For years, we’ve measured the health of the housing market by one thing: house prices.
I think we’ve been looking at the wrong number. The real measure of a healthy market isn’t how quickly prices rise. It’s how confident people feel about moving home.
Every additional move creates a ripple effect. Estate agents win more instructions. Mortgage advisers arrange more finance. Surveyors carry out more inspections. Conveyancers complete more transactions. Removal firms, decorators, retailers and tradespeople of all types, benefit.
A housing market where people move more frequently is a housing market that generates economic activity. That’s why I believe the Government’s proposed homebuying reforms deserve even more attention than they’re getting.
LESS FRICTION
Much of the debate has focused on the individual measures: upfront property information, digital identity, earlier binding agreements, electronic documentation and a new statutory framework for estate agents. Individually, each makes sense. Collectively, they point towards something much bigger – a housing market with less friction.
Simon Brown, Chief Executive of Landmark Information Group, recently highlighted the contrast between the UK and Australia. While our homebuying process is often measured in months of uncertainty, Australia’s more streamlined system gives people greater confidence to move when life changes.
That’s the opportunity. Make moving simpler, quicker and more predictable and people are more likely to move.
Add the possibility of future tax reforms designed to encourage housing movement, rather than discourage it, and transaction volumes could look very different over the next decade.
That raises an interesting question: if more people start moving home, is your agency ready?
Most agency owners would instinctively answer yes. More instructions are always welcome. But growth has a habit of exposing inefficiencies. More valuations mean more follow-ups. More sales mean more administration. More customers expect faster updates, quicker answers and a smoother experience from instruction through to completion.
CHANGING BEHAVIOUR
Consumers have changed. Amazon has taught us to expect instant updates. Banking apps have shown us that paperwork should happen quietly in the background. A generation of younger consumers would often rather exchange a WhatsApp message than answer the phone.
Those expectations don’t disappear simply because someone decides to move home.
That’s why I don’t believe the future of estate agency is about employing more people, necessarily. Technology should handle the routine, leaving people free to deliver the reassurance, expertise and negotiation that no machine can replace.
That means digital tools qualifying leads while agents are asleep. Automated nurturing keeping conversations alive. WhatsApp giving customers the ability to communicate on their own terms. Compliance becoming faster and less intrusive. Routine administration happening in the background instead of dominating the working day.
None of this replaces the estate agent, but it makes good estate agents more effective.
If the Government succeeds in making home moving faster and easier, ordinary people may begin to fall in love with moving again.
When that happens, the agencies that succeed won’t be the ones scrambling to cope with higher transaction volumes. They’ll be the ones that prepared for them.
Craig Vile is Director at The ValPal Network
