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Reality check

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@MattFaizey Because the RICS survey is a sentiment survey of agents on the frontline, not historical data from lenders or land registry. AND it calls the market correctly in advance, every time.

From: Reality check 14 August 2020 08:17 AM

Woolworths fell. Giants will fall eventually if their product doesn’t keep up with market changes. Agents need help with compliance in CPRs. Where is Rightmove helping agents with this? Say on leasehold, scraping data from Land Registry on lease terms? Or HMO licence data, all scrapeable? Or other risks such as dodgy cladding, working with block management asset-register software? There is so much data Rightmove could aggregate that could ease the home buying and selling process. Think taxing your car, when the DVLA already know you are insured with an MoT. Makes it easier, safer, cheaper. Rightmove are not innovating and eventually, out-of-touch Goliaths die. MySpace? Friends Reunited? Rightmove could really help sales and letting agents comply with legislation, reducing risk and adding value for customers and agents. They can certainly afford some product development. Complacency is the biggest risk to their shareholders long term, because when eventually it tips, it’ll tip fast.

From: Reality check 05 March 2020 08:59 AM

You are confabulating different issues and kind of missing my point. Self-regulation of agents has had some success problem with self-regulation is that whilst those who volunteer to be regulated generally behave themselves, the rogue operators are not regulated and prosper outside of any oversight. Mandatory regulation of agents is finally coming but not of landlords. S21 drove supply by de-risking lettings. Go back to the old days and supply will tumble. Except this time we don’t have kits if available council housing. Where will people live? A small professional and institutionally owner PRS will be premium product. Look at existing schemes and pipeline! Hardly affordable stock, is it? And again, in your world, where is the council/low-cost housing? Be super clear about this; institutional PRS will not solve the housing crisis, especially not for those struggling to make rent. It’s a myth. Sorry to hear you were statistically amazingly unlucky in your PRS rented experience. Noting that landlords don’t kick out good tenants paying market rent unless they want to move in themselves or sell up, as many more are doing now renting is getting a kicking (see the connection?). Best start campaigning for social housing at scale, I suggest. Battering PRS landlords will have exactly the opposite effect you seek; it is the lack of supply that enables the minority’s of dodgy PRS landlords to behave badly. And the weak suffer...

From: Reality check 13 May 2019 09:18 AM

A cogent piece, but nothing that hasn’t been said before. The Scottish evidence doesn’t really support the thesis, but Scotland is a different market. The reality is simple. Agents will absorb some of the cost of lost fees, passing some to landlords. That will then be added to rents in one of two ways. Where the market can stand the increase, rents will get lifted. Where the market initially can’t, some landlords will exit; that will reduce supply and then the market WILL rise there too. The thesis is correct then, that rents will rise as the market finds its new stable level. Landlords who remain will ultimately be okay. Then s21 will go. Risk to landlords will increase. Some will exit. Rents will rise again. Obvs. The two key questions are these. At what point in the rent/market rebalancing cycles does a government intervene with rent control, to mask the effect of their (all of them) total failure to address the housing supply crisis? At which point, the market structure will break down with possibly catastrophic consequences for supply. And, every time supply constricts and rents rise, some tenants at the bottom end of the affordability curve drop off. Where do they go, the marginal, ‘just about managing’, struggling to cope tenants? The ones with families who can’t sofa surf to mask the homelessness figures? What happens to that family, those children? Maybe government (all of them) will get building social housing at scale. But I doubt it and so ‘the weak suffer what they must’. Did I mention homelessness figures today..?

From: Reality check 11 May 2019 09:38 AM

Tabloid positioning doesn’t make for good policy. Leasehold as it stands is wide open to abuse by those landlords/agents that bring the system into disrepute. But really... Conveyancer blaming agents for non-compliance with CPRs, provision of material leasehold information? Quite right; leasehold info IS material information. Selling agents need to start reading leases. So do the conveyancers, who are supposed to advise their clients.Why didn’t they advise their clients of consequences of the lease terms? Of all the professionals who should protect a client on contract terms, it should be the lawyers. Then note, 70% of leasehold buyers were using conveyancers recommended by the builder. You decide; conflict of interest with consumer harm the result? Next, can any of the experts above explain to me why commonhold is better than a leasehold structure where the leaseholders own and control their own freehold, choosing their own managing agent, deciding their own enfranchisement terms? Because commonhold has fewer protections for the individual than leasehold. Lastly, Scotland has a problem of buildings falling into disrepair because residents can’t agree how a building should be managed. Explain how to resolve that. So, can we have an informed and balanced debate, with evidence instead of opinion, on how both leasehold and commonhold should be reformed to create a robust and just system that protects the consumers. Also an examination of the roles of agents and conveyancers on the sales process?

From: Reality check 18 April 2019 10:41 AM

Great to see NAEA confirming that basic lease information is likely material information under CPRs and should be provided to buyers at earliest opportunity. Their web site reads... “There is a level of responsibility at every level, whether you are an agent, mortgage lender or conveyancer, but as one of the first in a chain of people to interact with a customer, you should be providing at least a basic overview of the tenure and what this means for them as a buyer.” NAEA list the information that agents should provide. If 91% of leasehold house buyers (as opposed to flat buyers) regret their purchase, then lease information HAS to be material information. QED.

From: Reality check 07 September 2018 08:20 AM

The RICS housing market survey is indeed a sentiment survey, of RICS agents who know their market. And that’s why it is remarkable. Because if you track its data and output, it calls the market way before the LReg/Halifax data comes in to confirm what RICS said months earlier. It is the best lead indicator of the market, said Goldman Sachs. Sure, every data set has its limitations, but the RICS survey calls the turns in the market way earlier than the others. So long as you know how it works, it’s well worth watching.

From: Reality check 06 August 2018 08:50 AM

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