Further details have emerged around the £3m of funding allocated to investment in the home buying and selling process announced in last week’s Autumn Statement. It is hoped the investment in innovative technologies and data projects will improve the home buying a selling process in England and Wales.
The £3m of funding will be allocated to:
- Proptech Innovation Fund pilots: the Government will fund a number of proptech firms to scale up innovative products that have the potential to significantly improve the home buying and selling process
- Open Data Pilots: The Government will fund a small number of local authorities to pilot approaches to digitalising local authority-held data relevant to residential property.
- Data standards project: the Government will fund independent research on data standards to kick-start its plans to bring forward a set of standards for the sector.
The investment, particularly in the open data pilots project and the data standards project, has been welcomed by the Open Property Data Association (OPDA), a trade association dedicated to promoting open property data collaboration and transformation across the property and mortgage industry. The association has representatives from across mortgage lending, property and proptech firms, conveyancers and estate agents.
Maria Harris, chair of OPDA, says:
“Open data standards are essential for making informed decisions about property. The home buying process should be 100% digital and data driven. But it’s currently less than 1% digital. We are very pleased that Government is committing funding and resource to improve the home buying process and taking an active role in how we achieve the digital and data standards we need. Better information for consumers before making an offer will reduce the number of failed transactions throughout the system.”
The Home Buying and Selling Group released is first version of the Open Property Data Framework 12 months ago updated it in May of this year. The framework is a set of principles and guidelines that enable property data to be shared in a standardised way for data providers, data users, and trust entities to facilitate secure and seamless property data sharing.
OPDA says “the availability of open data, underpinned by common data standards, means the data can be shared digitally across all transaction parties with provenance attached, creating a trusted and interoperable way for the industry to work from one reliable source”; adding that “digitising relevant local authority data will be one of the biggest drivers of transaction efficiency, while increasing transparency for buyers, mortgage intermediaries, lenders, and conveyancers earlier in the homebuying process.”
News of the projects comes hot on the heels of the new Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, announced in the King’s Speech. The Bill’s proposed reforms look set to introduce much-needed measures to help speed up property-buying, for industry professionals and customers alike.
