Dr Tom Quirke, managing director, SearchFlow
2021 will be a year of momentum for the property industry: last year’s turn of events shocked the industry into taking considerable steps forward in terms of agile working, tech adoption and finding new ways of thinking about challenges to ensure property transactions could continue to proceed, amidst conditions we have never faced before in recent times.
In fact, in a new Property Trends Report from Landmark Information Group it provides a very clear view on just how the residential property pipeline ‘troughed and peaked’ during and after the first national lockdown, demonstrating the pressured conditions the industry has been working through.
Upon reopening, and with the SDLT incentive playing its part, listings and SSTC volumes accelerated, far exceeding those from the previous year. This may have been driven by changing priorities based on what people want from their homes today – such as more space, garden, home offices, or generally less need for to be located ‘near to the office’.
Landmark’s complete view of the transaction pipeline for 2020 shows that while listings and sales were up, completions were however much lower than 2019 figures. For a majority of law firms and estate agents, the payment for services rendered doesn’t happen until the very end of the process, creating the potential for cashflow concerns during protracted transactions.
As such, I believe that 2020 has been a catalyst for change and this impetus will continue throughout 2021: we are talking to many law firms about integrating intelligent data insights, the convergence of workflows, task automation, and essentially using technology to speed the overall flow of data.
In doing so, law firms will generate efficiencies and reduce end-to-end costs in the transaction process, freeing legal professionals to focus their time on higher value activities and enhancing their trusted advisor status with clients.
This article was submitted to be published by SearchFlow as part of their advertising agreement with Today’s Conveyancer. The views expressed in this article are those of the submitter and not those of Today’s Conveyancer.
