Estate agents urged to offer ‘sellers packs’ NOW

Estate agents and property professionals need to jump on the tech bandwagon, harness upfront material information and start offering sellers packs now rather than wait for more regulatory changes, it has been claimed.

Upfront material information is now firmly on the property industry’s radar, with Trading Standards CPR regulations expected to move towards disclosing features such as flood risk, broadband and mobile signal, says conveyancing platform mio.

INSTRUCTED

If estate agents digitally gather material information upfront from their sellers, and conveyancers are instructed at the start of the process rather than at point of sale agreed, they can share this detailed property information with conveyancers at point of instruction ensuring any potential issues are raised and resolved right upfront.

Research from the Home Buying and Selling Group has already showed that where the industry has trested this average transaction time have been cut in half to 12.5 weeks.

COLLAPSED

For some sellers, a collapsed sale prompts cold feet and properties to be withdrawn from the market altogether for fear of further stress and financial losses.

Jon Horton, Product Director at mio, says: “There will always be some early adopters and those who prefer to watch and observe from the side-lines.

“But we’re already seeing technology solutions that deliver a simple digital experience for agents, sellers, buyers, and their solicitors to complete and share more detailed information, much earlier in the process.”

“The biggest challenge is change itself. But logically upfront material information makes sense to help reduce transaction times and mitigate fall-throughs – the two biggest worries for agency owners.”

Tom Carter, Partner and former Chairman at McCartneys, adds: “If we can get a change of mindset and change of process from consumers as well – to get themselves organised upfront, it’s got to make a difference.”