It’s got to be good news that the consumer press is beginning to jump on the buying/selling bandwagon. Ultimately the only way something changes is if consumers demand it – and, sadly, almost all consumers are ignorant of what remains an esoteric process.
Catherine Baksi’s article in The Times quotes sales [and bear in mind the buying public STILL doesn’t understand the difference between SSTC and exchange, exacerbated by agents still putting SOLD in huge letters on board and subject to contract in tiny letters in a corner] i.e. from agreed to exchange, as taking 65% longer than in 2007, anything from 109-123 days! I’d wager it has more than doubled since I started in agency in the late 70s, ridiculous.
This is untenable for a variety of reasons, not least because tech can now find and make available most documents more or less instantly. Things like Searches and management packs can be ordered in advance.
My rant here is fuelled by the excruciating experience of selling my own home in London last month. I picked a solicitor recommended as I’d been out of the market for a bit, and they performed brilliantly, getting me to answer all enquiry questions and provide Searches up front. I was less than pleased when we sent out a full contract on day one, literally ready to exchange, and the reputable lawyer on the other side was so surprised they assumed we’d had a fallen through sale and, irritatingly, asked the reason why the previous sale had fallen through.
The sale process had the usual chain issues which further highlighted communication difficulties with agents ignoring each other, solicitors stonewalling and a first time buyer at the bottom of the chain who wasn’t using a broker for their mortgage and had a lender who’s excuse for a two week delay in answering one simple question was that they had people on annual leave. Luckily the chain involved only one below our buyer, but it highlighted all that was wrong with our existing processes.
The problem with educating the public is that it costs a fortune in B2C marketing costs, so most suppliers of tech services that might alleviate this are in thrall to agents and conveyancers – many of whom have little incentive to change or educate their clients and applicants.
I recently came across a guy who’s eschewing this approach and is concentrating, successfully I might add, on a B2C strategy of educating and selling Searches to punters interested in taking control of their own process. Enabling punters to buy Searches works on several levels. It’s a start, they need them anyway – they just control when, it shows an agent or conveyancer that they’re committed and have some knowledge of what’s going on and there’s no discernible downside. They even wrap them in a dataroom.
To me, this approach seems to be working and is a good place to start. They’ll probably be along in the comments to talk a bit more, but I applaud the methodology – educating buyers and sellers directly must happen to drive this antiquated process forward.
