Propertymark are the leading membership body for the property sector with nearly 18,000 members, below is a brief editorial of the position paper in relation to the future of home buying and selling.

‘Moving house is considered a slow and frustrating process, especially when compared internationally where countries such as the USA, Australia, and Norway complete transactions in a fraction of the time. This has not gone unnoticed by the UK Government, who want to understand how the home buying and selling process can be improved.

Previous and current governments in Westminster have made commitments to address the following issues: • Length of time to complete a sale • Transactions failures • Consumer inexperience • Lack of transparency • The comparatively high cost of the process • Weak regulation of estate agents • Limited digitisation and innovation

Over the spring and summer of 2023, Propertymark held round tables with our sales members from the North and South of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland to discuss the key challenges and solutions for the Home Buying and Selling process. In doing so, we have uncovered multiple issues that slow down the process and lead to fall-throughs in property sales:

1. Lack of regulation of property agents
2. Available guidance
3. Inconsistent processes within these industries
4. Missing and duplication of information during the process
5. The number of industries involved
6. Modernisation’

* Propertymark website April 2024

At Armitstead Barnett, we very much support the need to speed the whole home buying and selling process and welcome continued investigation.