Breaking Property News 11/02/25
Daily bite-sized proptech and property news in partnership with Proptech-X.
‘Tired of how long it takes to buy a home? We’re modernising the process to save you time and money – Ministry of Housing, Communities and local Government’
If I had to do a specialist topic on mastermind it would be the journey from agreeing a sale, to getting that sstc to exchange. Labour once again has seized upon a populist topic and now will definitely do absolutely zero to execute it. Much like Deputy PM Ange who instead of talking to those in the know announced 300K of new homes a year for the lifetime of this Labour government (I doubt they will get a second term).
So here are some pointers, since 1985 I have been acutely interested in getting properties to exchange, first as a negotiator and then later as the owner of an agency I knew that until a sale was exchanged, I had earnt no money. So, of all stakeholders, I considered myself to be one of the most invested.
And this is point one – STAKEHOLDERS – every sale has lot of them, the selling agent/buyers/sellers/two sets of conveyancers/mortgage broker/mortgage lender/surveyor/insurance company/specialist report companies qualifying problems arising from enquiries or surveys, the list goes on, add maybe another three 3 sales to the chain and you have 50 ‘people’ involved. No wonder things take so long.
Point two – THE FIGURES DO NOT ADD UP – AS 1.2 MILLION PROPERTIES EXCHANGE ANNUALLY – despite a growing population, and more and more houses being built, say 190,000 a year for the past decade, the actual number of homes sold stays statice? In fact, in 1988, two-million properties were sold in one year (another Chancellor tinkering with property taxation) and the world was pre-digital, and the population was 57M. So why in 2024, with an extra seven million new homes having been built, and the population growing by thirteen million, do we have a decade of 1.2M exchanges each and every year? (As an average). Interestingly estate agents only account for 900K of the 1.2M exchanges a year, the others are sold without an agent
Point three – NO-ONE IS DRIVING THE BUS – a vendor may start as the client of an estate agent, but they then become the client of the mortgage broker/lender/surveyor and the client of the conveyancer/solicitor, with the conveyancer/solicitor having the whip hand as they are actually overseeing the transfer of title, and really are working for the lender, because the lender sues them if they get it wrong. Now this power vacuum with no ‘top’ person running the show – going back to our chain of four sales and 50 people, becomes a traffic jam of data, vested interests and often a dark hole where people in key positions of power are often not as on the ball or qualified as they should be.
Point four – THE BRAIN AND EXPERIENCE DRAIN – recently I bought for cash a vacant freehold property which was not in mortgage and had no issues, I did have searches but no survey, it took five weeks to get to exchange. And two days before exchanging my conveyancer told the other side I could not buy the property due to a problem; she then told me. I was livid, spoke to a senior partner and we exchanged two days later. On the other side of the matter was an equally inexperienced conveyancer. I find also that many surveyors lack the key insight, and skill sets that those longer in the game have, which makes for surveys which have so many caveats that they are more like a minefield than useful to an underwriter or a buyer.
Point five – LUDDITES – in all the stakeholder camps there are an awful lot of stale, pale male decision makers, blocking the digital transformation of the exchange process, their grandchildren are Gen-A, and will be 18 in 4 years, that is when the real change will begin, as they will not accept if Amazon can deliver in a smiling carboard box some designer roller skates the same day, you have to wait 28 weeks to move into your first home.
As to what Labour will add to the moving process, given the Renters’ Act will destroy the PRS and drive rents higher and make it impossible for some to even get a tenancy, my hope is they do absolutely – NOTHING – for the next four and a half years until they actually understand the realities of what an overhaul of the system would entail, maybe start with as new property Act, the last one came out exactly a century ago in 1925.
Andrew Stanton Executive Editor – moving property and proptech forward. PropTech-X
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