Breaking Property News – 24/05/2023
Daily bite-sized proptech and property news in partnership with Proptech-X.
Labour set to abolish Leasehold Property in first 100 days
Lisa Nandy who does not strike as a person with a full grasp of her housing brief, has decided that if in power Labour will abolish Leasehold property. This may be a populist move that will get voters on her side, but maybe she needs to think this through.
Just as many want there to be reforms in the rental sector, with landlords at present being pilloried, Scotland imposing rent caps, and the rights of tenants being paramount, it now turns out that onward investment in the build to rent sector in Scotland has stopped in its tracks, and landlords are exiting the marketplace.
The result there will be fewer properties for tenants, which means – higher rents, so the unintentional outcome of a poorly thought out policy.
When I state that Nandy the Shadow Housing secretary seems light on oversight in the housing sector, despite her history in that sector, I am not being politically biased, I just note that on every outing in front of a camera in panel debates like Question time, she is scant on detail and just plugs the usual party line, the poor are getting a bad deal and we can fix this.
So my worry is that if in power will her lack of knowledge impinge on the workings of the residential housing market in the UK, I think so. In contrast Gove, the great leveller has in his time in office seen planning for new homes at an all-time low, the ability to get consent for new building projects at local government level grind to a halt, due to shortage of staffing and archaic and long winded procedural red tape, not to mention the political Nibbyism growing as Gove eyes a General election.
To state as Lisa Tandy has that in the first 100-days Leasehold will be revoked is just laughable, I mean even if there was a grounds well to make such a move, who will implement this change? As we see many in the legal profession who specialise in these matters leaving the industry. The second problem is that Labour will not in some way be giving freedom to those who have Leasehold properties or land with leasehold restrictions, she will be replacing one structure with another commonhold.
And who is paying for this? The government, the taxpayer of the end user, the squeezed economically deprived sector who Labour seem to feel they are looking after. Given the amount of landlords in parliament, and being involved with a number of sub-committees over the years I can assure you that their personal interest probably trumps all, and I do not see many in the House of Lords wanting to give sign off, if indeed a bill were to get this far.
I totally get that housing, is in a mess, maybe 1.3M people are in acute need of it, but as of today there are over 18-million vacant bedrooms in the UK, maybe utilising software and a soft approach to incentivise stakeholders could help sort this problem out. Instead of headline grabbing rhetoric which will end up as yesterday’s big idea that failed to launch.
IAMPROPERTY hosts Tech Talk – How Agents can best use data
Estate Agents are invited to the second in a series of Tech Talks this month, where they’ll learn about the power of using data to their advantage to help accelerate business success.
Hosted by iamproperty, ‘How to use data to accelerate your success’ offers those in the industry the opportunity to hear more about how harnessing the power of numbers in the form of relevant data is key to growth.
The free Tech Talk is now live on iamproperty.com and is hosted by Michele Gettins, CMO at iamproperty, and Natasha McDonough, CEO at MMC Research. Michele discusses how iamproperty uses data to feed into its continuous innovation and stay on the pulse of what consumers are looking for, to best support its Partner Agents. Natasha explains how Estate Agents can conduct their own research and data gathering, especially in the current marketplace.
The duo also offer expert insight on practical areas such as how often agents should be updating their data on customers, as well as answering some of agents’ most asked questions around data.
Natasha said: “Data is a powerful tool and understanding how to use reliable and relevant data to our advantage is key to achieving success. In Estate Agency, data gathering is a really interesting piece of work that could be done by anybody in the office. Once you have data at your fingertips, you can start to action change through the business, to cater to what consumers are looking for from your service, giving you an edge over competitors. If you really understand consumers’ views and perceptions, it empowers your team to make small adjustments in their day-to-day job, based on what consumers actually want and are telling you.”
This is the second in a series of Tech Talks hosted by iamproperty this month, expanding on the most talked about articles and bringing people in the industry together to find out more about the topics which are impacting the sector.
Ben Ridgway, Co-Founder of iamproperty, added: “This is the second of two highly relevant discussions as part of our Tech Talk series. By tapping into both Michele and Natasha’s collective expertise, we hope attendees leave with a better understanding of how they can successfully acquire and use data within their business to become more informed, allowing them to make considered decisions to support customer success and growth. In a competitive industry like Estate Agency, it’s really worth it.”
If you have a view – please let us all know by emailing me at editor@estateagentnetworking.co.uk – Andrew Stanton Executive Editor – moving property and proptech forward. PropTech-X
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