Breaking Property News – 21/07/2023
Daily bite-sized proptech and property news in partnership with Proptech-X.
The UK is running out of rental properties
In June 2019, there was 370,000 properties to rent out, now it is only 241,000 – according to 20Ci. Which means there are now a third less properties available to rent, than four-years ago if you use a private landlord. A small percentage of this is due to the fact renters are staying longer in their existing tenancy, typically a year and two-months longer, with an average tenant staying in place for four-years and eight-months.
But it is the much heralded mass exodus of landlords that is compounding the problem, and with less stock comes rising rental prices, putting even more pressure on those who do not own their own home, or rent through a housing association.
Private landlords have in recent years been subjected to numerous regulations that has increased the cost of letting property, SDLT with its extra 3% levy has become an albatross too, but the straw that has broken this particular animals back is the cost of financing or re-financing rental inventory. At present the best rates on a two-year commercial deal stand at close to 7%, with this likely to rise in August if the Bank of England ramps rates by 0.25%.
So just as tenants are being priced out of the market, so too are landlords, the cost of being a landlord, plus the spectre of unfriendly landlord statutes likely, and perhaps a change of government who may bring in other measures favouring tenants, all means that Margaret Thatcher who kicked off the present PRS system has now seen Mr Gove consign the industry to misery for all stakeholders.
4Corners says you need to buy your next home today to get moved in by Christmas
Phil Priest, Director of 4Corners has today said ‘Anyone looking to move into their next home by the 25th of December, will need to have agreed a sale, as on average it takes 23-weeks to move.’
And he points to a number of reasons why that is, including Local authority searches taking a staggering 21 weeks to be turned around in Bolton, and other areas where searches take months rather than weeks to be in the hands of conveyancers who transfer the title of properties.
Local authority searches
Phil Priest goes on to say, ‘What most people moving do not understand, and why would they, is that until the local authority searches are back with a buyer’s solicitor or conveyancer usually the starting gun for doing any work has not been fired’.
Phil goes on to explain that really when a property is bought subject to contract, the buyers solicitor is blind and needs documentation to guide them about the property, and the local authority search is a key place to stumble upon key issues that need to be flagged and resolved. So that if there is a mortgage the lender is happy, and of course the client the buyer is safeguarded on the purchase.
ERES on how Research Institutions and Proptech can better integrate
Last Thursday in my day job as CEO of Proptech-PR ‘A consultancy for Proptech Founders’ I was on a panel hosted at the University College London (UCL) for the 29th ERES Annual Conference. The panel moderated by Björn-Martin Kurzrock, Professor of Real Estate Studies at RPTU, President of ERES, addressed the process of – ‘Translating Research into Business Models and the Proptech Ecosystem.’
On the panel I was lucky enough to have Andrew Knight, Data & Tech Thought Leadership & Analytics, Tech Partner Programme & Data Standards at RICS, Damien D. Nouvel, Associate Professor of Real Estate and Urban Economics, ESPI2R (Research in Real Estate), France and Verena Rock, MRICS, President of the German Society of Property Researchers (gif) / Digital Real Estate Management and PropTech.
Everyone had some deep insights on how academia and the commercial world of Proptechs could better be entwined, and because I think it is very important that the next generation of practitioners in the property technology space gain ‘education’ at the earliest possible point, I set out below my thoughts on the matter.
Have you seen many Proptechs cooperating with Research Institutions?
Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR Notes for ERES UCL panel 13th July 2023
In real terms the answer is not many, and here is why I think that is. In the past seven-years I have met over 800 Proptech founders globally, addressing all the verticals in real estate, which is the plan, build, sale lease and management of property assets via the digital transformation of legacy analogue systems. And we are still very much in the foothills. I have also worked with 112-Proptech founders as clients, with 12 getting to exit. So I have very much a commercial vantage point, rather than having a foundation in a more academic environment.
Back in February I was lucky enough to host the two day conference at the London Proptech Show, where speakers from around the globe gave insights into specific areas of excellence. There were also a number of panels, and I moderated a discussion on ‘Hybrid Offices – workplaces for modern occupiers.
Members of the panel were Benjamin O’Connor Director of New London architecture, Jakob Schultz Executive Advisor to the German Proptech Inniative, Hannah Dwyer EMEA Head of Work Dynamics Research & Strategy JLL and Lewis Martin – who now is Director at LMC Delivering Executive Search & Talent solutions to the climate technology ecosystem.
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