When you look at our industry, one thing that strikes me is that when the chips are down, we really do work together and pull off miracles.
I say this because I had reason to review the residential transaction completions data for 2020 and 2021 the other day. And, if you cast your memory back to those two years, we all achieved the impossible even when the odds were incredibly stacked against us. Contrary to every expectation our industry held when we all went into the first lockdown in March 2020 - which seems like another world ago now - thanks to the Stamp Duty giveaway and the resulting ‘race for space’, overnight estate agents, conveyancers, surveyors and mortgage brokers went from ‘how are we going to pay the bills next month’ to ‘how on earth are we going to get all these deals through next month’. The figures speak for themselves; depite all the prevailing headwinds over 1million residential properties were sold in 2020 and 1.48million in 2021. Don’t forget, on top of that many businesses were getting to grips with this WFH thing at the same time which arguably, gave the proptech sector a chance to become really useful, rather than mildly interesting. And I say that as the CEO of a proptech.
But it wasn’t just new-fangled platforms that made the difference over that period (although I’d like to think we helped, obviously!) it was the fact that as an industry, everyone worked together to get through it all. Estate agents did all they could to provide mortgage advisers with the information they needed for remote valuations. Conveyancers moved mountains to access files and obtain information to keep chains intact, while Surveyors did all they could once safety guidance had been issued for physical visits to properties. And somehow, we collectively won. It wasn’t pretty in some cases, but still we succeeded and millions of people across those two hugely difficult years still moved home.
It was over that particular period that, when I think about it, the business case for our Sprift shared dashboards really wrote itself. With the requirement for all property professionals involved in a transaction to have access to property information as soon as possible in a remote environment, we saw the usage of our shared dashboards soar. For those of you who perhaps aren’t familiar, the Sprift platform generates a unique dashboard for every residential property in the UK, all 30.1 million of them in fact. Each of those dashboards contain up to 300 data points on that property, including flood risk, planning data, radon levels, broadband and mobile coverage and possible blight or risk factors, which once generated can then be shared instantly with anyone by email, meaning that the transfer of information from the estate agent to the mortgage broker, surveyor and conveyancer working on the transaction is seamless. All of a sudden, everyone is looking at the same information, including the comparables, at the same time.
The interesting thing was, I had thought that post-Covid, when things went back to normal, or at least a ‘new normal’, that there would be a cohort of property professionals who would decide that, while the experiment with proptech had helped when they’d needed it to, the move to technology on a permanent basis wasn’t for them and that they wouldn’t adopt it going forwards. If I’m honest, I steeled myself for our subscriptions to perhaps drop off as a consequence.
How wrong I was.
What we’ve seen over the last two years proves that, contrary to my fears, our user base is growing significantly on a monthly basis, not just with more estate agents joining the party but surveyors, conveyancers, mortgage brokers and lenders are getting in on the act too. And guess what? Many of them use the shared dashboard facility, thousands every month in fact, because the numbers are only snowballing as more of them realise the benefits.
It makes sense though, right? Because, from an agent’s perspective, by sharing all of that information with the mortgage broker and conveyancers acting on behalf of the buyer as soon as possible, you’ve then helped yourself mitigate any chance of a down valuation by their lender and given the lawyer working for them a head start from the moment they open the file. All of which contributes towards an earlier completion date, which is great for agents on two levels; firstly, because as we all know, time kills deals and secondly, your balance sheet will thank you as those completions mean your deal commission hits your bank account sooner, helping your cashflow.
Just as the agents who were using Sprift in 2020 and 2021 soon realised, providing information to everyone involved upfront just makes sense. Yes, now Material Information regulations impress upon us all that we have to do this anyway, but I’d suggest as a business owner the point is more ‘why wouldn’t you do this?’ given the benefits, not just to your own business but to those that you count on as partners, such as your fab FS provider or that great conveyancing firm you refer to, that you know will help you to get your deals across the line. Which is why I say sharing property information really is caring. Both in terms of the positive impact on your own bottom line, but also on those companies that you work with and rely on, day in and day out.
