Stoke Newington estate agent Peter May joined TV presenter and property expert Phil Spencer on a podcast about how to speed up the home-buying process.
The presenter from Channel Four’s Location, Location, Location told the Managing Director of Stokey’s Location Location: “All you need is one more Location and then we can be friends!”
According to the latest data from Rightmove, the average time to complete a property transaction has increased from 100 days in 2019 to 150 days in 2022.
Speaking on his latest Mortgage Insider podcast, Phil said: The longer it takes, the more people involved, life happens, and the greater the chances that somebody’s life will change on the way through and the whole thing collapses. Millions if not hundreds of millions of pounds get spent on aborted transactions.
“Why does it take so long and why so much pain when buying a house?”
Peter, who has worked for Location Location on Church Street for over a decade, advocated for every agency to have a dedicated sales progressor. He added: “Typically an agency set up is that the person who agrees on the sale then manages it – that’s very antiquated – asking someone who has something different job description to manage the sale through to completion and fitting it around their viewings, calls and valuations. A dedicated sales progression person or team within a business is a really good thing.”
And he called for more regulation and training for estate agents, adding: “You are handling most people’s biggest transaction in their life. It’s really stressful, emotional and complex at times. There should be a standardisation of training or at least an entry-level exam or qualification to get into the industry.”
Joining the discussion was Suman Dally, Head of conveyancing at Shoosmiths law firm. She called for perspective over conveyancing and said: “This is not a consumer transaction, it’s a legal process.
“The world has evolved and is riddled with complexity.
“Over time, Average timescales have become longer. This is all rather confusing for everybody now because technology has been our saviour and brought through so much time-saving.”
But she painted a picture of sales being slowed down by title registers being so old they don’t make sense in the modern world, a failure by lenders to agree on one lending criteria, complex stamp duty with variable rates, the emergence of shared ownerships and involvement of trusts and a need to protect against cyber-crime.
She added: “All these little things over the course of many years have built up and built up and everything is taking longer and there is more to do.”
Gaining some commitment from buyers and sellers, said Peter, at the point that the offer is agreed upon, would benefit everyone and help reduce sales collapsing. He added: “This could be by way of a mutual deposit to lock in the sale.”
