Late last month, the government published its plans to reform the housebuying process, following consultations last year.
Lem Bingley, PW editor
It will take forward a roster of ideas including efforts to improve the quality of property listings, a second stab at upfront information packs, some kind of binding agreement prior to exchange, plus digitisation and deduplication of statutory steps in the buying process, such as identity and anti-money-laundering checks.
All of the above are topics with plenty of scope for improvement. The government also aims to grasp another nettle: professional standards among estate agents.
“There was strong support for government action to improve standards and trust in property agents across all respondent groups,” the government said in its consultation response.
At a debate staged by RICS earlier this week, Tom Treadwell, strategy adviser at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, said: “We’ll bring forward a code of practice for all property agents and we’re also going to consult on mandatory qualifications for estate and lettings agents.”
He added: “Because legislation will take some time, a charter is our way of trying to nudge behaviour in the right direction […] ahead of there being a legal requirement.”
Tim Hyatt, head of residential at agency Knight Frank, also spoke at the debate. “The scale of the problem is big,” he observed. “There are 26,000 to 28,000 estate agent offices across the UK with, say, two to three people per office, and so around 100,000 people trading as estate agents.”
He noted that only “19,000 of those have decided that they want to be involved in a [voluntary] regulatory scheme”, such as trade body Propertymark.
Hyatt added that Knight Frank would love to see agents earn a better reputation, but that meaningful improvement has been tricky when more than three quarters have chosen not to engage with self-regulation. “If we can create a level playing field, that’s my ask,” he concluded.
His point on fair competition was made all the more pertinent by the recent news that Knight Frank had begun redundancy consultations.
Meanwhile, Barratt Redrow chief David Thomas aired some scepticism about the likely impact of the government’s basket of interventions. “I would love to think that this will materially increase transaction numbers, but I don’t think that’s the reality,” he argued. “I don’t think more people are going to buy a house because the process is better. What it will do is give everyone a better experience, but we won’t find that in two years’ time or three years’ time we are selling far more houses because the process is smooth.”
Asked by a delegate if he’d like to see a return of the Help to Buy incentive scheme, housebuilder Thomas agreed – with one caveat: “I’m not in favour of any scheme that covers the secondhand market.”
That remark triggered loud laughter at its self-interest, but afterwards Thomas told me he’d meant it seriously. He does have a point. Tinkering with the buying process won’t move the dial when new homes aren’t viable. Money, on the other hand, might.