from ‘slap some paint on the walls and it looks brand new’ to ‘will this building collapse if we open the front door?’ Indeed, in the dicey world of commercial property acquisition, each warehouse you buy will probably fall into both camps. Thinking about the viability of warehouses…
Read More
Breaking News

HMOs sell for up to 50% above market average

New research from Excellion Capital, the boutique debt advisory and investment firm, reveals that HMOs sell for as much as 50% above the average house price, further increasing their investment potential after it was revealed that HMOs also create rental yields of up to 12.5%. After previous research from Excellion Capital recently showed that the…
Read More
Breaking News

UK buyers struggle while 50,000 homes sit empty

As the UK housing crisis deepens, new analysis by Open Property Group exposes a worrying surge in so-called “zombie homes”- properties that sit unoccupied and deteriorating while millions struggle to access affordable housing. Key insights: 50,000+ long-term vacant homes in England alone 23,000+ of these have been empty for more than two years Estimated £13.6…
Read More
Breaking News

Breaking Property News 26/06/25

Daily bite-sized proptech and property news in partnership with Proptech-X.   The UK is Europe’s second most distressed market despite headline GDP growth Retail and Consumers Goods has emerged as the most distressed sector in Europe, with distress levels now the highest since the global financial crisis, according to the latest Weil European Distress Index (WEDI). The…
Read More