A new government-backed initiative, the Open Property Coalition, has been launched to accelerate the digitisation of the homebuying process.
The coalition aims to streamline property transactions, making them faster, more transparent, and more efficient by leveraging modern digital tools and data-sharing practices across the housing market.
The current homebuying process causes stress and added costs for many, while also slowing economic growth through duplicated work, inefficient housing allocation, and rising fraud levels. To address these issues, the Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT) has launched an industry-wide coalition to coordinate and advance initiatives aimed at creating a more digitally driven property market.
Backed by the Smart Data team at the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), the Open Property Coalition will bring together public and private-sector organisations, including the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), HM Land Registry, the Open Property Data Association (OPDA), real estate companies, financial institutions, regulators, conveyancers, and PropTech firms.
Its work will build on existing research, industry pilots, and stakeholder initiatives, exploring how technologies such as Digital ID, tokenisation, and trust frameworks could improve the homebuying process. Outputs will include a roadmap for implementing a smart data scheme and potentially a prototype solution for the sector.
The homebuying process in England and Wales remains slow and inefficient, with the average transaction taking 22 weeks and around 30% of deals falling through. Industry experts point to siloed data, inconsistent standards, and analogue practices as key factors, with the Open Property Data Association (OPDA) estimating that less than 1% of homebuying data is available digitally. This lack of digital integration leads to delays, duplication, errors, and opportunities for fraud across estate agents, mortgage brokers, lenders, surveyors, and conveyancers.
The consequences are significant: moving home is ranked as one of the most stressful life events, while 530,000 failed transactions each year cost the economy £950 million. Inefficient processes also deter homeowners from up- or downsizing, push up fees — including £560 million annually on collapsed transactions — and contribute to a rise in mortgage and conveyancing fraud, from falsified applications to payment diversion and identity theft.
In developing a proof of concept that shows how secure data-sharing across the property ecosystem could work, the CFIT-led Coalition will explore the potential features and impacts of a new Open Property tech solution. These could include:
+ A reliable estimated completion timeline for buyers and sellers, with real-time progress update
+ An end to gazumping and gazundering through a quicker, fairer and more transparent process
+ Lower legal fees, thanks to a more competitive, efficient conveyancing market
+ A unique digital identifier of every property and an up-to-date record of its attributes
+ Improved mortgage underwriting, informed by the risk profile of the property as well as the buyer
+ Faster proof of source of funds – and an end to the ‘mortgage in principle’
+ Faster and more secure disbursement of funds
Leon Ifayemi, director of coalitions and research at CFIT, said: “This is CFIT’s first cross-sector Coalition, spanning financial services and property – but it’s also the exact kind of thorny, interdependent problem that we exist to solve. Many of us have personally experienced how buying a home in England or Wales can be slow, opaque, costly and aggravating.
“Work is already underway from DBT, MHCLG, HM Land Registry and the OPDA to digitise elements of the process. But if we are going to successfully use technology to solve these pain points, we need policymakers, regulators and industry all to be pulling in the exact same direction. Tackling Open Property also means we can draw on our accumulated experience in areas like Open Finance and Digital ID.”
Digital economy minister, Liz Lloyd, commented: “Better use of smart data is integral to our future prosperity to help grow the economy. Buying a home can be time-consuming, lengthy and stressful. Using smart data has the potential to make this quicker, more secure and more transparent for consumers when they are making the biggest, most important purchases of their lives.”
Terry Robertson, deputy director, strategy at HM Land Registry, added: “Digitising the home buying and selling process will bring huge benefits to everyone involved in the property sector. This transformation depends on collaboration. This is why HM Land Registry supports the CFIT-led Open Property Coalition, as well as other initiatives like the Digital Property Market Steering Group. Both are prime examples of bringing stakeholders together to address shared challenges across the transaction journey.”
CFIT has previously convened industry Coalitions on Open Finance, exploring the use of smart data across the wider financial services ecosystem; Digital Company ID and its potential to help fight economic crime; and unlocking SME lending.
Read the orginal article: https://propertyindustryeye.com/government-backed-coalition-aims-to-accelerate-homebuying-digitisation/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=government-backed-coalition-aims-to-accelerate-homebuying-digitisation
