As fall-through rates plummeted to a record low of 11 per cent to coincide with the end of the Stamp Duty Holiday, a number of sector experts have warned that buyers could pay the price for pressing ahead with last-minute completions due to time pressure.
They urge that more is done to adopt tech-led solutions which streamline the Private Treaty process to give more material information upfront.
Ben Ridgway, Managing Director at iamproperty, comments: “Combating high fall-through rates should always be high on the agenda, and whilst the SDLT holiday gave the property sector a much-needed boost, I wonder at what cost for buyers who were delayed in the process and pushing through sales in the last run. For such a significant drop, from almost a third of sales to just one in ten, with little else than pressure to explain this, compromises have likely been made by the buyer to get to completion ahead of deadlines.
“When under pressure, it’s hard to make informed decisions. As an industry there has been a growing issue with the collation of material facts and creating a full and informed picture for the buyer has not been as easy as it should be. Add on top of that a strict deadline and low stock, and buyers could have made decisions without enough consideration”.
Phil Natusch, Managing Director at mio said: “The high volume of sales that we’ve seen over this last year have amplified some of the key fragilities within the sector. Yes, the sector moved quickly, house prices increased, and agents enjoyed a strong performance period, but completion times rose to 17.6 weeks in September alone, which creates a really drawn out and frustrating process for the buyer and seller. The infrastructure that supports the conveyancing sector created a bottleneck and delays with the collection of material information exposed antiquated processes. Seeing more adoption of PropTech and agency digital transformation is really encouraging, but we need to go further to keep innovating, streamlining, and simplifying the processes.
Beth Rudolf, conveyancing expert, said: “Buyers are not only contending with finding themselves saddled with the aftermath of inflated prices, but they may have also accepted issues with properties which they might not have had the process not taken as long or more information had been available from day one. With the SDLT pressure, the formerly non-negotiables which often cause a buyer to pull out may have been accepted in case the buyer could not find another property before the SDLT deadline. Buyers deserve to be able to have the full picture to make informed decisions and conveyancers work extremely hard to create that picture, it’s the process that lets everyone down and causes huge delays. More emphasis needs to be placed on the collection of material facts from the start so that buyers are able to make an informed decision about whether to proceed and agents are able to find the right buyer for that property.”
Ben concluded: “There is a big opportunity to address these processes now that the SDLT holiday is over. If there’s to be a lull in the market, it’s time to use it to the sector’s advantage and for agents to embed processes that address issues at their source and improve the moving experience for everyone involved, including the collection of robust material facts, without increasing the administrative burden. I believe the only way that this can be done is for the sector to modernise, collaborate and embrace tech-led solutions which ensure efficiency and transparency at every stage of the transaction. We created iamproperty movebutler to solve these problems and drive real change for the sector”.
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