Guest blog: Transforming the home buying process

Maria Harris, Chair of the Open Property Data Association, outlines the current frustrations in the home buying process for both customers and industry, and shares her thoughts on current legislation and technologies attempting to improve the process.

Maria Harris, Chair, Open Property Data AssociationBuying a home has never been the fastest or slickest process, but we’ve always found ways to make it work and invested in our online systems and portals to improve the customer and broker experience. The process still takes a lot of manual intervention and requires everyone involved to validate, share and chase the same information and documents again and again.

Despite the promises of silver bullet solutions and huge investments in technology, the experience for customers and
industry has never been worse:

  • Transaction fall-through rate is stubbornly consistent at c.30%
  • Delayed transactions have increased with average time to completion at 22 weeks – up from 16 weeks in 2017
  • Home buying has become the 2nd worst life event, generating huge levels of stress for everyone involved

Transforming the homebuying journey needs more than just technology. The data we need isn’t available when we need it, we find out the most critical information too late in the process, and  information isn’t available in ways that make it easy to validate and share. More than 99% of property information including titles, deeds, searches, planning, etc. exist in non-digital or non-standardised formats, making it difficult to access and share in real time. Even digital identity, one of the easiest asks for the customer to complete, is disjointed with no industry-wide consensus on how it should be done and how to make it safe and secure for the customer to verify once and share their credentials with the parties who need it.

The Key to Reform: Data and Trust

Open banking and other digital customer journeys have proven that open data standards and trust  frameworks are the foundations of a more efficient, transparent, and customer centric experience.

Open data standards are essential for safe and easy access to data, verifying its provenance, and enabling shareability – all critical to the digitisation of the property market. We need a way of surfacing this data to the customer and connecting every part of the home buying journey with the real-time information  they need at the right point in time. Trust frameworks underpin the infrastructure we need to allow safe and secure access and sharing of property and identity data between lenders, conveyancers, buyers, and sellers, by identifying the approved sources of the data and setting standards to accredit the industry  providers who can collect and share that data on behalf of the customer.

Legislating the future of homebuying 

The Data (Access and Use) Bill now entering its 3rd stage in the House of Lords, is a critical next step  in this journey. This new legislation supports consumers’ rights to access and have control over sharing their property, financial, and digital identity data. Homebuying will be one of the first use cases delivered, demonstrating Government commitment to this transformation and the importance of open  data standards and a property data trust framework in shaping the future.

The next iteration of the Digital Identity & Attributes Trust Framework will include a supplementary  code specifically for property, setting out the additional guidance and requirements for one single  identity check that meets everyone’s governance standards. Legislation and collaboration are driving  this transformation.

Open data and API standards already enable digital upfront property packs and seamless data sharing  across the transaction. Work is underway with government to create the property data trust framework,  ensuring that source data is digitised, verified, and can be relied on. Members and brokers will be looking to lenders to shape and support the transition to a much improved homebuying experience.

Find out more

To receive updates you can sign up for OPDA newsletter at the bottom of our homepage https://openpropdata.org.uk/ or follow on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/company/open-property-dataassociation

This article was first published in Society Matters magazine

You may also be interested in...

BSA Card
  • BSA.Event Event
  • Prudential Regulation

Risk appetite training for credit unions

With increasing regulatory focus on the safety and soundness of Credit Unions, it is crucial that you understand the regulator’s risk appetite expecta...

BSA Card
  • BSA.Newsbite_1 Society Matters
  • Thought leadership

The future is mutual if we want it to be

Featuring many of the brilliant speakers from the Building Societies Conference, with plenty to inspire, challenge, and empower.

BSA Card
  • BSA.Event Event
  • Prudential Regulation

Treasury management training for credit unions

The objective of the course is to introduce participants to the role of Treasury, providing an introduction to financial markets, yield curves and how...

BSA Card
  • BSA.Event Event
  • Audit & Taxation

Risk, regulatory, audit and accounting seminar

After a successful in-person event in 2024, and responding to delegate feedback, this year's annual update will once again take place in Birmingham. ...

BSA Card
  • BSA.PressRelease Press Release
  • Prudential Regulation

BSA responds to Bank of England announcements

Responding to today's announcement from the Bank of England, Ruth Doubleday, Head of Prudential Regulation at the BSA said: "The BSA welcomes the c...

BSA Card
  • BSA.Event Event
  • Thought leadership

Navigating Uncertainty: Omnichannel Customer Communications That Build Trust in Financial Services

A free webinar hosted by BSA Associate, Quadient We’re excited to invite you to our upcoming thought leadership webinar: "Navigating Uncertaint...

BSA Card
  • BSA.PressRelease Press Release
  • Savings

Open letter to the Chancellor to save Cash ISAs

Open letter to the Chancellor highlighting the importance of retaining the Cash ISA limit