#JoinOurChallenge: Cut Property Transaction time by 50%

The property transaction process is just not fit for purpose anymore.
During the last twelve months, we’ve seen the Stamp Duty holiday create an increase in demand, and a renewed pressure on supply chains. This has slowed property transactions even further, and cast a brighter spotlight on the biggest issue facing by our industry.
That’s why we are launching ’ Join Our Challenge ’ – a campaign focused on driving down property transaction times by 50% – from a current talked-about average time of 20 weeks to just 10.

Interested in your views, frustrations with the current process and ideas on we could all fix it.

Here we go, our Challenge is now live in the trade press. We would love to know your views, your thoughts, your frustrations about the property transaction.

Let’s work together to fix the biggest pain in the property markets for all parties involved!

Local authorities need to be told to do searches a lot faster. Last time I brought a property, Sept 2019, all the other searches came back within a day or 2 but the local authority casually announced that they would get round to it in a couple of weeks time.

Very good comment. Lots of people would indicate LA as one of the reasons for the delay, but our research finds that the average time to processing searches is 10-15 days. The issue is that searches are not always ordered on time by conveyancers. It takes on average about 23 days for conveyancers to order searches which makes the overall process slower. Our new platform is solving this problem :slight_smile:

The property transaction time problem is due to a few issues.

  1. In a property transaction, there are a number of milestones for both buy and sell side, such as search completed, mortgage approval and so on. The main issue here is that each step of this workflow is currently managed by an estate agent manually via their CRMs. Therefore, status of each milestones is often out-of-date and no one has a full picture where the delay is.
    A digital rail is required to connect CRM systems of all parties in the home buying process such as conveyancer, mortgage broker and estate agent CRMs. Therefore, status can be updated and transparent to all parties involved, particular for a chain of property transactions.

  2. An Open Mortgage market API similar to Open banking API is required in order for system automatically find a right mortgage for the buyer in the market and speed up the mortgage approval time.

  3. Finally, digitalizing HM land registry for title deed exchange can streamline the whole home buying journey.

Good points @Tim. Thank you.

I agree that connecting all CRM and CMS is the step in the right direction. The challenge is that based on our experience some of the conveyancers or mortgage advisers don’t update their own CMS/ CRMs in a regular manner, which makes regular updates impossible to get via CRM/CMS connection (not talking about firms who don’t use any CRM).

Would love to know your thoughts on how to go around that problem?

Totally agree about points 2 and 3.

It is to do with the incentive and the costs and benefits of various parties. Certainly, estate agents suffer the most when a transaction falls through. The solution to problem can be borrowed from how those successful fitness apps encourage people to walk more everyday. It’s also a question of picking the beachhead segment of various parties and in-depth customer interviews to understand their pain points of all parties involved.

Dear All,

I’ve joined this challenge. I’ve opted for Homebuyer Service on 9th June and it’s been two days I am waiting for a solicitor to be assigned for my task. I am wondering how long this usually takes to allocate a solicitor for a new client?

Hi Saroj,

I just personally checked. You conveyancer is allocated and has all your details.
Your search pack will be ordered on Monday to speed the process up further.
Best of luck with your property transaction!

HI Babek,

Thanks a million for the update.

Your help and support means a lot to a customer like me. And you did that so late in the evening, this is a testimony of how much Onedome values the customers/clients. Please accept my sincerest thanks. I’m grateful beyond measure for your support, compassion.

I firmly believe the Onedome product concept is definitely revolutionary, As a community member I’ll try my absolute best to help make this product even better.

Best Regards,
Saroj Raut