Buying made easy
What would you say if there was already an easier way of buying property, somewhere you could go where specific property information was at your fingertips and ultimately enabled you to buy your property at the press of a button. What if you knew you could get in to see a property whenever you wanted, and that information supplied in the agents particulars told you everything you need to know. What if that information could be made available to you on demand and that you could communicate with those you need to whenever you wanted as well.
The fact of the matter is that your agent could do almost all of this is already, so could your solicitor for that matter, but are they incentivised to do so.
I’m not in any way saying that agents or solicitors deliberately withhold information or make things more difficult, but can you imagine solicitors voting for, or helping to develop, a platform that would effectively put them out of business?
Viewings were tightly controlled in my early days in the late 70s and 80s. Agents made sure they got as much info from a buyer, who might also be a seller, as possible and did it in their standard working hours. Buyers would acquiesce, but as the next generation of buyers come through they’re used to a higher service level, and anyone not accommodating their requests will be less likely to get the business. Most now try to cover weekends, and outfits like Viewber can help them to cover viewings they can’t.
Property information has always been available, if you looked for it. You fill in solicitors forms when selling, and your local authority provides a Search that gives relevant information about what’s happening locally, planning, roads etc etc.. The challenge has been to develop a system that pulls all these strands together whilst giving property owners a chance to update info on their own home, in real time. How useful would it be to have a passport/vault given to you when looking at a property that not only gave you all of the above but also who had done work to the house, when it was done, appliance/heating updates, carpet cleaning/replacement etc etc.. Well, a company called Sprift already provides all of this along with data that tells you what’s going on locally in your market.
Most agents operate on email or telephone, getting answers out of hours is still a struggle. Why not have a simple system, where updates from solicitors, agents and surveyors go to a platform available to all parties 24/7. Again, Onedome does all that already.
Most of these solutions are offered business to business (B2B), i.e. to agents. Marketing to consumers (B2C) is prohibitively expensive, so unless there’s take up from agents you are unlikely to benefit. Next time you’re unhappy with a part of your service, and I know we Brits are notoriously bad at complaining, just ask whether there’s an alternative way of doing things.
