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OPDA launches homemover survey to gauge digital data awareness

Samantha Partington
Written By:
Posted:
September 17, 2024
Updated:
September 18, 2024

The Open Property Data Association (OPDA) is launching a survey to gauge homebuyers’ knowledge of digital property information and to find out how they think the buying and selling process can be improved.

The OPDA survey will be issued by 30 of the association’s member firms including Atom Bank, Inventory Base, and Kotini to thousands of existing and potential homebuyers.

Homebuyers and sellers will be asked how they feel about the current process, how it can improved, what they know about digital property information and how comfortable they would be using and sharing data.

OPDA is aiming to reach as many homebuyers as possible through members who include several of the country’s largest lenders. The research launch comes shortly after NatWest Group and HSBC joined OPDA.

Slashing completion times

It takes an average of 22 weeks for borrowers to reach completion on their home purchase, according to Rightmove. The OPDA says this is caused by a process reliant on paper, duplication, multiple signatures, and manual checks.

OPDA says by using its data standards for digital property packs it has seen the turnaround time reduced from mortgage offer and purchase accepted to exchange within 15 days.

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Following its launch last summer, OPDA has delivered open property data standards and models for trustable and shareable data.

The free and open-source tools have been created and tested in collaboration across every sector within the property industry and are now live with many of its members.

‘Torturous and archaic’

Maria Harris (pictured), chair of OPDA, said: “We’ve all heard examples of how bad the torturous and archaic homebuying experience is in this country. But we’re taking our research further by asking consumers not only what they think about the experience, but also how they feel it could be improved and about their attitudes to digital property information.”

“We’d love the industry to share the survey link with their own customers to generate the biggest consumer voice possible.”

The OPDA is calling on the government to deliver digitised property data at source including information from the Land Registry, planning permissions, building safety, and local searches.

Results and analysis from the survey will feed into a white paper that OPDA will publish and present to government and other key stakeholders later this year.

The deadline for responses is 30 September.