Start-up ‘information packs’ proptech platform receives big-name backing
Viewber founder and former Douglas & Gordon director Ed Mead is to work for PIP in a consultancy role as it prepares to roll out across the UK charging agents £25 a property.
A proptech platform for sales agents that hopes to significantly reduce agents’ fall-through rates has signed up former Douglas & Gordon director and Viewber co-founder Ed Mead (above, right) help launch the business.
Property Information Packs (PIP) is the proptech brainchild of agent Tim Main (above, left) who in the past has worked for Savills and Balfours and who expects to officially unveil the platform nationally in three months’ time.
He also says offering house hunters a ‘HIPs’ style online depository where they can see more detailed information about a home for sale at the browsing stage will help ensure that only more serious potential buyers make an offer on a property.
This, Tim claims, will both speed up the sales process and prevent fall-throughs, which he says is one of the most serious challenges facing the industry.
Portals
Also, eventually online listings on the main portals may include links to PIP’s platform in the same way they currently feature EPC and floorplan information. PIP has been co-founded by Main alongside online auctions pioneer David Sandeman of EIG (above, centre) and legal services businessman Steven Foden.
It is being tried out by several agents in Shropshire and is based on the tech developed by EIG to enable prospective online auction bidders to download ‘legal packs’ about a property.
PIP’s service is free to use until a sale goes to SSTC, at which point an agent is charged £25.
“I think agents realise that something’s got to change if the industry’s fall-through rate problem is going to be solved, and that putting the information up front is one answer,” says Main, who also sits on the Kate Faulkner’s Home Buying and Selling advisory group.
“The agents who have heard about PIP are coming on board and welcoming the idea, as have solicitors.”
Find out more about PIP.
A comprehensive property DNA pack is long overdue to front load a property, ensuring that from point of sale onward exchange can occur more quickly. But, with 18 weeks being the usual time frame for a sale, to get over the line, despite all the tech in the sector – something is not going right.
Many in the property sector are scrambling for answers from Land registry and digital street and hackathons and shared perspectives.
But as Taylor Wessing legal luminaries in the digital field, both in the adoption of tech and embracing proptech firms, stated yesterday, exchanges are governed by the slowest component in the chain.
Solicitors are risk averse, so tech is a slow go for many legal firms, which means, great have more information on property as in the PIP initiative, but if you have a conveyancing practice who is not tech ready, then you are in for a long haul.
Piecemeal solutions are helpful, but the antiquated property sector it is a bit like a poor relative of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. The model is not good, so more and more data is fed in and bit by painful bit until the digital ‘brain’ recognises it must change its approach to achieve the outcome.
The outcome required is a fast transparent, omni-channel journey for clients transacting property, at present this is a long way off, mostly as the industry is legacy driven, we have always done it like that. A bit like Land Registry they have been doing the same processes in a similar way since 1862.