Housing Minister unveils data reform to accelerate Prop Tech sector

October 21, 2019 / Isla MacFarlane
Housing Minister unveils data reform to accelerate Prop Tech sector

Housing Minister, Esther McVey, has been convening with companies from the Prop Tech space to find out what it would take to bring about a digital revolution in the property sector. Their answer? Data. And lots of it.

Today, she’s hosting a roundtable discussion with some of the 700 PropTech firms in the UK who are helping housebuilders and communities all over the country. Following this exercise, she will announce her plan to release data held by local bodies, which she says will enable the UK PropTech sector to thrive.

The headline event is that Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) data will be opened up for the first time in a transparency drive, whichi will enable PropTechs to obtain things like energy performance certificates and the square footage information of properties.

A national index of all brownfield data will also be introduced, simplifying and improving the quality of Brownfield Land Registers to help developers to find brownfield land to build on.

The news has received a warm welcome from the UK’s Prop Tech sector. Franz Doerr, founder at flatfair, said: “This is welcome news for Britain’s property sector. Far too much time, energy and cost is wasted on red tape and admin, and having a better, more comprehensive approach to sharing public data makes perfect sense. Above all, we should be encouraging start-ups and innovators to create new products and services that can use information to improve transparency and reduce friction. Having the right infrastructure to underpin this is crucial and it is welcome news that the government’s mindset is shifting towards a digital future.”

The UK Prop Tech sector, a growing industry potentially worth £6 billion in the UK, is leading the world in the property building and buying market and the sector already receives 10% of global PropTech investment. Companies invited to the Housing Minister’s roundtable include Urban Intelligence, the Future Fox and Wayhome.

The Rt Hon Esther McVey MP said: “We’ve had revolutions in the way that financial services, online banking and transport are provided, turning once unimaginable possibilities into everyday realities. Now it’s the turn of the UK property market.

“Whatever homebuyers prioritise, whether it’s the quality of local schools, the probability of getting a seat on a train, or having easy access to leisure facilities, this technology could transform the way we find and purchase homes.

“And new technology will link builders to brownfield sites more easily, enhance how developers engage with local communities, help builders deliver new homes and modernise the way we buy and sell land and houses, cutting the time it takes to get housing from the drawing board to families getting the keys.

“The UK property sector is on the cusp of a digital revolution. It’s time to harness new technology to unlock land and unleash the potential of housebuilders in all parts of the country and to revolutionise the way in which we buy homes.”

According to a press statement, the new technologies could also allow:

Communities to:

  • see models and interactive maps of planned development rather than one or two pictures;
  • comment on planning applications online, on phones and on the go (in the same way that they use online banking services).

Prospective home buyers to:

  • use commute time calculators when they are looking at properties;
  • explore financing options to help buyers afford their new home or enable gradual home ownership;
  • receive step-by-step assistance to help them navigate the buying process.

Developers to:

  • identify sites so that more houses are built more quickly;
  • quickly locate suitable brownfield sites suitable for development;
  • SMEs don’t often have the resources for dedicated teams to find sites, appraise them and craft planning applications, so access to tools that analyse multiple datasets to do this for them can save them valuable hours, and in turn help support the wider industry;
  • It has been reported by SME builders that “lack of available and viable land” was the most commonly cited barrier to increasing output (43% of respondents) for the fifth year in a row (FMB, 2019), despite there being capacity to build 1 million homes on brownfield council land.

Founder and CEO of Stone Real Estate, Michael Stone, said: “Any initiative to open up land supply and provide greater transparency within the house building process should be welcomed. After all, we’re building 200,000 new homes a year nationally while the reality is that we need to deliver 300,000, so that’s some deficit that needs to be addressed.

“However, whilst the Housing Minister’s announcements today on promoting digitisation and better brownfield site identification will be welcomed, perhaps they should go a step further and start mandating that public land is also utilised more readily.

“There’s an ironic reality that while the Government has failed to bolster house building via a number of recent initiatives, a very real solution remains right under their nose. The swathes of untapped land that could be used to develop and deliver more homes are largely controlled by the very public sector that is responsible for, you guessed it, building these homes in the first place.”

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