Both agents and their customers often describe the time between exchange of contracts and completion as a ‘black hole’ where time, communication and progress vanish.

But it’s no joke. Chasing down lenders, solicitors, local authority clerks and sometimes planners can be a hard slog.

“For me it’s almost certainly the most difficult part of estate agency,” says Douglas Stirling-Kibble of internet-only Hampshire-based agent SK Property Group. “And recently, it has become even tighter. People are a still apprehensive about signing on the dotted line and sceptical about whether they are doing the right thing, particularly first time buyers and investors – and this is holding up the process even more.”

Help is at hand, though. The internet, coupled with smart software, is beginning to enable agents and their clients to understand more clearly (and even control) how a property sale is progressing.

Two of the most recent examples include two very different companies each claiming to have a tech solution that will aid sales progression.

CONVEYANCING ON THE GO

The first is a new Android and iOS app launched by the conveyancing firm MyHomeMove. It notifies buyers and sellers via their smartphones when events take place during the conveyancing process. These range from being asked to read and approve documents to updates about activity and progress.

Our clients say they love the app as they can access their documents anytime but equally they value being able to speak to their conveyancer. Mark Montgomery, MyHomeMove.

“What it’s also got is a ‘latest activity’ screen that logs all our lawyers’ actions within the system, such as calls made to estate agents or other lawyers,” says Mark Montgomery, Director of Customer Strategy and Marketing at MyHomeMove.

“So if a client is waiting to hear when we’ve contacted the other side’s lawyer then as soon as we do that it shows as a red ‘update’ within the app, including what’s been done and the date it took place.

“Our experience so far is that this reduces the number of unnecessary calls either to us or to estate agents from clients because it adds an extra layer of visibility.”

Agents will be familiar with the platform behind the app – eWay – as many already use a B2B version which enables them to keep tabs on the conveyancing progress.

“After logging on, agents only see a certain level of activity – they can’t view information that’s confidential to their client, for example – but crucially it does enable them to see their portfolio of clients’ cases and what’s happened to them since they last looked.”

Mark believes the take-up of technology and therefore the appetite among home movers for digital conveyancing will continue to grow, but that it’s not the only answer.

“There is still a significant role for a human service in the process,” he says. “It’s a big emotional transaction and very few of our clients transact wholly online. They tell us they love the app because they can access documents anywhere and anytime, but equally they value being able to speak to their conveyancer and talk things through.

“We’re also planning later releases for the app which may allow us to communicate with clients about pinch points in the process directly – but they are still in development.”

MORE TRANSPARENT CHAINS?

The next new idea is from proptech veteran Sohail Rashid’s called ViewMyChain, which he believes can help stop the one in five or 200,000 property transactions that fall through every year (and that cost buyers £270 million in wasted legal fees and surveys).

The feedback we’re receiving from agents using ViewMyChain is that they are saving time and that transaction times are being cut by 25 per cent. Sohail Rashid, ViewMyChain.

“It’s a problem for the consumer first of all,” says Sohail. “But there’s not a lot that agents can do. If you’re working with the average four-property chain you have 20 different parties involved including conveyancers, brokers, buyers, sellers and lenders – so getting transparency on a chain is nearly impossible.”

After two years spent developing the technology, in 2015 Rashid signed a joint venture with customer intelligence services company Twentyci to launch a system that would tackle chain transparency for sales progressors. It’s about to go live.

“At first the aim was to help agents get a property from price agreed to completion, but it soon became clear from our market research that the big issue is chain managements,” says Sohail.

“Despite systems such as the Land Registry’s Chain Matrix and the Law Society’s (now defunct) Veyo system, it still takes over 20 weeks to get a property from price agreed to completion – which is longer than it takes to build a house.

“Every system that is available – in the conveyancing space or within agents’ CRM systems – has always relied heavily upon manual data collection.

“This is obviously hugely inefficient but it’s also unreliable; the information that agents provide the consumer is only as good as the information the lender or conveyancer has collected.”

Sohail decided to develop a system that tracks the sales progression of each property by collecting raw data automatically from each player in the process and then collating it onto one platform.

“The reason we’ve been successful is that we’re not a conveyancing platform, software system, property portal or an agent – so we’re non-threatening to the data stakeholders and therefore they’ve been happy to share their data with the platform. Everybody wants a more fluid marketplace and a more efficient sales process,” he says.

TESTED BY AGENTS

ViewMyChain has now been tested with ten agents including independents, regional franchises and corporates and will be softlaunched as a consumer product platform later this year. “The feedback we’ve had from estate agents is that it saves them time and that transaction times are being cut by 25 per cent,” says Sohail.

“They are making fewer calls to conveyancers and other estate agents, and their calls are much more informed because they have the information upfront and in advance.

“Also, it is giving them much more contact time with their customer because they can access information much earlier, which is helping them identify progress milestones which they can tell their customers about. It’s helping deliver better customer service.”

Sohail says that the whole process is dictated by preparatory processes: searches, paying mortgage fees, instructing conveyancers and booking valuations and it’s here where most of the delays occur.

He believes these delays can take up to four of the 20 weeks that make up the moving process and that’s because each party isn’t sure if the other is ready to proceed and therefore hesitancy creeps in.

THE TRADITIONALIST VIEW

The traditional approach is still best, says a rather sceptical Debra Frampton, Managing Director of UK Sales Progressors, “All the attempts to provide chain transparency in the past haven’t worked,” she says. “You’re relying on the information that’s being uploaded into the system to be both accurate and timely but in reality data about the conveyancing process can be very fluid.”

You are only as good as the information that’s being fed into the system and solicitors, quite frankly don’t have time to upload into systems. Debra Frampton, UK Sales Progressors.

“I haven’t seen or worked with ViewMyChain, but I’ve seen similar companies who’ve come and gone. Invariably you’re only as good as the information that’s being fed into the system and solicitors quite frankly don’t have time to upload into systems, which is true of agents too.

“The information that’s going into systems like these has got to be accurate; we too receive the chain information and upload it onto our software but we’ve always had to draw the line between how much information we provide a client. You can’t rely on its accuracy as much as you can your own information.

“We use a really good dashboard that represents each sale that we’re looking after and we can upload all the chain information onto it and then toggle from one property to another, and that is available to our clients too.

“But do you know what – often they’ve got better things to be doing than wondering what’s going on in the chain.

“I don’t think focusing on the chain will add much value. The information within these chains is too unpredictable and fluid to manage and monitor and chain transparency systems like this make me nervous.”

THE BREXIT EFFECT

Progressing the chain is even more important when property stocks are low. Douglas Stirling-Kibble says the conveyancing process has elongated by about two weeks recently as Brexit worries have kicked in and he’s heard from clients that they are having more difficulty borrowing money at the moment.

“I think people are looking for deals because of Brexit – buyers think sellers are more likely to take keen offers because no one knows about the future at the moment.”

Debra Frampton says that they “definitely had a poor Spring and that’s a concern because instructions from April and May tend to see us through the Summer.

“Before the referendum the bottom dropped out of the market and then once the referendum was over we then had the uncertainty about Brexit.

“Surprisingly, the market is picking up despite the fact that we’ve had the summer holidays – perhaps the people who were indecisive before and after the EU Referendum have thought ‘oh bother it, let’s move’’.