How can we speed up the house buying process?

About this episode

The episode discusses the slow home buying process in the UK and explores potential improvements with industry experts.

The home buying process remains slow and uncertain for all too many. On average, it now takes around 120 days to complete a property purchase in the UK, a sharp rise since 2007, and around one in three deals still falls through. The cost of failed property transactions runs into billions each year and creates stress for buyers, sellers and mortgage intermediaries alike. In this episode of the Mortgage Insider podcast, host Phil Spencer is joined by Justin Young, CEO of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), and Claire Beardmore, Director of L&G Mortgage Club, to look at why the home buying process takes so long and what could help improve outcomes across the market. The discussion looks at how poor timing and late checks add delay, why repeating property surveys and searches wastes time and money, and how doing more work upfront could allow steps to run side by side rather than one after the other. They also explore what England can learn from Scotland’s home report system, as well as other countries with shorter timelines and far fewer fall-throughs, and why confidence in digitisation, reliable data and clear standards will be essential if change is to…

People in this episode

Host: Phil Spencer

Guests: Justin Young, Claire Beardmore

Topics covered

• house buying process
• property purchase
• mortgage intermediaries
• home report system
• digitisation
• real estate reform

Keywords

• home buying
• property transactions
• mortgage
• real estate
• Scotland
• England
• digitisation
• RICS
• L&G Mortgage Club

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, L&G Mortgage Club

Places: England, Scotland

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